A Twenty-First-Century Guide to Sailing the Sea of Story

Lavinia, like Helen of Troy, is a woman of epic poetry, over whom wars are fought. Given little to say in The Aeneid, she blossoms in her own story. I thought it was interesting how Le Guin creates a character who is aware that she is the creation of a poet, but lives her life to the fullest. A great read.

Great retelling of the last half of the Aeneid. As a high school Latin teacher who has studied and taught the Aeneid multiple times, I highly recommend this book for anyone who loves Roman literature.

Excellent resource for all writers. I have been writing for decades and still found LeGuin's words to be of value. I also sent a copy to a friend who is a beginning writer working on a book about now being an adult child of a Viet Nam veteran and how growing up was a war after the war. It may become her writing bible.

The book was well-written. The account feels factual although it is certainly fiction. The author's research and detail of daily life lead one to imagine the characters or people similar actually existed at one time.

LeGuin does it again. I always enjoyed her Earthsea books and this is a little different but just as good. Lavinia is an interesting woman with a good story to tell. Way to go, Ursula (I can call her that because we're about the same age).

When Ursula Le Guin died, I wanted to mark her passing by reading something unfamiliar. Lavinia caught my eye as one of her more recent novels, and the setting in Ancient Italy sounded perfect. Le Guin's choice to flesh out an undeveloped female character from the Aeneid drew me in, and unlike the otherwordly Earthsea, I could feel myself inside this character and her surroundings. The depth and texture is intoxicating. Ursula Le Guin's prose is both simple and enveloping, and the world seeps into you as you read. I felt the power in Lavinia's religious rituals, the comfort for her of connecting to what came before; I felt the labor of creating cloth, and smelled the meat of animals sacrificed to the gods. Piety was real and substantial for her, as real as the salt she gathers at the salt flats.

You meet Lavinia as a girl of 18, happy in her household, nurturer of the household gods of her father, King Latinus. She is loved by her father, and estranged from her mentally unwell mother, Amata. She is dutiful, but also independent and strong of will. Through Lavinia's eyes, you see the men and women in her life, the hearth gods and the household responsibilities. Her life is on the cusp of change, being married off to one of the many suitors eager for an alliance. Her merits are many, but her role in life is as her father's daughter. Her future will be chosen without her, she is simply fortunate that her father wishes her to be happy and understands she does not want any of the suitors at hand. All this changes when, at a sacred spot, she has a vision of the poet Vergil. He tells her she is his creation, an abstract idea that is befuddling to her but one she takes seriously. More concretely, he tells her that she is destined to marry a foreigner, Aeneas, unsettled since the fall of Troy. For Lavinia and Latinus, prophecy and omen have great power. Lavinia's future is upended, and conflict brews between the suitors from her own land, and the settlers who come from across the sea. Aeneas is destined to win but must succeed in a way that can unify the two peoples.

Reading Lavinia reminded me of Tehanu, the last book of the Earthsea series. That book picks up the life of Tenar some years after her "glamorous" life in earlier novels. She opted to wed a farmer and have two children, and live what seems like an utterly mundane life. At first I was dismayed by the ordinary nature of her life, and disappointed that a heroine chooses to be a farmer's wife. Ursula Le Guin's gift, however, reveals the power in the mundane, the strength that lies in people who seem from the outside, unremarkable. There is something magical in the creation of everyday life, the nurturing of all of us, the unfolding of the world we live and breathe in each moment. The sublime is expressed in the very simple.

BothTenar and Lavinia are more than they seem. Depth of spirit, strength of character -- these are expressed in a way that resonates with anyone who has toiled to provide for and care for others. The heroism of everyday life here is shaded from a female perspective, but a wise leader, male or female, is ultimately a caretaker. Women's work is not disparaged or sidelined, it is at the heart of the tapestry that is woven each day. It is an expression of life, of worship, of fighting against the entropy at the edge of the world. It is not fighting battles that makes you a hero, fighting for one's own glory -- heroism comes from the courage that goes with a fight, courage tempered by wisdom and insight and respect for life. Battle here is not glorified, it is a necessary evil. Battle means death, and the nursing of wounds and the burial of bodies. It is grief and loss. Aeneas is powerful and respected because his years have taught him what his role as caretaker of his people really means, and that all death is a loss. Heroism is not the ultimate goal for each of us, living a life of courage and compassion and looking beyond one's self -- that is what gives meaning. He has great respect for what seems ordinary on the outside. He has come to Latium world-weary and ready to put down roots. Lavinia is not a footnote, a simple pawn in an alliance, she is his partner, and a match for him. She represents Italy's best, and Le Guin works hard to show how she was shortchanged by a poet who realizes too late, that his creation is much more than he knew.

There were moments the book felt written for me -- a classics major with a deep love for Rome in the time of Augustus, and Roman religion in general. Would someone with less of an interest in history and classics be moved by it, does it resonate with me as a woman who has spent years caring for those around her? I don't know. Le Guin feels universal to me, immersive and warm. I was sorry when I finished the book and compelled to share my impressions so that others might have their curiosity piqued. The journey through the book was quiet but nuanced and deeply satisfying. For anyone who knows the story of Aeneas, there is a thrill in feeling Le Guin's imaginings of his last years, with a beloved wife who was in every way, his equal.

Interesting management of time and narrator. The book narrated in first person tells the story of Lavinia, a princess of the first latins in Italy. Using partly the epic of the Eneid of Virgilio it tells of the fights and superstitious of the first settlements in Italian soil.

A real thought - mapper in terms of creative writing, be it fictional, semi-autobiographical, or memoir based. Steering the craft really helps you point tour vessel in the right direction enabling your writing process to completed with more ease, confidence and direction.

This book captured me and wouldn't let go until immortal Lavinia had also lived through me. I have read this book countless times and each time I read it, I feel like I have grown 100 years more. This novel simply covers the life of a Latin woman barely mentioned in Vergil's poem, but tells it through an other-worldly narrative.

Interesting new angle on an ancient poem. Plot perhaps not overly exciting, but that is not really the point, either. Beat reae as something between a poem & a historical novel (which it is in a way - an imaginary one though!)

Graceful writing takes you back to the pre-cursors of ancient Rome. The story is based on the epic poem by Virgil "The Aeneid" in which the Trojan, Aeneas, escapes the Trojan war and makes his way to Italy with a modest fleet of ships, where he marries Lavinia, daughter of a local king. Their offspring and alliances become the ancestors of the Romans. In Virgil's poem, Lavinia is a minor character, but Ursula LeGuin tells the tale from her vantage point, and reveals the thinking, as well as the domestic, religious and battle life of Bronze Age Italy. The personalities seem very real, and Lavinia is a keen observer.

virgin, wife, mother and grandmother…a woman goes trough this stages in her life; as Lavinia did. Daughter of a king, mother of kings… Ursula k Leguin writes the story of an unwritten woman. She writes an aspect to Vergil's Aeneid. Georgous

In Vergil’s Aeneid, the Trojan War hero Aeneas wanders the Mediterranean after destruction of Troy, ultimately landing upon the west coast of Italy, where he marries the daughter of a local king and founds what would later become Rome. The king’s daughter was named Lavinia and in this novel, the author creates a life for Lavinia and the people of her kingdom.

This is a short work, written in very florid prose. The author paints almost a dream-like, ethereal aura around Lavinia, as she converses with the ghost of Vergil and even posits her role as a fictional being. The first half of the book is VERY slow, however the pace quickens upon the arrival of the Trojan hero.

Do not purchase this novel based upon any affinity you may have with the author or her writings. I very much enjoy her science fiction offerings (her fantasy, not so much), but there is nothing in this book that would cause you to suspect that it was written by Ursula LeGuin. Can’t recommend.

A wonderful book which is faithful to the Aeneid and also gives us an imaginative interpretation of what happened after the end of the poem.
And it's great to have a woman at the center of the story! If you like the Aeneid, you will love this book!

I'm a big fan of Ursula K Le Guin -- some of my favorites are _The Dispossessed_ and _Worlds of Exile and Illusion_. This one didn't do it for me, the story felt too tightly constructed and unlike other books by this author I couldn't sympathise or even feel I had gotten to know any of the characters by the time I stopped reading.

Le Guin's exercises are very helpful. I would recommend buying the book just for the exercises, the lessons are fine as well but nowhere near as informative as the exercises at the end of every chapter.

Great idea. Very well written, but does not deliver as much as promised. Aeneas is a shadowy figure in the background, the ambience created is very good, but it all amounts to not much if you've read the actual Aenead.

Having recently re-read the EarthSea Trilogy and The Left Hand of Darkness (and experienced a new play based on the latter) I was completely unprepared for Lavinia. Le Guin’s masterful handling of the question of “authorship” - whether Vergil invents Lavinia, Lavinia inspires Vergil, or something else entirely - that is worth the read all by itself. Like the Mists of Avalon, seeing a familiar story from the shunted aside
female character is a lovely technique and Le Guin does it very well. Just a pleasure.

Ursula Le Guin’s Steering the Craft is so much more than just another book on writing. This craft is a yacht steered on ocean waves, not a rubber toy bobbing in the tub. And this book is filled with wise advice, clear and well-described examples, and great exercises for people who don’t just want to write—they want to write well. It’s a book for people who love “the sound of language” and long to remove whatever is “ugly, unclear, unnecessary, preachy, careless... what doesn’t work” from their own pages to make them sound like music.

With excerpts from authors as diverse as Rudyard Kipling and Patrick O’Neil, or Zora Neale Hurston and Jane Austen, with exercises that feed into and build on each other, and with a nicely nuanced approach to grammar and other tools of the trade, the author assists our writing, so our writing can assist other people’s reading, and so the whole will be something worth both reading and listening to.

Memorable one-liners stay in the mind long after reading. Authors are reminded to take responsibility for what they write—nothing happens “somehow” without the author’s intervention. Memorable asides make lessons long-learned finally make sense—did you know grammar and punctuation exist to assist sound? And each reader will surely have their favorite lesson and favorite point. For me, the reminder that story comes first, not conflict, is a lesson that will ease my conflicted writing of tales.

Highly recommended; enjoyably readable; and filled with the sort of exercises every writing group should take time to tackle; Steering the Craft is a must-add to any writer’s bookshelf.

Disclosure: My thanks to the friend who loaned it to me from her shelf.

I stumbled across this book in my local library and I was so glad I did. “Craft enables art.” This book brings the deepest understanding of how craft enables writers to elevate their writing beyond the mechanics and execution. Yes, Le Guin addresses danglers and misplaced modifiers and point of view issues. But she also speaks to the sound and beauty of language (especially style and rhythm) and how good writing skills free the writer to find the joy in writing. Every grammar bully should read this book.

Immediately ordered this book after hearing Le Guin on NPR. The book is good at what it does, which is lay out firm guidelines for grammar, context, tenses etc. I probably expected something a bit more on the inspiration side, which is why my rating is lower. It's a good, thorough 'bones of the writing' book, but I find it hard to be interested in.

