“Of arms and the man I sing,” begins Virgil’s Aeneid, though women are pivotal in his story of war and love. Upon one character, Lavinia, hinges the relationships between the Latins and the Trojans, and yet she has no lines at all in the poem and is tellingly described by Virgil as “ripe for marriage.” Ursula K. Le Guin attempts to correct this injustice by retelling the poem through Lavinia’s eyes.
Lavinia is an interesting novel in that, not only does Le Guin give voice to a previously voiceless character, that character is aware that she is a product of Virgil’s imagination. In the introductory pages, Lavina explains why she is sharing her story: “I can’t bear it any longer. If I must go on existing century after century, then once at least I must break out and speak. He didn’t let me say a word. He gave me a long life but a small one. . . My soul reaches out into the old forests of my Italy, up to the sunlit hills, up to the winds of the swan and the truth-speaking crow.” Virgil himself appears in the novel, interacting with Lavinia when she goes into a sacred forest to pray and look for portents of her future. Virgil acts as a sort of soothsayer–indeed, when he tells her he is a poet, she doesn’t know that word, so he explains he is a “vates.” “I knew that word, of course: foreteller, soothsayer.”
The concept is intriguing, and I enjoyed the interaction between Lavinia and Virgil. However, Virgil disappears about halfway through the novel, which then focuses on the conflict between the Romans and the Trojans and the part Lavinia plays in the resolution. The place of women in this society and their use as a “tool” for resolving conflicts is dominant through the novel. At one point, Lavinia observes, “To hear myself promised as part of a treaty, exchanged like a cup or a piece of clothing, might seem as deep an insult as could be offered to a human soul. But slaves and unmarried girls expect such insult, even those of us who have been allowed liberty enough to pretend we are free.”
When you pick up a novel by Le Guin, you can count on it being worthwhile. She was such a thoughtful, influential writer, that I don’t think she’s written anything that won’t enrich her reader to some extent. My only issue with Lavinia is–through no fault of Le Guin’s–I’m not much of a fan of Latin literature. I briefly considered reading the Aeneid before starting this novel, but I had to be honest with myself that it’s just not my thing. So while I found much of the writing to be beautiful and the construct interesting, I glossed over when it came to the conflict.
I moderately recommend this novel for fans of Le Guin, and highly recommend it for fans of Virgil. And if you’re a fan of both, you are likely in for quite a treat.