Lavinia
by Ursula K. Le Guin
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Book Summary Information
Author: Ursula K. Le GuinEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2009-04-10
ISBN: 0156033682
Number of pages: 288
Publisher: Mariner Books
Book Reviews of Lavinia
Book Review: Classic
Summary: 5 Stars
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.
Summary of Lavinia
From a masterful writer of myth and fantasy, a beautiful reimagining of one of the most pivotal characters in Virgil's Aeneid
As the story goes, Virgil?s hero fights to claim the king?s daughter, Lavinia, with whom he is destined to build an empire. Lavinia herself never speaks a word. Now, Ursula K. Le Guin gives Lavinia a voice in a novel that takes us to the half-wild world of ancient Italy. Lavinia grows up knowing nothing but peace and freedom until her suitors arrive. Her mother wants her to marry handsome, ambitious Turnus. But omens and prophecies spoken by the sacred springs say she must marry a foreigner, that she will be the cause of a bitter war, and that her husband will not live long. When a fleet of Trojan ships sails up the Tiber, Lavinia decides to take her destiny into her own hands and tells us the story of her life?and her life's greatest love.
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