Book: Lavinia by Ursula K. LeGuin
Genre: Historical Fiction-ish
Rating: B+
For: Book Club
Now here's one of those books that I would have never read if not for the book club. I'd never heard of it, and if I had heard of it, probably would have never picked it up. But I'm glad I read it. It was enjoyable for the most part. Some of it went a bit slow for me, or perhaps I should say, some of it went a bit over my head. But, yeah, it was worth the time.
It's based on The Aeneid by Virgil. I've never read that so I can't really compare, but I guess this girl, Lavinia, is barely mentioned in the original. However, the whole war is fought over her, similar to the situation with Helen and the Trojan War. So, this book is taking that character and giving her a voice, a personality, a story.
In this book, she is about to be married off to her mother's nephew (which makes that her cousin I suppose!) but she has just seen a sort of vision where her poet (Virgil himself) appears to her and tells her how her life will be played out. So she knows that when a foreigner comes (Aeneas) she is supposed to marry him! And so it goes from there.
Anyway, if you are at all familiar with the original poem than you'll probably love this one. And even if you aren't, but are interested in this ancient civilization time period, you'll love it too!
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