Ursula K. Le GuinUrsula K. Le Guin > Quotes

Ursula K. Le Guin quotes (showing 1-30 of 1,307)
“Love doesn't just sit there, like a stone, it has to be made, like bread; remade all the time, made new.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, The Lathe of Heaven
tags: love 5204 likes Like
“The creative adult is the child who has survived.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin
3228 likes Like
“People who deny the existence of dragons are often eaten by dragons. From within.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, The Wave in the Mind: Talks & Essays on the Writer, the Reader & the Imagination
2975 likes Like
“It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, The Left Hand of Darkness
tags: goals, journey, travel 2367 likes Like
“We read books to find out who we are. What other people, real or imaginary, do and think and feel... is an essential guide to our understanding of what we ourselves are and may become.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin
tags: books, reading 1681 likes Like
“We're each of us alone, to be sure. What can you do but hold your hand out in the dark?”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, The Wind's Twelve Quarters, Volume 1
1623 likes Like
“When you light a candle, you also cast a shadow.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin
tags: darkness, equilibrium, light 710 likes Like
“What sane person could live in this world and not be crazy?”
― Ursula K. Le Guin
tags: life-crazy-sanity 611 likes Like
“A writer is a person who cares what words mean, what they say, how they say it. Writers know words are their way towards truth and freedom, and so they use them with care, with thought, with fear, with delight. By using words well they strengthen their souls. Story-tellers and poets spend their lives learning that skill and art of using words well. And their words make the souls of their readers stronger, brighter, deeper.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin
tags: brighter, le-guin, souls, writing 589 likes Like
“The trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pedants and sophisticates, of considering happiness as something rather stupid. Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting. This is the treason of the artist; a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas
tags: art, artists, evil, happiness, pain 563 likes Like
“Nobody who says, ‘I told you so’ has ever been, or will ever be, a hero.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin
tags: adventure, bravery, courage, curiousity, freedom, heroism, wonder 441 likes Like
“To learn which questions are unanswerable, and not to answer them: this skill is most needful in times of stress and darkness.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, The Left Hand of Darkness
tags: ambiguity, certainty, humility, knowledge, policy 391 likes Like
“The only thing that makes life possible is permanent, intolerable uncertainty: not knowing what comes next.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, The Left Hand of Darkness
tags: epistemology, future, philosophy 381 likes Like
“You cannot buy the revolution. You cannot make the revolution. You can only be the revolution. It is in your spirit, or it is nowhere.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, The Dispossessed
tags: anarchism, revolution 376 likes Like
“My imagination makes me human and makes me a fool; it gives me all the world and exiles me from it.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin
tags: equality, humanity, imagination, loneliness, poetry, solipsism, world 352 likes Like
“But it is one thing to read about dragons and another to meet them.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, A Wizard of Earthsea
tags: dragons 283 likes Like
“It is very hard for evil to take hold of the unconsenting soul.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, A Wizard of Earthsea
tags: evil, ged, soul 268 likes Like
“The book itself is a curious artifact, not showy in its technology but complex and extremely efficient: a really neat little device, compact, often very pleasant to look at and handle, that can last decades, even centuries. It doesn't have to be plugged in, activated, or performed by a machine; all it needs is light, a human eye, and a human mind. It is not one of a kind, and it is not ephemeral. It lasts. It is reliable. If a book told you something when you were fifteen, it will tell it to you again when you're fifty, though you may understand it so differently that it seems you're reading a whole new book."

(Staying Awake: Notes on the alleged decline of reading, Harper's Magazine, February 2008)”
― Ursula K. Le Guin
tags: books 263 likes Like
“Freedom is a heavy load, a great and strange burden for the spirit to undertake. It is not easy. It is not a gift given, but a choice made, and the choice may be a hard one. The road goes upward towards the light; but the laden traveler may never reach the end of it.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, The Tombs of Atuan
tags: inspirational 261 likes Like
“I am living in a nightmare, from which from time to time I wake in sleep.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin
tags: depression, dreams, reality, sadness 246 likes Like
“Light is the left hand of darkness
and darkness the right hand of light.
Two are one, life and death, lying
together like lovers in kemmer,
like hands joined together,
like the end and the way.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, The Left Hand of Darkness
243 likes Like
“It is our suffering that brings us together. It is not love. Love does not obey the mind, and turns to hate when forced. The bond that binds us is beyond choice. We are brothers. We are brothers in what we share. In pain, which each of us must suffer alone, in hunger, in poverty, in hope, we know our brotherhood. We know it, because we have had to learn it. We know that there is no help for us but from one another, that no hand will save us if we do not reach out our hand. And the hand that you reach out is empty, as mine is. You have nothing. You possess nothing. You own nothing. You are free. All you have is what you are, and what you give.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, The Dispossessed
tags: anarchy 241 likes Like
“Only in silence the word,
Only in dark the light,
Only in dying life:
Bright the hawk's flight
On the empty sky.

—The Creation of Éa”
You can only be the revolution. It is in your spirit, or it is nowhere. Something that leads into how we think and what we think about. “My imagination makes me human and makes me a fool; it gives me all the world and exiles me from it.”
While it comes to writing
“A writer is a person who cares what words mean, what they say, how they say it. Writers know words are their way towards truth and freedom, and so they use them with care, with thought, with fear, with delight. By using words well they strengthen their souls. Story-tellers and poets spend their lives learning that skill and art of using words well. And their words make the souls of their readers stronger, brighter, deeper.”
“The trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pedants and sophisticates, of considering happiness as something rather stupid. Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting. This is the treason of the artist; a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain.”
Creating a book writing up to 6 pages a day...
“To learn which questions are unanswerable, and not to answer them: this skill is most needful in times of stress and darkness.” Keep writing as many drafts as humanly possible “Belief is the wound that knowledge heals.” write your own way out of the drama that life can present itself as.
Writing is the importance of failing and keep going. You fall over and get back up and she knows because she has built a world in a novel. Spending time and agency into optimizing a story into the heaven's and rooms in a library. A great reference on the process of writing.

I read this book as part of a series of books that I read leading into starting my MFA in fiction. In many ways I have found both useful and not so useful elements to each of the books that I picked up through my journey, but LeGuin's book was a solid, effective, example-based master class from a master of fiction herself.

In many ways, this text didn't waste any time or words in executing this masterclass. The book was a combination of anecdotes in teaching writing, examples from existing published and student works, writing exercises LeGuin used to illustrate her ideas, and finally, every chapter ended in a variety of exercises that focus directly on the strategies the chapter covered. What was most impressive was the fact that in many of the books that I had read recently, there was a great deal of padding and bulk that had nothing to do with the lesson itself (one of the texts ended with eight or ten short stories with very little context than ran longer than the book's content). Steering The Craft, was short, succinct, and relevant, despite being twenty years old.

Her handle on the craft is unmistakable in her writing, of course, but her ability to approach the instruction of it is entirely helpful. A great little handbook that I would recommend with King's On Writing and Goldberg's Writing Down The Bones for their pacing, directness, and relevance. I will certainly be using this in my own teaching and writing workshops.

In the Aeneid, Virgil allows Lavinia not a single word of her own. I imagine that it was with some sense of vengeance, despite her admiration for his poetry, that LeGuin writes Lavinia entirely in her voice and from her point of view. It is mostly the voice of a late teen, when Lavinia is doted upon by her father, king of the Latins, and treated almost as a stepchild by her mother since the death of her sons, Lavinia's adored brothers. So much of the story is Lavinia's that both the father and the mother are reduced, flattened to noble, sensible king and the scheming, slightly unhinged queen.

Aeneas himself, when he appears doe not fare so well either. He too is noble and full of piety, unlike his son by a previous marriage and most certainly unlike the suitor her mother has picked for Lavinia. "He has no piety," is her dismissal. It is not what we think of these days when piety is almost an embarrassment. It meant the reverence for life, for the gods, for the bonds between gods and men, and for those among men.

The sense of place in Lavinia is wonderful. The main character herself is drawn with shrewdness and sympathy as are one or two of the servants. But the places, the cave in which she encounters the vision or ghost of the poet (who would not be born for another eleven or twelve hundred years), the sulphurous springs nearby, and the salt beds at the mouth of the "father river" (the Tiber) are vivid to the reader.

The last portion of the book tells of life after Lavinia marries Aeneas, the modified rapture of nursing her son at her beasts "bursting with milk," and then alas, as revealed by the poet, the unexpected death of Aeneas, life cut short my a careless moment. Lavinia's life thereafter is a pale shadow of her youth and adult struggles.

There are notes of a pedantic nature I must record. Perhaps the anachronisms are from Virgil, but perhaps the modern author must be more careful. It is doubtful that archery was common in the post Trojan War period, and it is certain that the arrows would not have been tipped with steel. Homer himself makes no distinction between the Trojans and the Danaoi, as if the former were members of a distantly related tribe. But it is now a lively controversy over how Latin or even Italian were the Etruscans.

I read this book as part of a series of books that I read leading into starting my MFA in fiction. In many ways I have found both useful and not so useful elements to each of the books that I picked up through my journey, but LeGuin's book was a solid, effective, example-based master class from a master of fiction herself.

In many ways, this text didn't waste any time or words in executing this masterclass. The book was a combination of anecdotes in teaching writing, examples from existing published and student works, writing exercises LeGuin used to illustrate her ideas, and finally, every chapter ended in a variety of exercises that focus directly on the strategies the chapter covered. What was most impressive was the fact that in many of the books that I had read recently, there was a great deal of padding and bulk that had nothing to do with the lesson itself (one of the texts ended with eight or ten short stories with very little context than ran longer than the book's content). Steering The Craft, was short, succinct, and relevant, despite being twenty years old.

Her handle on the craft is unmistakable in her writing, of course, but her ability to approach the instruction of it is entirely helpful. A great little handbook that I would recommend with King's On Writing and Goldberg's Writing Down The Bones for their pacing, directness, and relevance. I will certainly be using this in my own teaching and writing workshops.

In the Aeneid, Virgil allows Lavinia not a single word of her own. I imagine that it was with some sense of vengeance, despite her admiration for his poetry, that LeGuin writes Lavinia entirely in her voice and from her point of view. It is mostly the voice of a late teen, when Lavinia is doted upon by her father, king of the Latins, and treated almost as a stepchild by her mother since the death of her sons, Lavinia's adored brothers. So much of the story is Lavinia's that both the father and the mother are reduced, flattened to noble, sensible king and the scheming, slightly unhinged queen.

Aeneas himself, when he appears doe not fare so well either. He too is noble and full of piety, unlike his son by a previous marriage and most certainly unlike the suitor her mother has picked for Lavinia. "He has no piety," is her dismissal. It is not what we think of these days when piety is almost an embarrassment. It meant the reverence for life, for the gods, for the bonds between gods and men, and for those among men.

The sense of place in Lavinia is wonderful. The main character herself is drawn with shrewdness and sympathy as are one or two of the servants. But the places, the cave in which she encounters the vision or ghost of the poet (who would not be born for another eleven or twelve hundred years), the sulphurous springs nearby, and the salt beds at the mouth of the "father river" (the Tiber) are vivid to the reader.

The last portion of the book tells of life after Lavinia marries Aeneas, the modified rapture of nursing her son at her beasts "bursting with milk," and then alas, as revealed by the poet, the unexpected death of Aeneas, life cut short my a careless moment. Lavinia's life thereafter is a pale shadow of her youth and adult struggles.

There are notes of a pedantic nature I must record. Perhaps the anachronisms are from Virgil, but perhaps the modern author must be more careful. It is doubtful that archery was common in the post Trojan War period, and it is certain that the arrows would not have been tipped with steel. Homer himself makes no distinction between the Trojans and the Danaoi, as if the former were members of a distantly related tribe. But it is now a lively controversy over how Latin or even Italian were the Etruscans.

