A review by cryo_guy
Lavinia by Ursula K. Le Guin
5.0
"She's pious." By that word I meant responsible, faithful to duty, open to awe.
~
This book is extremely cool. If you've ever read the Aeneid or plan to, or read a summary or are interested in Roman mythology, this book is for you. Le Guin adds her personal flavor to a very well-researched, but not cumbersomely so take on the Aeneid. It's an excellent book and a much better modern novel/alternate take on mythology than anything you will find out there (I'm looking at you Miller, and that other guy whose name I can't even remember).
My only complaint is one Le Guin addresses in her afterward: "The Homeric use of quarrelsome deities to motivate, illuminate, and interfere with human choices and emotions doesn't work well in a novel, so the Greco-Roman gods, an intrinsic element of the poem, are no part of my story."
This is both fair and unfair. Fair because she admits they are an intrinsic element of the poem. Unfair for two reasons-
1. She should have said "modern" novel. The issue is that we moderns are too committed to our idea of free will and agency and so we don't understand it when our novels don't follow suit. Deny it all you like, it's the truth. But I think this is kind of what she means when she says novel. She should have stated it explicitly.
2. It can work well, you just didn't try hard enough. Who am I to say this esteemed and brilliant author didn't try hard enough? Nobody. But the answer is obvious enough. Modern authors need to write books that sell. And fortunately Le Guin can, and did with this, write books that are both good and accessible. That is not my point here. I don't know that anyone has tried to put the quarrelsome gods of Greco-Roman myth into a modern novel. I certainly haven't read such a book. But I do not think that it is impossible and I do not think that it cannot work. It would take some work (which is why I say she didn't try hard enough), but I believe that it can be done. However, the real reason that I feel the need to say this is not because I want to say Le Guin didn't try hard enough (I'm sure Iuppiter has his lightning aimed at my head right now, such is my hubris), it's that the quarrelsome gods are not separate from a robust picture of how the ancient Greeks and Romans lived, their culture and reality, their world. And so there it is. You can do a really good job without them; you can write a brilliant story that captures the essence of who they were and how they lived--I know, because Le Guin has done it with this very book!--but you'll never get all of it, if we can agree that nothing can be perfect, but that this reconstituted puzzle would never be the feasible-just-short-of-perfect that we might hold up as perfection. And I will say again, it would be no mean feat to immerse the modern reader in the duplicate agency of ancient minds. But not impossible, says this hubristic nobody.
So what else? Not only is it a lovely book in terms of replicating the fabricated world Vergil created in his poem, the cultures, the Greeks, the Romans, but it is also a very good modern novel (especially of the subgenre of alternate mythologies, etc.). I might offer one more minor complaint about the romance, but it is so fitting for the novel that what do I have to complain about? If I met the poet who created my world, I would probably fall in love with him too (or her). At least if it were Vergil, I would.
Lavinia is a really wonderful protagonist. The pacing is great. I lament poor Ascanius' fate, but it seems fitting. It all seemed very fitting.
I do believe this is a book I will keep on my shelf for a long time.
~
This book is extremely cool. If you've ever read the Aeneid or plan to, or read a summary or are interested in Roman mythology, this book is for you. Le Guin adds her personal flavor to a very well-researched, but not cumbersomely so take on the Aeneid. It's an excellent book and a much better modern novel/alternate take on mythology than anything you will find out there (I'm looking at you Miller, and that other guy whose name I can't even remember).
My only complaint is one Le Guin addresses in her afterward: "The Homeric use of quarrelsome deities to motivate, illuminate, and interfere with human choices and emotions doesn't work well in a novel, so the Greco-Roman gods, an intrinsic element of the poem, are no part of my story."
This is both fair and unfair. Fair because she admits they are an intrinsic element of the poem. Unfair for two reasons-
1. She should have said "modern" novel. The issue is that we moderns are too committed to our idea of free will and agency and so we don't understand it when our novels don't follow suit. Deny it all you like, it's the truth. But I think this is kind of what she means when she says novel. She should have stated it explicitly.
2. It can work well, you just didn't try hard enough. Who am I to say this esteemed and brilliant author didn't try hard enough? Nobody. But the answer is obvious enough. Modern authors need to write books that sell. And fortunately Le Guin can, and did with this, write books that are both good and accessible. That is not my point here. I don't know that anyone has tried to put the quarrelsome gods of Greco-Roman myth into a modern novel. I certainly haven't read such a book. But I do not think that it is impossible and I do not think that it cannot work. It would take some work (which is why I say she didn't try hard enough), but I believe that it can be done. However, the real reason that I feel the need to say this is not because I want to say Le Guin didn't try hard enough (I'm sure Iuppiter has his lightning aimed at my head right now, such is my hubris), it's that the quarrelsome gods are not separate from a robust picture of how the ancient Greeks and Romans lived, their culture and reality, their world. And so there it is. You can do a really good job without them; you can write a brilliant story that captures the essence of who they were and how they lived--I know, because Le Guin has done it with this very book!--but you'll never get all of it, if we can agree that nothing can be perfect, but that this reconstituted puzzle would never be the feasible-just-short-of-perfect that we might hold up as perfection. And I will say again, it would be no mean feat to immerse the modern reader in the duplicate agency of ancient minds. But not impossible, says this hubristic nobody.
So what else? Not only is it a lovely book in terms of replicating the fabricated world Vergil created in his poem, the cultures, the Greeks, the Romans, but it is also a very good modern novel (especially of the subgenre of alternate mythologies, etc.). I might offer one more minor complaint about the romance, but it is so fitting for the novel that what do I have to complain about? If I met the poet who created my world, I would probably fall in love with him too (or her). At least if it were Vergil, I would.
Lavinia is a really wonderful protagonist. The pacing is great. I lament poor Ascanius' fate, but it seems fitting. It all seemed very fitting.
I do believe this is a book I will keep on my shelf for a long time.