Lavinia, Ursula K. Le Guin
Lavinia, Ursula K. Le Guin
1 Rating(s)
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Lavinia

Author: Ursula K. Le Guin

Narrator: Alyssa Bresnahan

Unabridged: 11 hr 40 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Recorded Books

Published: 09/26/2008


Synopsis

"A transporting novel told in the voice of a girl Virgil left in the margins. It is an absorbing, reverent, magnificent story” from the iconic, award-winning Ursula K. Le Guin (Cleveland Plain Dealer).

In The Aeneid, Vergil’s hero fights to claim the king’s daughter, Lavinia, with whom he is destined to found 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, when Rome was a muddy village near seven hills.

Lavinia grows up knowing nothing but peace and freedom, until suitors come. 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 so she tells us what Vergil did not: the story of her life, and of the love of her life.

About Ursula K. Le Guin

Ursula K. Le Guin (1929-2018) was an American author of novels, children's books, and short stories, mainly in the genres of fantasy and science fiction. She has also written poetry and essays. First published in the 1960s, her work has often depicted futuristic or imaginary alternative worlds in politics, the natural environment, gender, religion, sexuality, and ethnography.

Ursula has influenced such Booker Prize winners and other writers as Salman Rushdie and David Mitchell-and notable science fiction and fantasy writers including Neil Gaiman and Iain Banks. She has won the Hugo Award, Nebula Award, Locus Award, and World Fantasy Award, each more than once. In 2014, she was awarded the National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. She has resided in Portland, Oregon since 1959.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Magrat on January 28, 2019

RESEÑA: [URL not allowed] Otro libro de Le Guin que me FASCINA. Es cierto, quizás no sea tan original y rompedora como otras de sus novelas, pero Lavinia, en su intimismo y ternura logra ser también sorprendentemente insólita. En este libro asistimos a los acontecimientos de la E......more

Goodreads review by Charlotte on March 12, 2020

DNF at page 180 I’m sad, I thought I’d love this but there doesn’t seem to be anything different in here than is in The Aeneid. It’s just from Lavinia’s perspective but all the events are the same, and I’m bored 😑......more

Goodreads review by Sharon on July 28, 2008

It's interesting to contrast this with Margaret Atwood's Penelopiad. Both explore one of the Big Classics (The Aeneid in LeGuin's case, the Odyssey in Atwood's) from a female character's perspective. LeGuin and Atwood are both stellar writers, but I enjoyed Lavinia vastly more. LeGuin seems to have......more

Goodreads review by Rachel on June 11, 2008

I thought this book was boring. There, I said it. Even though it had passion, war, bloodshed, royal intrigue, suicide, I found it boring and it was difficult for me to convince myself to continue reading it. I am a classic history buff, which this novel has loads of, but it still couldn't grip my in......more

Goodreads review by Libby on July 08, 2008

Back when I studied Latin, we were given bits of Virgil's "Aeneid" to translate. I always found it to be a chore, as poetry is more challenging to translate than textbook translating exercises like "Roma est in Italia." Still, I thought I knew the piece sufficiently until hearing that Ursula Le Guin......more