In Vergil's Aeneid we know little about Lavinia other than that the final war in the poem is fought over the right to marry her. Ursula K. Le Guin has fleshed out Lavinia's character by telling the events of the last 6 books of the Aeneid and and its aftermath from her point of view.

I very much like the idea of this book. Lavinia's lack of characterization by Vergil gives the author a lot of room to write a compelling human story without doing violence to the plot of the Aeneid. The lack of scholarly consensus on what pre-Roman Italian culture looked like also gives her a degree of flexibility in shaping the setting to her taste.

That said, I'm not sure how I actually feel about the book. I really enjoyed much of it, but there were a couple things that bugged me.

Stylistically it felt a little schizophrenic. Le Guin chooses to mostly remove meddlesome gods and describes the culture in great detail which gives the book that "this is what this would have looked like as actual events in real history" feel. However, she also gives Lavinia mystical contact with Vergil giving her prophetic insight into some upcoming events, but also implying that to a large degree this did not happen in the real world: it is a product of Vergil's creativity. I think that either one of these approaches would have worked very well on its own, but I'm not sure that they both work in the same book.

As far as characterization, I really liked most of what she did with Lavinia and her family and thought that Aeneas was superb. However, the way she portrayed Ascanius really irritated me. *MILD SPOILER* I understand that she wanted to create more conflict for the sake of the story, but to have Ascanius being an insecure, arrogant jerk who largely fails as a king seems at odds with fairly important prophecies in the Aeneid about his importance and virtue (e.g. Book 9, Lines 641-642).*END MILD SPOILER*

Overall, an interesting take on a great classic...it's no "Till We Have Faces," but it's worth a read!

This is the by far the best book I have read so far in 2008. It has lovely prose, and filled with intelligent writing and levels upon levels of meaning.

LeGuin is clearly inspired by the classic The Aeneid: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition) (Penguin Classics Deluxe Editio).

She tells the story of Aeneas and the Trojans coming to Italy through the point of view of the native Latin people, particularly through the eyes of their kind and intelligent princess, Lavinia, destined to become the second wife of the Trojan prince and leader Aeneas, and the mother of Rome.

The events of this story can be interpreted as a tragedy to the Latins - armed strangers come to their country, a war immediately breaks out, the leader of the strangers marries their princess (the only surviving child of their king), and their culture and destiny are changed forever. The Latins living through these happenings certainly do not realize that these events will someday lead to the Roman Empire.

Particularly well done (in a marvelously well written book) are the explorations of the relationship between creator and character - as in the scenes when Lavinia goes to the sacred springs of her family and receives visions of the poet Virgil. She is his character; he her creator. They are being granted visions of each other, separated as they are through hundreds of years and layers of myths and legend. Does he change reality to better fit his artistic visions? Who effects whom more - Lavinia or Virgil? Which comes first - character or creator?

I am big fan of Ursula Le Guin, I've read almost all of her books so I was really excited when this book first came out. Unfortunately, this book fell extremely short of my expectations. Looking at other people's ratings, I'm very surprised that everyone else seems to enjoy it.

First, I couldn't connect with the main character, Lavinia, throughout the book. After I finished reading the book, I still feel that I don't know her quite well.

Second, this book is far from Ursula Le Guin's brilliant and simple writing style. It was a pain to read the first 200 pages because they were really boring and repetitive. I especially hated the parts in which she dwelled on immortality, which is a cliche for writers.

Lastly, if you're a person who particularly enjoyed reading sci-fi and fantasy from Ursula Le Guin, I should warn you that this book is not like her other books, such as "Lathe of Heaven", "Earthsea", "Dispossessed", or "Left Hand of Darkness". So think twice before buying this book!

I'm as big an Ursula LeGuin fan as you'll find -- I even loved "Always Coming Home," which usually isn't listed as one of her masterworks -- but "Lavinia" wasn't quite up to her usual standards.

And let me make it clear it's not because "Lavinia" is historical fiction, a genre I enjoy, especially when it's about the ancient world. In this case, LeGuin uses the last six books of Vergil's "Aeneid" as the basis for her story, but instead of the hero's point of view, we get Lavinia. Not having read the "Aeneid," I can only assume what LeGuin tells us is correct: Lavinia is the Latin bride of Aeneas who never speaks in the book, and whose character is never fleshed out. Lavinia, and indirectly LeGuin, wonders about the fate of minor characters, a trope first broached in Tom Stoppard's "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead," but presently a recurring theme in books I have run across.

All that's well and good, adding a layer of substance to "Lavinia," but despite LeGuin's research and sense of what it means to live in times far removed from out own, the book never really catches fire -- in part because LeGuin makes it clear from the start how the narrative will play out. (Her foreshadowing mechanisms are that Vergil somehow visits her across time (he wrote his book a thousand years or so after the siege of Troy took place) and dreams in a sacred place.) And that ineffable something that turns to good book into an excellent one just isn't there, at least for me.

But of course, any LeGuin book will be wonderfully written, and this one tells a tale we really don't know much about, unless we're Latin scholars, so there's not much to lose if you pick up the novel. It's not overly long, and again, it is by Ursula LeGuin

It's an interesting choice, to give voice to a silent woman and to imagine an origin story of Rome, the empire.

It works because the author is a top notch wordsmith. Her language is beautiful and the entire novel reads like a summary narrative designed to quickly bring us up to date on the history of Rome.

I would have enjoyed the story more had I been familiar with the poem on which it is based. Fanfic of this type is usually more interesting if you know where the fanfic intersects or extends the actual fiction it is based. Well, I don't know The Aeneid so my enjoyment of this novel was necessarily superficial.

An unusual novel from an unusual source. This is a book by the outstanding Ursula LeGuin, best known for her science fiction work. Lavinia is a re-telling of the latter part of the Aeneid from the point of view of Aeneas' bride, the Latin princess Lavinia. A minor figure in the Aeneid, LeGuin makes Lavinia the central figure of this novel and in the events described in the Aeneid. LeGuin makes particularly good use of mythopoetic elements based on what we know about early Roman religion. The quality of writing is excellent with a number of powerful and lyrical sections. The power and persistence of great literature is an underlying theme with Vergil himself appearing as a minor but important figure. I think is one, if not the best, book written by LeGuin in recent years.

Great book for beginners as well as experienced writers of all genres and especially for those in or wanting to be in writing critique groups and looking for exercises, tips and ways to utilize those groups effectively.

Interesting choices of passages for examples and wonderful, detailed and specific explanations for each chapter/section.

Ursula Le Guin is one of our nation's treasures as a writer, activist, poet, mentor and teacher. We are lucky she chose to share her craft.

Highly recommended. Very inspiring. Could "break" someone's writer's block for sure!

Known mainly for her sci-fi/fantasy novels, Ursula K. le Guin here steps out of her usual milieu to write an historical tale based on the epic record as created by the Roman poet Virgil (or Vergil as she spells his name). That poet had aimed to produce a Latin epic to give mythic resonance to Roman history as Homer's Iliad and Odyssey had famously given such resonance to the ancient Greeks whose culture was widely admired and emulated by the Romans in Virgil's time and after. Taking his cue from the Iliad, Virgil created his own epic from the mythic residue of Troy's destruction, tracking the escape of Aeneas, a prince of the royal house of Troy, and members of his immediate family as they embarked on their own odyssey across the world of the ancient Mediterranean Sea to land at last on the western shores of pre-Roman Italy where Aeneas would fulfill a "prophecy" that would make him and his people the pre-historical founders of Rome, the city that would one day conquer the Mediterranean and western European world. To fulfill his destiny, Virgil had the exiled prince wed the Latin Lavinia, daughter of a local king, after a mighty conflict which would enable the Trojans to settle at last on Italy's coast. Often considered a pale imitation of the epics of Homer, and not fully complete at the time of Virgil's death, the Aenead went on, nonetheless, to become a Roman literary landmark providing a classical and legendary basis for the Roman rise to power. It was all predicted, after all, the poet said, and its roots were to be found in the tragic Trojan royal house. Virgil's epic became a great favorite among the literary class in imperial Roman times and has come down to us since then as part of classic Western literature.

Virgil's Lavinia however was a mere cipher, a name and face to occupy a necessary but, to Virgil, mostly uninteresting part in his great tale. But le Guin set out to rectify that as she re-imagines the forgotten and colorless Latin princess, turning her into a real girl and woman who would find her own destiny and shape events in her own right. In keeping with le Guin's penchant for the fantastic, the historical era the author re-imagines is as timeless as it is temporal for Lavinia is captured for us, as if in a dream, as she dreams her own life and meets the poet, Virgil, who will live centuries later even as he lies dying in his own time and dreaming of her and, perhaps, regretting the limited life he had granted her in his epic work. Lavinia herself learns of what is to come even as she proceeds to live her life out in accord with the poet's words but more richly than he had envisioned as she becomes a part of the political machinations which work themselves out around her. Along the way le Guin evokes a mythic Latin past, which, the author acknowledges in her afterword, is probably less like the real proto-Latin world than reality would have it. Still, the period she creates, taking from both the archaeological and classic record as imagined by Virgil himself, successfully transports the reader to this legendary world as Lavinia finds her destiny and her passion and lives out her life as both mortal and otherworldly spirit in time to come.

The book bogs down about midway, unfortunately, with the abrupt triumph of Aeneas over the rambunctious and bellicose local Latin king, Turnus, but if you stick with it it picks up nicely again as Lavinia lives out her life to fulfill both her destiny and the poet's dream of the founding of a people. An historical novel with a lyric and fantastic dimension, it surprised and pleased me, making me glad I took it up when I stumbled on it at a remaindered table in a local bookstore.

Stuart W. Mirsky

Though Ursula LeGuin passed away not long ago, her work lives on. In this book about writing, she tells us why her chosen path matters and what is important. It is a brilliant glimpse into the mind of a person who was a master storyteller, who created brilliant characters and engaging, enduring tales. Writers will find much to absorb in this thin little book with many lessons. Required reading for those desiring to be writers.

Lavinia, the title character of Ursula LeGuin's unusual novel, is a character from Virgil's AENEID. She plays an important function in that epic about the forefather of the Roman people, because she will become Aeneas' wife and the mother of his son Aeneas Silvius. First mentioned in Book VII, just beyond the half-way point, she becomes the cause of the wars between the Trojans and the Latin tribes that occupy the last six books of the saga. But although she is desired and fought over, she remains a peripheral character whom Virgil never allows to speak. LeGuin now remedies that omission.

"I know who I was, I can tell you who I may have been, but I am, now, only in this line of words I write. [...] I won't die. Of that I am all but certain. My life is too contingent to lead to anything so absolute as death." In these passages near the beginning of the book, Lavinia recognizes herself as primarily a character of fiction -- Virgil's fiction, and now her own. That is what she means by "contingent," a word that recurs often. In one of her most brilliant strokes, LeGuin, with the imaginative freedom of a science-fiction writer, has Lavinia travel backwards and forwards in time, knowing not only her own history but also parts of her future, and communicating directly with the poet who gave her birth. The two early scenes in which the spirit of the dying Virgil appears to the teenage girl at night in a sacred grove are among the most effective in the book.

