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Binding: HardcoverDewey Decimal Number: 813.54 EAN: 9780151014248 Edition: 1 ISBN: 0151014248 Label: Harcourt Manufacturer: Harcourt Number Of Items: 1 Number Of Pages: 288 Publication Date: April 21, 2008 Publisher: Harcourt Studio: Harcourt Related Items:
Browse for similar items by category: Click to Display Editorial Review: Product Description: In a richly imagined, beautiful new novel, an acclaimed writer gives an epic heroine her voice 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. Lavinia is a book of passion and war, generous and austerely beautiful, from a writer working at the height of her powers. Average Rating:
 Rating:  - Beautiful prose!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. Rating:  - "And war and glory followed her"For Lavinia, the heroine of this novel, for a long time, love, or the possibility of it seems lost until she meets Aeneas, the handsome and virile Trojan hero, a foreigner from the other side of the world who sails up the Tiber into a country that will soon become Italy and whom Lavinia is eventually fated to marry. A fully independent spirit and a king's daughter, Lavinia is also a marriageable virgin, obedient and ready to a man's will. We first meet Lavinia living a charmed and ... Read More Rating: - A lyrical evocation of another timeI probably would have enjoyed this book had i ever read the Aeneid, but the author tells us enough of the story to fill in the blanks. Two reasons I enjoyed the book. First, the language is beautiful. Le Guin writes graceful, evocative prose. Second, the author has evoked a far distant culture with a respect for their beliefs and a careful attention to details of their lives. Lavinia, though definitely of her time and place, is at the same time a real and sympathetic figure. Rating: - The allure of an unfinished taleThere is a scene in Aeneid X where Juno pleads with Jupiter on behalf of her protégé Turnus who is doomed to die: "Change for the better the plans you have made for him - for you can do it!" (...et melius tua qui potes orsa reflectas). Only Jupiter can change a preordained fate. Other deities can delay, hinder or help, but the outcome cannot be changed. Jupiter can do it - but so can the poet. Vergil, who invented fates for all the characters in his epic, could have changed them at ... Read More Rating: - LaviniaThis is a wonderful adventure. A womans view of life, love, marriage and war. Ursula LeGuin give a voice to a character not previously heard from. 
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