Ursula K. Le Guin: Lavinia (2008)
When I found out we’d be reading books in this course, it came to my mind that I could finally read a Le Guin book in English. I’ve read several of her books in Finnish but surprisingly not a single one in the original language. So which book would I choose?
Ursula Kroeber Le Guin (born in 1929) published her first books in the 1960´s and became famous mainly for her fantasy and science-fiction novels, though she also has writen children´s books, poems, and essays. Especially in her science-fiction books, she creates completely new worlds and cultures with diverse people and nations. Even though I’m a huge fan of her fantasy novels (Eartsea, Annals of the Western Shore etc.), I decided to go with Lavinia.
Lavinia is sligthly diffirent from other books by Le Guin, for it is based on Greco-Roman mythology; Vergil´s epic poem Aeneid. The poem tells us the story of the birth of Rome and its founder, Aeneas.
Aeneid was written between 29 and 19BC, when Rome was dealing with major changes in social and political structures. Thus , the new emperor, Augustus Caesar, decided that it was time to re-introduce the traditional Roman values, which the Aeneid did, as it describes the heroic and loyal Aeneas fighting for the ”New Troy” in the west, as gods had informed him to do.
Aeneas was originally in Iliad and fought in the war of Troy: Vergil simply took this minor character and continued his story. Similarly to Odysseus, Aeneas flees from Troy and ends up sailing the Mediterranean searching for a place for the new capital. Years later he lands on the shore of Laurentum, where the story of Lavinia begins.
Just like Vergil, Le Guin takes a minor character and continues, or in Lavinia´s case, widens their story. In the Aeneid, Lavinia is hardly mentioned, but still Le Guin manages to create a whole life for her.
Lavinia (the princess of Laurentum) is quiet and modest person, as opposed to her counterpart in Iliad,the beautiful queen Helen of Troy. She loses both her brothers at a very young age, which traumatises her and her mother, Amata, who begins to despise her only surviving child. As her mother can’t stand looking at her more than a few moments, she turns to her father, who teaches her about politics and religious seremonies, despite that she can never inherit his crown.
Turnus, the first suitor of Lavinia, is the king of a neighbouring city. Lavinia can’t really say how she feels about him. In fact, she doesn’t have to make up her mind, because Aeneas kills him. Simple.
In spite off being the protagonist of the original story, Aeneas’s character is very, very shallow. The only things we actually know about him are told by Lavinia, he only seems to live inside of her. There is nothing to grasp, which is understandable, because a strong figure might have taken the spotlight away from Lavinia.
This could also represent their entire relationship: when they get married, she is half of his age (she’s 20 and Aeneas is about 40), so even if Lavinia does love her husband, her perspective might be a bit naive (I’m by no means implying that being twenty means that you’d be naive, but Lavinia is, for sure).
Le Guin also wrote Vergil in the story, as impossible as it may sound. He is almost done writing Aeneid, but gets seriously ill, and in his last moments he somehow finds Lavinia, and Lavinia finds him, although there is atleast a thousand-year gap between their lifetimes.
Well, Vergil does speak to Lavinia and tells her about her fate (marrying Aeneas, the mighty founder of Rome). They meet often before Vergil’s death, and then Aeneas already sails to the bay of Laurentum.
Vergil’s part in the novel is crucial. Even though the narrator is Lavinia, Le Guin makes it clear that Vergil is the writer. Because of this, the reader questions if Lavinia even exists. Maybe the whole book is about Vergil’s last thoughts as he clings to one of the least important characters in his unfinished story.
Le Guin’s text is always a bit tricky to read at first, even in Finnish. But after the first chapters reading becomes mostly automatic, apart from oldish vocabulary Le Guin seems to love (I checked about 15 words, which is about 3 times more than usually).
Lavinia is not a light novel. It’s sad, at some points. Lavinia has to bury not only her husband, but her child too. Amata commits suicide. Turnus is killed. All of this combined propably makes the book a bit too heavy for some readers, but Le Guin has never tried to write ”fluffy texts”. All of her books are filled with psycologial journeys inside of people, their beliefs, memories, and sexuality. And the beauty of life itself.
Wonderfully confusing and delicious, I’d recommend this to anyone who likes fantasy. Or Ursula Le Guin. Or books in general. You don’t have to know anything about Roman history to read Lavinia.
Like Aeneas is Lavinia’s imagination, and Lavinia is Vergil’s, and Vergil is Le Guin’s, perhaps the whole book is mine. Perhaps I wrote this without reading the book at all. Maybe the book doesn’t even exist. You got to go find it out.