But "contingent" has other meanings. In Virgil's epic, as in those of Homer, the actions of men are partly controlled by the intervention of the gods; the whole AENEID can be seen as the outcome of a struggle between Venus and Juno. In writing of the early Italian tribes, LeGuin goes to a simpler form of religion, whose deities are treated as relatives and mentors, appearing in birds and trees, hills and streams. This rural pantheism gives LAVINIA a simple and welcoming setting, in which even the cities seem little more than the clustered houses of the farmers who work the surrounding lands. The absence of distant controlling gods does not make the characters any less contingent on the omens and auguries they draw from the natural world around them; obedience to such influences is a mark of piety and honor, and there are several times where they redirect the whole course of the action. Lavinia has an especially close affinity with the land and its creatures, so the omens that speak to her seem less like outside forces than a reflection of her own sense of what is right.

"Contingent," alas, can often be applied to women's dependent relationship with men. Lavinia, for Virgil, is little more than a trophy, for whom -- no, for which -- Aeneas fights and ultimately kills the Rutulian prince Turnus. But LeGuin paints a society in which women are, literally, given a seat at the table. Her Lavinia has her father's ear and a place in his affections. She has personality and feelings, fire and a will of her own, and she gets to exercise it. Later in the passage quoted above, Lavinia compares herself to a princess who features at the start of Virgil's epic: "Like Spartan Helen, I caused a war. She caused hers by letting men who wanted her take her. I caused mine because I wouldn't be given, wouldn't be taken, but chose my man and my fate." In writing LAVINIA, LeGuin gives her heroine a feminist liberation. When she is free and follows her heart, in her struggles with her mother, and even when she has to fight against residual male domination, Lavinia is a character to weep over and cheer for. But when, about halfway through the book, the action descends into descriptions of male wars, with long roll-calls of soldiers and warring factions, the title character is momentarily eclipsed. She re-emerges in the second half, which follows her story after the AENEID ends and shows her as a mother rather than a bride. There is a lot here that is interesting, including Lavinia's troubled relationship with her step-son Ascanius, but I feel that without a parallel Virgil text to illuminate, without his compelling time-line, LeGuin's narrative loses cogency and focus. A pity.

I didn't take Latin in school and nobody ever made me read THE ILIAD, THE ODYSSEY or THE AENID, even in translation. So although I am an enormous admirer of Ursula K. Le Guin's extraordinary fantasy novels --- her imagined cultures often subvert our assumptions about politics, gender and reality itself (I particularly recommend THE DISPOSSESSED, THE LEFT HAND OF DARKNESS and The Earthsea Cycle, whose wizardry way outstrips Harry Potter's) --- I know zilch about Classical history and literature.

Admittedly, a few larger-than-life figures (Hercules, Odysseus, Aeneas) are iconic --- their statues are all over the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Greek and Roman galleries. But those are the heroes. What about heroines? The only ones who come to mind are troublemakers like Helen of Troy, prophetesses like Cassandra, or noble suicides like Dido of Carthage.

Which brings us to Lavinia, who is none of the above. To make a long story ridiculously short, after the Greek victory in the Trojan War the legendary warrior Aeneas escapes to Latium, a then-obscure region of pre-Roman Italy. Lavinia, the local princess, is to be married off to a puffed-up, self-important suitor, but prophecy insists that she will wed a foreigner --- and Aeneas is the obvious candidate. Fighting ensues. There is only the briefest mention of Lavinia in Virgil's original (unfinished) poem; it is Le Guin's notion to re-create and complete this chapter of THE AENEID with her as the protagonist, not a mere pawn in men's games of war and power.

In this I think Le Guin is motivated in part by feminist impulses; as she writes in an Afterword, women in Latium (and later, Rome) were freer and more respected than in Greek society, where they were little better than slaves. She also wants to go against the grain of the conventional epic's emphasis on battle and male heroics, expressing a woman's jaundiced view of war (sadly, all too relevant today). Under her father's benign rule, Lavinia knew only tranquility and is shocked by the bellicose rage that seizes her country with the coming of the Trojans: "I had not learned how peace galls men, how they gather impatient rage against it as it continues, how even while they pray the powers for peace, they work against it and make certain it will be broken and give way to battle, slaughter, rape, and waste."

Le Guin diverges from her source in spiritual matters as well. Instead of the Olympian interventions so characteristic of Classical literature (Aeneas is supposed to be the son of Aphrodite, who often steps in on his behalf), Lavinia's world is stamped by a sort of pantheism; nature itself is sacred. As she puts it: "We who are called royal are those who speak for our people to the powers of the earth and sky, as those powers transmit their will through us to the people. We are go-betweens." Some of the gods she tends and/or pays tribute to (vegetarian and animal-lover alert: there are a lot of sacrifices) are humble household deities or somewhat nebulous oracles; others are grand divinities like Mars. In either case, the mystery and ritual permeating Latinian culture seem very close to the magic of Le Guin's Earthsea books. Maybe LAVINIA is not such a departure for her after all. She is reconstructing a whole culture, if not actually inventing one.

Yet this isn't a traditional historical novel --- it's too twisty and many-layered for that. Often Lavinia speaks both as literary creation and real woman (how postmodern!), and Le Guin tinkers slyly with time, particularly in the first few chapters, when Virgil appears as a shade at the sacred spring. He shows Lavinia Aeneas's past (a neat way of summarizing the action in earlier portions of THE AENEID), her own destiny as wife and widow, and how hers and Aeneas's descendants would build the great city of Rome, in whose "golden" imperial age the poet lived and wrote. This temporal elasticity, though occasionally confusing, seems consistent with the weight given to omens and portents in Lavinia's society. For her people, the future is embedded in the present, and a profound sense of fate informs daily life.

I don't want to make LAVINIA sound like a heavyweight fable. Although Le Guin's language is sometimes more stately and self-consciously "poetic" than in her fantasy novels, she tells a wonderful story with engaging characters. Lavinia is a strong and persuasive protagonist who seizes her destiny rather than simply bowing to it. By refusing to marry Turnus, the local suitor, she is not only obeying a prophecy but also speaking from her own heart. She does not trust her mother, half-crazed by the early loss of Lavinia's twin brothers, and she is bound to her father by affection and respect as well as duty. Further, Lavinia and Aeneas's passionate love is poignantly evoked (for Lavinia has been told by her ghostly poet that they will have but three years together, and she counts off the seasons with a sense of dread), and Aeneas's character is a serious portrait of a true hero: modest, thoughtful, not bloodthirsty. "If you are to rule Latium after me," he tells his son Ascanius, "...I want to know that you'll learn how to govern, not merely make war...that you'll learn to seek your manhood on a greater field than the battlefield."

I must confess, though, that I prefer Le Guin's fantasies. I think she is liberated by the creation of her own worlds; here, she sometimes seems constrained by her literary model --- she calls the book a "love offering" to Virgil, and her introduction of the poet as a ghostly character actually bogs the story down just when it should be taking off. Still, LAVINIA made me want to read THE AENEID --- finally. There's supposed to be a very good recent translation by Robert Fagles, who also did THE ILIAD and THE ODYSSEY. Maybe it isn't too late for me to get a proper Classical education after all....

--- Reviewed by Kathy Weissman

I'm going to admit right now, I'm not very familiar with Virgil's Aeneid. It's not exactly "light" reading, and I'm feeling good for having just conquered Beowulf for the first time. That said, I was still insanely interested in Lavinia by Ursula Le Guin when I saw that it was on a list for one of the best books based off of literary classics.

In language that, for all it's strange names and odd places, is quite simple to read, Ursula Le Guin takes us through the poet's (Virgil's) vision of Latinum and Lavinia. Lavinia's voice is quiet and thoughtful, dictating very precisely her love of the truly pious, which she defines toward the beginning of the book so you are made very aware of what she is looking for. There is fighting, but second-hand retelling of the fighting so the book does not focus on the sensation of it. There's intrigue and love and desire. There's a story of respect between fathers and daughters and wives and husbands. And most of all - this book tells a side of a story that doesn't get told by Virgil, and does it well.

Le Guin did a beautiful job with her research and the writing is really spectacular. This was the first book I've read by her and I'll be seeking out her fantasy novels - if this is any indication, I'll gladly live in any world she has designed.

Lavinia is the faceless princess of Latinum in Virgil's poem. Lavinia finally tells her story. Born to a peaceful king, Latinus, and his disturbed wife, Amata, Lavinia's childhood is ideal, except for her mother's frequent outbursts. When Lavinia is "ripe for marriage", many suitors travel to Latinum to ask for Lavinia's hand in marriage and to become the next King. Amata favors her nephew, Turnus, to become Lavinia's husband. While vising a holy site, Lavinia is told by a poet from the future that she will marry a foreigner. Her father is also warned in visions not to marry his daughter to a Latin. Lavinia's hair catches on fire while making an offering, but she is unharmed and the omens point to war. Aeneas lands on Latinum's shores and proposes a treaty between the Trojans and Latinus. Latinus agrees and gives Lavinia in marriage to Aeneas. Amata and Turnus are outraged at this "betrayal" and war breaks out between Turnus' people and the Trojans. Powerless to stop the bloodshed, Lavinia waits for the end her poet prophesied. Aeneas emerges victorious and the new couple found Lavinium. But the poet dies before his work is finished and the future is cloudy. Lavinia soon finds herself deprived of the two men she loved.
Lovers of Virgil's poem will relish this book. I had wondered about Aeneas, but never questioned who one of Rome's mothers really was. Upon starting the book, I was transported to the Italian hills. Lavina is loved by her father, but despised by her mother. She grows up with a strong sense of duty to her family and the people of Latinum. She agrees to marry Aeneas without any real knowledge of him, exhibiting faith in her poet. I loved her strength throughout the whole book. Though she faces adversity, she never lets it overcome her. Her cunning and wisdom make for a wonderful heroine, mother and wife. Lavinia, the woman defined by a man, doesn't need a man to define her.

I read this, utterly spellbound, in-between the weekend obligations of a momentarily single parent. It set a mood - of mystical wonder, of historical adventure, of female power - that lasts not only through the book but as a spark of inspiration as I cooked, drove the kids around, and cleaned. It is the perfect entertainment that also passes the bar of serious literature, in a way similar in quality to the Mists of Avalon, also a myth/history reconstruction from the point of view of a strong yet very human woman.

This is the story of the Latin queen who married Aeneas, the exiled Trojan, who arrived on the shores of Italy and spawned the line of kings that founded Rome. The reader is treated to a portrait of her mind and faith as she navigates life in a tiny kingdom hemmed in by enemies and the fragile alliances that her father established to safeguard an oasis of peace for a few years. The times, of course, are extremely savage, the religion polytheistic but also spirit-driven, lending a vivid feeling of the sacred in certain places with dreams and omens, mystical seats of unexplained power, and the cooperation of outside events in accordance with her religious vision.

Livinia is a beauty coming of age, with a range of suitors that includes the formidable Turnus, a cousin whom her insane mother champions. Her choice will, she knows, determine the balance of power for central Italy, perhaps establishing an empire the likes of which has never been known. Turnus is a vital and egotistical prince, who will surely resort to violence to unite the two kingdoms if she refuses him. She is undecided and goes to sacred ground to seek the advice of greater powers. There, she meets a spectre from across time, who speaks to her of her fate and responsibility as Aeneas approaches. He is her destiny, a merging of peoples that will give rise to Rome.

All of this may sound too fantastical to allow readers to suspend their disbelief. However, with a truly masterful performance, LeGuin pulls it off to perfection. I found Livinia's feelings and emotions completely believable, as executed in the consistent mood of awe and the power of fate that permeates every page. It is as if you are there experiencing it with her. There are several passages where she describes the shield of Aeneas, whose images appear alive, evoking pivotal moments over the next 800 years of Roman history, to the time of Augustus.

As she tells the story, Livinia's voice is a unique literary creation. So far as I understood it, she is speaking as a timeless piece of art, a poetic ideal who has been given immortality by Vergil in the spic poem, The Aeneid. The poet's power is seen as a magical attempt to plumb the truth of a life, even though she is a minor character in his poem. His act of creation has liberated her from time, yet she tells the story of her life and sometimes disagrees with him. It is a dialogue unlike anything I have ever seen in a novel. Again, like her religion, it is completely believable.

This book can stand on its own. But as a classics major, I was awed at the accuracy of LeGuin's references and the way she weaved historical information into a mythic narrative. Her subtlety and erudition are great joys, with every page dense with historical allusion and mystery at ancient supernatural powers.

This masterpiece is the first book I was able to finish by LeGuin, whose science fiction has never grabbed me. Warmly recommended.

In her afterword, LeGuin is explicit about her intentions as a writer. I think she will forgive me, a grateful reader, for appearing to contradict her in my own response to the novel. Likewise, I think she will indulge me in renaming her book "The Laviniad."

"Lavinia" is LeGuin's grateful gift to Virgil, a loving reciprocation for his gift to her (and all of us), the Aeneid. (It is also, unavoidably, an answer of sorts to Margaret Atwood's Penelopiad.) More than "a riff on the Aeneid", as she called it at Powell's, it is a completion of sorts, carrying on where Virgil was (some say) compelled by death to leave off. (The Aeneid stops abruptly at the point where Aeneas kills Turnus.) But, just as the Aeneid is a semi-sequel to the Iliad, but with its own imagination and its own organizing principles, so is the Laviniad a semi-sequel to the Aeneid, moving the story forward, but centered around characters peripheral to, or absent from, its literary predecessor. This is, most of all, Lavinia's story. But it is also, like the Aeneid, Aeneas' story and Rome's story, called forth this time from the imagination of LeGuin, who took the torch from Virgil, who had it from Homer.

Aeneas' killing of Turnus, which kills the Aeneid, becomes here the critical moment that shapes Aeneas' eventual death, and haunts his conscience along the way. In the center of this arc, we hear this Socratic conversation, in which Aeneas is simultaneously wrestling with his own angel and trying to pass the torch of piety to his son Ascanius.

"But what is piety?" Aeneas asked.
That brought a thoughtful silence.
"Obedience to the will of the powers of earth and sky?" I said at last, making my statement a question, as women so often do.
"The effort to fulfill one's destiny," Achates said.
"Doing right," said Illivia, Serestus' wife, a calm, forceful woman from Tusculum, who had become one of my dearest friends.
"What is right in battle, in war?" Aeneas asked.
"Skill, courage, strength," Ascanius answered promptly. "In war, virtue is piety. Fighting to win!"
"So victory makes right?"
"Yes," Ascanius said, and several of the men nodded vigorously; but the older Trojans, some of them, did not. Nor did the women.
"I cannot make it out," Aeneas said in his quiet voice. "I thought what a man knew he ought to do was what he must do. But what if they're not the same? Then, to win a victory is to be defeated. To uphold order is to cause disorder, ruin, death. Virtue and piety destroy each other. I cannot make it out."

This novel is a must-read and an amazing and unexpected turn from one of the best-loved writers of sci-fi/fantasy around today. Ursula LeGuin re-tells certain episodes in Virgil's Aeneid from the perspective of Lavinia, the Latin princess whom Aeneas ultimately marries to found the lineage that would later found and lead Rome. In Virgil's play, Lavinia never speaks and is only briefly described. LeGuin gives her voice and creates a remarkable and memorable character.

LeGuin does much more than just re-tell a classic in a modern voice, such as John Steinbeck did with the Arthurian myths. Nor is she just recasting myths from a feminist perspective, as Marion Zimmer Bradley does so well. To the contrary, LeGuin seems to strive -- given the limits of writing in English in the 21st Century -- to have Lavinia speak and act as an ancient proto-Roman woman, adhering as faithfully as she can to the source material. LeGuin seems to flesh out Lavinia as Virgil would have -- if only he'd thought more about her and given her as much ink as he did, for example, with Dido. After narrating the closing episodes of The Aeneid from Lavinia's perspective, LeGuin audaciously finishes the story. One of the most unsatisfying aspects of The Aeneid is that it feels unfinished -- the conventional history is that Virgil had not finished it and left instructions for it to be burned at his death. LeGuin finishes the story lovingly, unflinchingly, and, in the end, satisfyingly.

Without spoiling the plot, LeGuin also interjects a metaphysical twist to Lavinia's existence that is as thought-provoking as her excellent novel Lathe of Heaven. Even though anyone familiar with The Aeneid knows how many of the key events must play out, this novel is full of twists even while adhering faithfully to Virgil's story.

If you know The Aeneid, if you like LeGuin's prior work, or if you like to read, this novel is worth reading. Like most great novels, my only disappointment was that it had to end.

Lavinia is something of a departure from Le Guin's better known science fiction and fantasy, or her contemporary fiction: it's a novel based on Virgil's epic poem The Aeneid, approaching the legend in much the same way as Mary Stewart's Merlin series or Mary Renault's novels about Theseus.

Because Lavinia, Aeneas's last wife, never speaks in Virgil's poem, Le Guin chose to give her a voice and tells the whole story from her point of view (with some help from the mysterious spirit of an unnamed poet, apparently a prophetic vision of Virgil, who tells her some of Aeneas's history as well as the future).

Lavinia, the only child of King Latinus, begins her story when she is nineteen and - by her own choice - still unmarried. An oracle tells her she is destined to marry a foreigner; Latinus accepts this, but her mother Amata has promised her to her kinsman Turnus, King of the neighbouring Rutuli.

Enter the demigod Aeneas, nephew of King Priam. One of the few Trojan heroes to have survived the fall of Troy, he is a mighty warrior, son of Aphrodite and Prince Anchises, favoured of Apollo and Poseidon, and distant descendant of Zeus himself.

After a journey rivalling that of Odysseus, the war-weary Aeneas wants nothing more than to rule quietly over a kingdom of his own, however small, which he can leave to his son Ascanius. Latinus is delighted at the prospect of having such a great hero as his heir, and Lavinia quickly comes to love him as much as her mother loves Turnus.

Amata and Turnus, unsurprisingly, are less pleased by Lavinia's marriage to Aeneas. They convince their supporters that Aeneas's boatload of Trojan refugees constitutes an invasion, then have Aeneas's boats burned so he can't leave, and soon the kingdom is at war.

If you're already a fan of Le Guin but you're still wondering whether to buy this book, I can assure you that it's worth the effort. I found the first half absolutely engrossing, though the second half was less so: it continues the story past the point where The Aeneid abruptly ends, and without Virgil as a guide, Le Guin seems less committed to linear storytelling than to politics and philosophy.

While she rarely lectures, Le Guin's politics and philosophy do come through strongly. Lavinia wonders aloud about the relationship between heroism and wars, and it's difficult not to see our own time reflected in her depiction of arrogant boy-kings stirring up xenophobia. However, Le Guin's portrayal of experienced soldiers and commanders is largely positive, and she doesn't oversimplify the causes or war or blame them on any one group or gender.

If you're not a fan of Le Guin, and you've recognized fewer than half of the names in this review, Lavinia may not be the ideal introduction to her work. Here, she has pared down the fantasy elements of the original Greek and Roman myths, and blended legend with archaeology to write what feels much more like a historical novel than an epic fantasy.

Events are not dictated by the quarrelsome Olympian gods, but by the characters' own natures and local politics, and the only overtly magical being and power is the oracular poet. If you're looking for spells and dragons, I recommend you begin with her Earthsea quartet instead. And read some Greek myths.

This book can wait until you're ready for it. I predict it'll be read, and loved, for many years to come.

Le Guin has achieved something remarkable here. This book gives new life to the classics. It is not a Hollywood retelling that emphasizes fight scenes and drama, or faithfulness to reality. It is faithful to the model of the stories and myths of old. It emphasizes mystery and tragedy that in the classics are a sign of hope. And it emphasizes epic. This work is surely the capstone of a remarkable career. In writing it, Le Guin has told us her own tale, where the particulars yield to the abstraction, and where the character is defined by its actions.

What this book does best is to contextualize the war described by Virgil. It's not purely a condemnation of the conflict, and the other similar actions of pride-driven senseless collective violence--although it certainly has elements of this--but it's about fitting war into a larger story, a narrative that includes but is not defined by the incidents of violence. It shows what happens before, what happens after a war, the psychological and structural forces that can generate conflict, and how a resolution of it works. It also centers the periphery of this, civilians following from a distance the process that turns family members from people into corpses, women on the rooftops trying to follow what's happening in chaotic violence, the ultra-masculine aggression, injustice and violation of combat. The most effective accomplishment of the book is to work in the form of Vigil's war into depiction of wider politics, economics and society, and represent these familiar/heroic backdrops as a functioning community as valid as our own.

For university this past semester I read a number of articles on the topic of reclaiming the past, achieving a female middle voice in the context of old patriarchal narratives. The challenge was, recognizing the inherent worse of women in an inherently patriarchal context where all records are inevitably tainted, can we as feminist 21st century scholars recapture the periphery? Can we take figures like Asphasia as valuable additions to the canon, or is that just a path of invention? I took the latter argument, but now begin to see what value there can be in this type of account. Le Guin's narrative is a pure fiction, but to label it thusly is to underestimate the insight that this kind of fiction can accomplish, and as a project that works, reworks and expands a feminist reading of a classical text, I wouldn't dismiss the scholarly validity. We can't pretend that Virgil left record of Lavinia as an actual person (as this work points out, and as clearly motivated Le Guin, Lavinia doesn't even speak in the original poem, serving only as a plot point) but Lavinia as a text gives a tool to engage with it now. The benefit of her work isn't just to challenge the conventional and exclusive picture of the Aeneid, but to create a subtext that after reading this one is more likely to ask these sorts of questions. To inquire if canonical works are biased, if they exclude. And, of course, the same question can be asked about books published now, items written this year. Who are we excluding? What type of narratives do presume?

Going into this I'd expected it to be a feminist reinterpretation, and to portray the titular character in much more depth than the original source (not hard, that) but this work also treats other characters effectively. Aeneas himself is a complex, sympathetic character, and in several of his discussions with Lavinia it very much seems that he makes the better point. More widely Lavinia does the same respectful additions to the larger scope of Etruscan-dominated Italy, offering an intimacy both with the wider scope of legendary history and the moment to moment details of life. Lavinia's father comes across particularly well, not terribly effective, far from flawless, but sympathetic in his strengths, weaknesses, and how deeply the two are intertwined.

I've labeled this a fantasy (as have most, though not all, readers) but this doesn't hit on the conventional tropes of this at all. In numerous ways it's even less magic-driven than Virgil's account, having no direct action of gods, no miracles, no practicing sorcerers. The one supernatural element occurs with the titular character herself, and the conversations she's able to have with the poet Virgil. Obviously, what this allows Le Guin to do is enter into an explicit dialog with the author of the primary canonical work. This could have so easily been a case of demolishing and condemning the first source, but Le Guin's goals are nuanced enough and she's an effective enough author that writing Virgil literally into the account makes him a sympathetic and interesting character. These scenes stand in the same relation to the larger juxtaposition of Aeneid and Lavinia, as expansions past the canonical without being merely fanfiction, revisioning of core motifs without demolishing the work.

This is a book that I'd recommend for everyone, especially those that have any experience with the Aenied, and even more especially those who think the main focus is too narrow, too blood-drenched, too irrelevant to wider concerns of contemporary times. Le Guin has offered an invaluable expansion to it that is among the very best novels of the 21st century. Le Guin's novel is deconstrutive in the best possible sense--taking apart an old narrative and the assumptions that factor into it, and in the process expanding, putting together and reinvigorating the narrative through her own focus. It's also one of the most powerful, quietly political and engaging stories I've read.

Made immortal by Virgil in his epic, "The Aeneid," Lavinia never gets to speak a word in the poem. Though her destined marriage to Trojan Aeneus is the beginning of the Roman people and its ancient connection with Troy, Lavinia remains a silent symbol.

"He gave me a long life but a small one. I need room, I need air," she says early on in Le Guin's novel.

And Le Guin gives it to her. Lavinia's narration is self-aware and mythic. "No doubt someone with my name, Lavinia, did exist, but she may be so different from my own idea of myself, or my poet's idea of me, that it only confuses me to think about her."

But Lavinia's story is also passionate and full of earthy, daily details. She is both centuries-old legend and flesh-and-blood woman.

She is the daughter of a substantial rural king, Latinus of Latium. Her mother, once a sunny woman, has been driven mad with grief over the death of her sons and begrudges the life of her healthy daughter. As Lavinia reaches marriageable age, suitors come calling.

Her mother favors one of the neighboring kings, lusty, ambitious Turnus, and Lavinia blushes and stammers in his company. But Lavinia also propitiates the gods at the sacred springs where she bows to the prophecy that she will marry a foreigner and become the cause of a bitter war in order to found the beginnings of a great empire. When Aeneus' ships arrive, she recognizes her destiny.

On the banks of the sacred springs the 19-year-old Lavinia also communes with the spirit of the dying poet, Virgil, who laments that he did not know her better before he died (some scholars say Virgil died before completing the epic, which would have included more about Lavinia, or at least Aeneus' marriage to her).

Winner of numerous awards for her fantasy novels, Le Guin reimagines history with as vivid an eye as she creates worlds of fantasy. From the market towns and poorer realms around Latinus to the details of plowing, herding, gathering precious salt from beds by the sea, the spelt meal and goat's milk of daily meals and the golden goblets of banquets - Le Guin creates a bustling, lively world.

But while Lavinia spins wool and gathers sacred salt and runs in the creek with her friends, she also willingly embodies destiny and legend. Beautifully written, Le Guin's novel will appeal to her legions of fans as well as fans of Steven Saylor's "Roma."

I've grabbed this work based on the myriad of favourable reviews Ms LeGuin has attracted and because one word that kept appearing was how gorgeous the prose is. As someone trying to pen his own work set in Ancient times, I am keen to find writers who set the standard in terms of "prose" and I must say in purchasing the book solely for that reason I have underestimated the full range of Ms LeGuins talent. In so few words she can create a world and take you there. More than that, though, she takes her readers into the mind and mindset of her characters and gives you a sense of understanding their world. Lavinia's world is also Virgil's, because Lavinia is the king's daughter from the Aeneid who marries Aeneas; together they founded the lineage of Rome.

In the novel Lavinia tells both her own story as well as that of the poet's. There is a fine interweaving between the story from the sacred grove, where Lavinia met (and continues to meet) the spirit of the dying Virgil, and Lavinia's own. Her future is foreshadowed by the poet's words. She knows she will marry Aeneas and that he will live a scant three years longer. So we follow Lavinia as the threads are woven together: Lavinia's growing up, her home and family, Virgil's bloody battles and deaths, the sweet years of marriage, and then the struggles to see the son Lavinia bore Aeneas become the man his father would have wanted.

If you enjoyed Virgil's Aeneid (not that I shall claim to be one), you will enjoy seeing that one line fleshed out by LeGuin into an absorbing and unique tale that breathes life into Lavinia. If you like classical history, this is a fascinating glimpse of the little warrior states that had the misfortune to became part of Rome. For those who like poetic prose, a good story well told, and living through a different mind in another world, then Lavinia will be a book you can enjoy again and again.

Although my wife will one day tire of my own personal library taking up so much space in the home, I have decided to compromise, in that books of outstanding quality stay, books of lesser quality but still enjoyable go, and those not worth the paper they were written on or of inflicting on others burn. Lavinia will stay.

As the daughter of a King, and an only child, it is Lavinia's duty to marry. Although presented with many suitors, there seems to be only one choice; Turnus, a neighbouring King who is both youthful and handsome. However an oracle foretells a different choice of husband for Lavinia; a choice that leads to war.

When Lavinia is eighteen she travels to Albunea, a sacred place, to seek guidance. There she meets a man who will change her life. He offers her guidance, prophecy and hope. He is a man responsible for giving her life, a name, but no voice. He is a shadow, once a poet, but now a dying man, who has yet to be born.

Lavinia is but a background character, a bit part in a greater story of the exploits of men and gods. She existed only as a daughter, wife and mother of great men, of Kings. But now she speaks, giving herself a voice, a life filled with myth, history, war and love.

This is a book you will either love or hate. The only thing missing from Lavinia is Chapters, but how do you divide a life, section memories? Lavinia is unique, beautifully written and highly creative. A story that stays with you long after the last word is read.

In her novel Lavinia, Ursula K. Le Guin, author of the Earthsea series and many other science fiction and fantasy novels, gives life to a forgotten character from Virgil's Aeneid. Lavinia is the daughter of King Latinus of Latium, and in Virgil's epic she is destined to marry the Trojan hero Aeneas. Their descendants will be the founders of Rome. In the Aeneid, Lavinia is a very minor character who doesn't even have any spoken lines. Many people who have read the Aeneid a long time ago, including myself, I admit, do not even remember her, at least by name. Le Guin breathes life into Lavinia's character and makes her very memorable.

Le Guin's Lavinia is the adored daughter of Latinus, who is already an aging king when she is born. Her domineering mother, Amata, has gone mad after the deaths of her sons as small children, but Latinus will not admit that his wife is mad. As soon as Lavinia becomes old enough to marry, many suitors come from the surrounding kingdoms, but she rejects all of them. Amata is determined that Lavinia will marry her nephew Turnus, king of neighboring Rutulia. In fact, there is a strong suggestion that Amata herself is in love with Turnus. Lavinia refuses to marry the arrogant, boastful Turnus, and she escapes when Amata and her slaves carry her off into the forest for a ritual which is supposed to culminate in her marriage to him. She asks Latinus to consult an oracle about her marriage. He agrees, and the oracle says she is destined to marry a foreigner, but also that her husband will only live for three years after their marriage. Soon she sees Aeneas and his fellow Trojans sailing up the river, and she realizes that he is the man she is meant to marry.

Early in the novel there are some wonderful scenes in the sacred grove between Lavinia and the ghost of Virgil, who is called "the poet". Throughout the novel, Lavinia has the ability to see into the future, and she is also aware that she is a fictional character created by Virgil. It is an unusual narrative technique that I enjoyed very much. In their conversations, Virgil tells Lavinia about Aeneas and his adventures following the fall of Troy, including his two previous loves, for his first wife Creusa, daughter of King Priam of Troy, and for Dido, Queen of Carthage, who killed herself after Aeneas left her to seek his destiny in Italy. So Lavinia knows all about Aeneas even before she meets him.

King Latinus agrees to Lavinia's marriage to Aeneas, but Turnus still sees Lavinia as his betrothed. He breaks Latinus' treaty with the Trojans, and declares war on them. Lavinia observes the war from a tower in the palace, and helps to treat the wounded men. She feels terrible guilt over being the cause of a war she never wanted, and she's conflicted because she knows she should support her fellow Latins, but she is also destined for Aeneas. As readers of the Aeneid will know, Aeneas kills Turnus to end the war.

Le Guin goes past the events of the Aeneid, and writes of Lavinia's marriage to Aeneas and their founding of a city called Lavinium, where they live for the three years before Aeneas' death, and where she gives birth to a son, Silvius. This part of the book is incredibly sad, because Lavinia , who truly loves Aeneas, knows he will die, but she cannot do anything to prevent it. Aeneas feels terrible guilt about killing Turnus and, not to give too much away, but this guilt is what eventually leads to his death. Meanwhile, Lavinia does not get along with Ascanius, Aeneas' son by his first marriage with Creusa of Troy. Ascanius is an arrogant young man, who is disdainful of women and who believes victory in battle is the only way for a man to prove his worth. After Aeneas' death, Ascanius becomes King of Latium and Lavinia is forced to raise her son, Silvius, in the forest because she is afraid Ascanius means to harm him. But Lavinia knows of a prophecy that says Silvius will be triumphant in the end.

Le Guin is a master at building worlds, as anyone who has read the Earthsea series will know, and her ancient Italy comes as brilliantly to life as any of her invented worlds. Very little is known about pre-Roman Italy, so Le Guin is free to imagine what life was like in that society. She writes beautifully about the forests, fields, rivers, and hills of Latium, and her descriptions of the religious rites and customs of the Latins are especially strong. Le Guin's ancient Latium is a world where humans and spirits are deeply connected, as can be seen in the conversations between Lavinia and the ghost of Virgil. This novel paints a vivid portrait of ancient Italy, and it made me want to re-read the Aeneid.

Ursula LeGuin's novel extends The Aeneid, written by Virgil between 29 and 19 BC. Virgil was writing a founding myth of Rome, where the Trojan hero Aeneas, after many adventures in Cathage, Sicily and the underworld, arrives in Latium, near the eventual site of Rome. There he engages in warfare with the indigent clans and victorious, marries the local princess Lavinia to found the Julio-Claudian dynasty.

LeGuin's Aeneas is a Taoist ideal, the artisan attuned to the Way in its Augustan form as pietas, honour and duty. He contends with those overmastered by passions: King Turnus, who he kills (murders?) at the end of the Aeneid, and his own flawed son, Ascanius. Lavinia, a cipher in Virgil's poem, becomes a person in LeGuin's hands, but also an archetype: the owl of Minerva.

Other reviews here properly convey what a fine piece of writing this is. It works as history, a vivid picture of bronze-age life, and as a retelling of the last six books of the Aeneid. Lavinia lives her life, from small girl to her eventual destiny, in the immanent presence of magic, myth and fate. LeGuin ensures that the reader does too.

Note: it reminded me a little of "The Way of Wyrd" by Professor Brian Bates, which recreates the celtic 'life in magic' in dark ages Britain.

This is the story of a young Italian princess in the time before the Roman Empire. It is based on an ancient poem, Virgil's "Aeneid," but the book is written so that one doesn't need to know anything about the original epic work. In fact, Le Guin goes beyond the poem, telling what happens to the characters beyond the conclusion of the "Aeneid."

The coolest part of this book is that it's not just a retelling of a classic. It's completely new. The main character, Lavinia, knows that she is part of a poem and will sometimes converse with her writer. Although her destiny is sealed by his pen, she never reveals this secret to the other characters, and lives a long and fruitful life.

The world of ancient Italy is truly brought to life through Le Guin's writing. The grace with which she writes captures the essence of each character, place, and time. The story unfolds with the beauty of an epic myth as wars are fought, love is lost and gained, and kings rise and fall.

This book is as remarkable and timeless as any epic poem and a true tribute to Virgil's work.

This was a waste of 9.99. I was able to get through 52% of the book before giving myself permission to set it down, I'm sorry I cannot return it. The prose was meandering, meaningless and boring; the story was absolutely uncompelling. The descriptions were lacking and the premise dull. I've never read anything by Ursula Leguin and am sorry I started with this book. My friends assure me her other books are much better but I will be checking them out of the library in the future in case they are as bad as this one.

I love historical fictions, especially historical fiction that deals with ancient history. I have noticed a tendency that most ancient historical fiction is done by male authors, which is fine, but too often lends itself from a male perspective, which can get quite dull. Along with the other ancient historical fictions comes long, draggy, drawn out battle scenes that I have to skip through before falling asleep. Ursula Le Guin managed to deal with war without being overly detailed and dull. I understand that there are people out there who enjoy military history, and reading about battle tactics and battle scenes etc. But that's not for me, I'm far more interested in the every day habits of the ancients Romans, especially among women, than I am in how they fought their battles. If you are like me, then you will like this book. It does look at war in a general way. From a woman's perspective, but does not going into a lot of battle-tactic detail. This book was so beautifully written too. It flowed and was lyrical.

Many years ago, having finally read The Wide Sargasso Sea, I at last found comfort with the sad center of Jane Eyre; in the inevitable sacrifice and mad love surrounding Rochester's wife.

Thus it is with Lavinia. A long ago and painful year studying high school Vergil is made human and settles itself into a form at once understood and clearly founded in empathy and warmth through the eyes and dreams of Lavinia; queen, mother, wife and daughter.

Only this author can weave dream states and time warps with a skill that draws the reader inevitably into another world, another mind.

This is a retelling of the Aeneid that situates it more firmly in a historical context. The practices and society Lavinia knows are illuminated in the very best tradition of historical fiction. Still, there are moments of oddness, and for the most part this is a slow read.
Personally, I could have done without the interactions with the poet himself. Although in some ways key to the book's development, they slowed the book even further, making it so that nothing came truly unexpectedly to the main character. The ending was less than satisfying also.

I enjoyed this book for its credible evocation of a very different time and place; for the sense it gives of research thoroughly done but applied with a light hand; and most of all for the beauty of Le Guin's prose.

Lavinia never speaks a word in The Aeneid; Le Guin gives her a voice. She also has Lavinia muse on her own status as the creation of a poet, and the form of limited immortality her incomplete rendering gives her. The book can be read as a simple narrative, and as an invitation to the reader to muse on the roles of creator and created.

Le Guin's cool, detached style meant I wasn't moved by the story, even when it was recounting tragic loss. Lavinia tells us she adored Aeneas, and I believed her--because she's an honest girl, not because I felt her emotion. Her Lavinia reminded me quite a lot of Tenar, who is one of my favourites of Le Guin's creations. They have much of the same strength, patience, and devotion to duty.

This is a fine piece of work, and a pleasure to read.

Many of us are familiar at this point with what is known as fanfiction, a largely internet-based genre in which writers of every level of ability apply their skills to worlds and characters created by others. At worst, they offer amateurs a chance to allow their imaginations to play in fields plowed by more skilled craftsmen. At best, they create a fractal lens to the original work, expanding the reader's understanding of the original book and its themes, turning the perspective offered by the original author inside-out and upside-down.

Of late, this genre has gone mainstream. Gregory Maguire's Wicked recast the Wicked Witch of the West as the protagonist of Frank Baum's Oz books. Margaret Atwood's Penelopiad tells of the hardships suffered by Odysseus' abandoned queen.

In Lavinia, master fantasist Ursula K. Le Guin takes a minor character who appears late the Aeneiad--Aeneas' second (or perhaps third, but certainly last) wife, and tells a rich story around her, properly epic in scope and detail.

The book starts with a breath-taking descent into the point of view of Lavinia, princess of a minor Latin kingdom. She is a seer, and the subject of numerous prophecies--the most powerful and closely guarded imparted to her by the dying poet Virgil, who lived hundreds of years in Lavinia's future.

The narrative continually seems to loop back on itself, as Lavinia's knowledge as the point of view character looking back on the events about which she is telling, the knowledge imparted to her by Virgil, and the urgency of the crises through which she lived seem to cross and overlap.

As the book reaches its halfway point, several things begin to weigh it down: Lavinia's own passivity as a character, which is quite profound, and the author's desire to tell the story fully. The final chapters are rushed, whole decades sailing by in the space of paragraphs.

Nevertheless, this wonderful storyteller's ability to weave a fantastic tale out of the material of everyday life (even the everyday life of the Latium of some 2500 or 3000 years ago), and the compelling philosophical questions that Le Guin raises and Lavinia considers--together they make this a worthwhile and original glimpse into Virgil's world.

Anyone who knows Virgil's The Aeneid will either love or hate Le Guin's retelling of the life of Lavinia as it intersects Aeneas's story. Le Guin, as always presents a tale replete with layers of conflict and underlying social commentary. Some of the most obvious is the masculine and feminine roles, the duties of a ruler to her/his people, the view of women as property and powerless, the tragedies of war, and, oddly, the inner conflict of homosexuals in a heterosexually dominated culture. Whether these elements will be endearing to lovers of Virgil's story, or if this will be seen as a good edition to the overall telling of Aeneas's tale is left to be seen.

However, for those not caught up in this as an extension of Virgil, the story actually has legs of its own. Many reviewers have said that it's not one of Le Guin's best, but I beg to differ. The same was said about C.S. Lewis's retelling of the myth of Cupid and Psyche in Til We Have Faces, although Lewis is quoted as having considered it his greatest work, and I feel much the same way about this novel. It takes a lot of work and effort to get the history correct, and not only that, but Le Guin spends great lengths describing everything about the culture and time period--clothes, food, rituals, architecture, gender interplay, landscape, and much more--so that the reader can imagine every last detail of each scene. The early Latin culture becomes illuminated so that the story itself can live in an accurately detailed world.

My guess is that since there is no magic in this story, outside of some prophesies and allusions to the intervention of the gods, people who love Le Guin's usual writing couldn't quite get into this one. However, I believe that it will stand the test of time as one of her greatest works, and hopefully it will be seen as an addition to Virgil's great epic. Le Guin herself reveals her love for The Aeneid in the afterword, pining after the days when people were still taught Latin as part of their education, so that they could be enriched by the words of Virgil. She insists that people will not be able to understand the full beauty and magnitude of the work unless they read it in the original Latin.

-Lindsey Miller, [...].

In breathing life into Lavinia, a character Vergil hardly mentioned in the Aeneid, Le Guin has captured old Rome before it was Rome, old ways of the hearth, old gods of the earth, an old language fallen into dust, and has brought them all together into a powerful and poetic novel.

If you seek the pomp and sound-bite world of today's world, today's Rome, and today's gods you may see this novel variously as flat, dull, and boring. What a pity. It is, I think, Le Guin's best novel and, by far, the best book I've read this year.

Lavinia is not only a love offering to Vergil, as the author says, but an incredible treasure in its own right. Le Guin's understated prose, perfectly in tune with the times and the world she imagines, is a wonderful whisper of out of holy springs of the natural Earth.

At what is undeniably the height of her writing prowess, Ursula K. Le Guin brings us a novel of incredible richness and depth. As example I offer this: It is the only book I have read that contains a self-aware character. Lavinia sees herself as a character, brought into being by Virgil's poem and given immortality by her scant share of it. "I am contingent," she tells us early on, perhaps meaning that her being is dependent upon Virgil who will be born many centuries in her future.

What emerges under Le Guin's careful stewardship of this fragile being, brought into existence by a passing remark of a poet, is a rich landscape of simple country life. Along with Lavinia we experience the joys and comfort of simple rituals, offerings to household gods and the spinning of wool. We witness the arrival of a great hero as foretold by ancient oracles. As treaties are made and broken we endure the horror of war and then watch with pondering inevitability as the happiness of marriage swiftly becomes the tragedy of a widow and the squandering of a husband's dream.

We are redeemed in the end by Lavinia's immortality and by, again, the inevitability of history. Rome is founded. Virgil writes his epic. Lavinia is given life.

With her skill, Le Guin does more than expand upon the immortal life that Virgil granted to Lavinia, she draws us into that life. Lavinia speaks to us across the centuries, but through Le Guin's work, we also wander the wooded hills of ancient Latinum.

There is depth to this work that I think I will only discover upon re-reading it. And then there are depths that I think I will only discover after re-reading the Aenied. And there are still more depths that are hinted at, glimmers in the darkness, that I may never guess at unless I were to learn more Latin and read the Aeneid in Virgil's own language. That is why I call this novel "masterpiece." If I do not see its like again I will be satisfied to know that some measure of it will go on, as Lavinia has.

I have enjoyed LeGuin since I was 14 and read "Wizard of Earthsea". She has always been able to write the most splendidly imaginative science fiction ("Left Hand of Darkness") or fantasy- that always ends up being about the mysteries of the human heart instead of the time and place that she has invented.

She has never lost this ability, and it shines in "Lavinia". But I think I have enjoyed this one in a special way, because of the literary added value she gets from the ghost of dying Virgil, and Lavinia being both a real person and a literary construct in the story. This is very memorable and rewarding stuff, haunting really. Bottom line, LeGuin is not just someone who can craft sf, fantasy, or historical fiction with equal flair. She brings poetry to prose with her wonderful judgment of the perfect scene, the perfect word. I cannot imagine doing this at age 78, and reading the Aeneid in Latin just to do a better job. She is unbelievable. I kneel before her.

I love all of Ursula K LeGuin's books. Her style of writing is subtle, but has great presence. I'll admit, it wasn't my favorite LeGuin novel (still looove the Earthsea books), and some parts of this dragged, especially since there were so many names to remember, but I'm still giving it 5 stars. Just reading her afterword made me want to learn Latin and read the Aeneid in its original language. I've read bits of it for school, but never the whole thing. I'm very interested in mythic, ancient peoples, and I love the story she told from this epic poem. I liked her characterizations of Aeneus and Lavinia--some say the characters didn't have enough passion or substance, but I think you have to take Le Guin's writing style into consideration. Her characters are usually rather understated and the way she describes them is not like other writers. That's why I love her unique style. Great book! You should read it if you have any interest in ancient Rome or Latin, or just a good, otherworldly story told with depth and grace.

I like Ursula Le Guin's writing style, but have often found it difficult to get into her plots or to like her characters. In retelling The Aeneid, Le Guin takes likable characters and expands upon their stories beautifully. She captures the place, time, culture, and beliefs of the people with lovely descriptions and warmth. She fleshes out incidents that Virgil recounted in brief, and trims down his gory descriptions of battle (although these are still present).

While fantastical, this book is also interesting for historical reasons, and those who enjoyed Virgil's Aeneid should enjoy the honor paid him throughout the book. (I loved his several appearances.) Even those who haven't read the Aeneid should resonate to Lavinia and Aeneas, two strong and likable characters who are so well suited to each other.

By turns lambent and stark, no-nonsense and achingly lyrical, Le Guin's Lavinia is a finely-crafted gem of a novel. Neither historical fiction nor fantasy, it occupies the fascinating intersection of the imaginary (numinous landscapes and time-traveling ghosts), the literary (characters and events drawn from Vergil's Aeneid), and the real (a plausible, semi-historical Italian bronze-age agricultural society).

All this sounds very tricksy and post-modern, but the feel of the novel is spare, simple, and deeply-felt, like all of Le Guin's best work. Familiarity with the Aeneid undoubtedly adds to the reader's experience, but the device of having Vergil appear in the novel to retell segments of his epic makes this optional rather than necessary. (In a few short passages, Le Guin does a wonderful job of conveying the characteristic mix of beauty, brutality, and psychological acuity that makes Vergil's story-telling so compelling.)

Rescuing Lavinia from literary obscurity and providing her with the voice (and personality) Vergil omitted turns out to provide Le Guin with a perfect outlet for her novelistic gifts. She has always been adept at creating alternative societies that incorporate magical elements, and here she does an incredible job of making one small corner of bronze-age Italy come numinously alive. With effortless skill, she summons up a simple, pious religious culture centered around omens and the ritual of sacrifice, with a rich round of household and agricultural activities and well-drawn social institutions. Wisely, she jettisons the Olympian pantheon that Vergil manipulated so dazzlingly and to such ambiguous effect in the Aeneid and makes the Italian worldview a homelier one tied to the land.

But what makes this novel so impressive is how fully and affectingly the character of Lavinia is drawn, and how convincingly she inhabits the fascinating socio-cultural matrix Le Guin has created. Le Guin resists the temptation to cast Lavinia either as an unsung feminist hero or a tragic victim of historical forces or male oppression. Instead, we see her grow from a vulnerable girl into a confident queen and force to be reckoned with, but she never loses her humility, chooses her battles carefully, and is always willing to work from the sidelines when confrontation will achieve nothing or endanger critical, cherished goals. She is attuned both to the will of the local deities and the welfare of her people, essentially living a life of service. (She is thus the perfect female counterpart to "pious" Aeneas.) Despite her devotion to duty, however, she is a fully-rounded character who both suffers terribly and achieves moments of intense personal happiness. There is a beautiful sense of balance in this book between the personal and the collective, the quotidian and the sacred, the fixed anchor of the lived moment and the grand sweep of history.

Within the world of the story, Lavinia sees herself as marginal, "contingent," but Le Guin gives readers plenty of material for an alternative assessment. This is one of those rare books (like Willa Cather's Shadows on the Rock) that quietly but powerfully turns our priorities upside down and reveals the centrality of the "marginal" and the vital importance of the historically "contingent." Nuanced, assured, and deeply humane, this is Le Guin's best book yet.

Just as Virgil did when he wrote the Aeneid, in _Lavinia_ Ursula K. Le Guin breathes new life into a minor character from a previous work. In the _Aeneid_, Aeneas, a relatively minor character in Homer's work, is given story space, while in Lavinia, a character who is voiceless in the original story in which she appears is granted a voice and agency of her own. Le Guin's work expands what was only a few lines in the _Aeneid_ to an entire novel full of rich speculative fiction, praise for poetry, and feminist philosophy. Creatively framed and beautifully voiced through the perspective of Lavinia herself in convincing prose, Lavinia is a must-read for anyone interested in a reimagining of the Classics, the power of imagination and poetry, or gender issues and feminism--but it is an excellent read regardless of one's thematic interests. Overall, LeGuin's novel is excellent due to its complex treatment of the issues facing women and how men deal with these issues, its beautifully and convincingly voiced prose, and its adept portrayal of an ancient time period of which most modern readers have little knowledge. The most brilliant thing about Lavinia, perhaps, is that even a reader with little or no knowledge of Virgil, ancient society, or epic poetry can enjoy and learn much about the value of feminism and poetry from reading the novel. _Lavinia_ is an excellent representation of the power of literature, the beauty of poetry, and the struggles of women, retold entirely from the perspective of a previously voiceless character. _Lavinia_ not only refreshes the Classics and makes substantive claims about literature and feminism, but it reads like a poem, fluid and beautiful.

This lovely book touches upon a character barely describe in the Aeneid. LeGuin brings Lavinia and pre-Roman Italy alive, giving her depth and a life beyond those spare words of Virgil. Once again LeGuin's careful research yields a richly detailed story, taking us into the rituals, both large and small, of long-gone people. She brings to life the daily activities as well as a richness of the mythology and poetry the subjects are drawn from. This is an entirely enjoyable read!

Two things I appreciated about Lavinia beyond the exceptional skill with words and characterization that I have come to expect from Ursula Le Guin:

1. I enjoyed her keen perspective on the Aeneid. I read the epics of Homer and Virgil back in college and so the conversations in this novel between Virgil and Lavinia made me laugh uproariously yet at the same time had a lot of depth. Lavinia has a perspective on the events in these stories that is all her own.

2. This book brought early Roman culture and religion to life for me. Before reading this novel, I hadn't considered looking into early Roman culture, but now I might just check up on some of the histories Le Guin mentions in her acknowledgements.

To appreciate this novel more, I would have liked to reread the Aeneid first, but it was worth the read anyway and I think it'd be fun even if I hadn't read Virgil.

Since this is a reworking of the "Aeneid" by Virgil, which I love and have read twice (see my review), of course I had to read this, and before I did, I reread the last six chapters of that epic, and kept referring to Dryden's translation, many, many times. Until LeGuin left the "Aeneid", I thought the book delicious, with a marvelous, spare writing style. But when she made up the character of Ascanius, Aeneas' son, as so weak, and self-serving, and utterly unheroic, we parted company. Lavinia, being the woman the war in Italy was fought over, is barely mentioned in passing by Virgil. Aeneas would simply not have had a son like Ascanius.

I hate buying books on the web. You can't flip through them to get a feel for what the story will be. So, not to knock Ursula K. Le Guin's work, but the story was soooooo not what I was looking to read. Instead of a historical novel about one woman's life, or a fantasy based on Italian history, this is an ode to the Aenid, an epic poem by Vergil, and retells part of Aeneas' life through the voice of Lavinia. If you like ancient Latin, war stories, poets and gods this book will be for you.

The plot is energetic with evidence of sound historical/classical research, vivid settings of pre-ancient times, and an intimate, original first person voice of the young, troubled, rustic princess with a bent for mysticism. The scene in which she and a servant friend hiding in the brush spy on the Trojan ship entering the mouth of a river and see mighty Aeneus himself heighten Livinea's character revealing her terror and attraction. Her conversations with the poet Virgil were my favorite parts - a fresh twist on meta-fiction. The ending surprised me, and I'm not sure I understand it. One doesn't have to know the Aenied to enjoy this work. Le Guin once again seduces her readers.

Le Guin proves her literary prowess once again in this brilliant rethinking of Virgil's classic The Aeneid. With a beautiful simplicity of prose, Le Guin recreates the world of Lavinia, destined mother of the Roman Empire, and gives voice to a character who lacked a single line of speech. This book is gorgeous, and I could not read it fast enough.

Rediscovered Le Guin with Lavinia. I read in Kindle and now I have to buy the paper copy just to have it with me all the time. A gem in so many levels! This book restores faith in humanity, the collective intellect and imagination. I'm grateful to have read it.

Other than Odds Bodkin's entertainingly abridged and bardic retelling of Homer's Odyssey, I've never much cared for the excessive machismo of such ancient teales. Vergil's Aeneas is balanced by Lavinia, a minor character transformed into a sublime heroine, as only Le Guin can do. Some battle gore inevitably remains, but always couched within the larger human enterprise of raising a child, directing a household, and, when necessary, countering aggression with compassion.

I've read plenty of historical fiction, and this book pales in comparison to many others. It's hard to describe, but it's almost like you're listening to someone tell you about their vacation: We arrived at the hotel. Then we did some sightseeing, then we had dinner at a restaurant. No emotion, interesting details or suspense. No beginning, middle and end. I didn't develop a relationship with the characters. It seems like she wrote it from an outline, not from inspiration.

I'm not unfamiliar with historical speech, and I've never heard such tidbits as "The King says please to wait until you are sent for". I can't find the other (worse) quotes. I wouldn't bother with this one.

I loved this book. I am a big fan of Le Guin's Earthsea Cycle, and I found Lavinia to be as pleasing to read with lots of farmland imagery, simple life-lesson one liners, and of course intense womanly world knowledge.

It is the kind of book you do not want to put down for fear of returning to the modern world. Excellent, heart wrenching, beautiful, sensual.

I loved this book. I am a big fan of Le Guin's Earthsea Cycle, and I found Lavinia to be as pleasing to read with lots of farmland imagery, simple life-lesson one liners, and of course intense womanly world knowledge.

It is the kind of book you do not want to put down for fear of returning to the modern world. Excellent, heart wrenching, beautiful, sensual.

Was fun to read while we were in italy and visiting the Campi Flegeri where Virgil got a lot of his inspiration for the setting of some the scenes in the Aeneid. I think that its great at the Le Guin is interested in getting modern audiences to engage with the Aeneid b/c it has been shoved aside as a classic work in recent decades. But, over all unless you love the Aenied, skip the book.

I loved this book for its wisdom and its tenderness and for the spare, elegant richness of its language. Stories have been pouring out of Le Guin these last few years, as if the ripeness of her words must be shared. We are so grateful.

I ordered a new paperback copy of "Lavinia" by Ursula Le Guin to be shipped as a gift in a box being sent to someone overseas. I received not only a different edition from the one pictured on the the store site, but a USED copy instead of a new one.

I placed my order with the store.com, NOT with an the store seller. This ordered was from the store LLC.

There was a black marker streak across all the pages at the top of the book. The bottom corner of the book was chewed up. The pages were yellowed and dusty.

I had no time to order a new copy before my package had to be mailed in order to arrive to the person in time. So I sent the USED book. I am very displeased.

I think the store is going way down in quality. Recently, I ordered a DVD player from the store, again as a gift for someone. It was sent to me without any packaging, like it was just pulled off a storage shelf and slapped with an address label on the carton and thrown in the mail. THERE was NO packaging, not any cushioning, not even an outer box.

I have been a long-time the store customer. Now two gifts in a row that I have ordered have left me very unsatisfied.

the store is claiming to sell "new" books and sending out used and tattered ones. This is deceptive. the store is not even bothering to put delicate electronics in a box before shipping.

The one-star rating above goes to the store, not to the work of literature. Ursula Le Guin is a fastastic writer, and "Lavinia" is a masterpiece. Unfortunately my loved one overseas with receive a cheap and tattered copy, rather than the lovely, new paperback I ordered and paid for.

I had great hopes for this book -- it's not often Le Guin publishes, and it's always an event. But although it is (of course) beautifully written, I found it boring to read, especially the middle section, and I found I was skipping over the pages because I wanted something to happen. As beautiful prose, this book is a success, but as a story, it sags under the weight of all the dreams and oracles.
Once Aeneas and Lavinia marry, the story picks up and carries all the way to the end. But by then you are 2/3 of the way through the book.