Orion
May 2010
Orion
May 2009
Harcourt
April 2008
Mariner Books
April 2009
The Best Books of 2008
The Oregonian names Lavinia (“brilliant”) one of the Top 10 Northwest Books of 2008.
Cleveland Plain Dealer: “A time-traveling Virgil meets the young wife he tosses off in a few lines in The Aeneid, and gasps, ‘I thought you were a blonde.’ Le Guin’s wit and scholarship burnish this beautiful, rewarding and unjustly overlooked novel, for which she retooled her grasp of Latin. A believable immersion into an ancient world and the antique virtues of loyalty and grace.” — Karen Long, Book Editor, Sunday, December 14, 2008. [complete article]
Other Editions
Orion, May 2009
Trade paperback.
Audio download, audible.com, narrated By Alyssa Bresnahan. Unabridged.
Online Reading
Audiofile of UKL’s Lavinia reading at the Corvallis-Benton County Library MP3 [24Mb] 
Reviews
IO9
01/11/09
Lavinia “is one of the most eloquent, profound and moving novels I have ever read and it should have won every major literary award out there.” [complete review]
Jo Fletcher’s Picks
IO9
The Independent
9/08/09
“With this characteristically graceful retelling
of the final stages of Virgil’s Aeneid, one of the
master fabulists of our time crowns a great
career. A luminous novel that should appeal
across genres and generations.”
“The Hit List”
The Subtle Knife
1 August 2009
“...through the elusive voice that speaks here, shifting and uncoiling like a thread of smoke in still air, Le Guin addresses a wide range of issues — the use of power, the differences (as always!) between men and women, the meaning of war, cruelty and violence; and the nature of the creative and artistic process of storytelling and mythmaking itself.”
[complete review]
Times On Line
28 June 2009
(Excerpt)
“...ranging through historical, political and
spiritual arenas, across centuries, through dreams
and poems and geographical fact... This is a
work of passion, written with cool expertise: a
cracker.” [complete review]
— Lucy Atkins
“Summer reading: fiction roundup”
The Australian
5 July 2009
(Excerpt)
“Le Guin cleverly and playfully... asserts
Lavinia as a real
person in her own right, while at the same time
leaving her subject to her immutable role in The
Aeneid. The contrast is intriguing, and adds
a surprising and interesting depth to what
would in any event have been an exceedingly
well-told tale.”
— George Williams
“Expanding on Virgil”
The Telegraph
21 June 2009
(Excerpt)
“Her achievement is to complement the original
epic so distinctively, as if in a dialogue or
dance with the poet who inspired her.”
— John Garth
[complete review]
The Guardian
14 June 2009
(Excerpts)
She is a social novelist in the best sense of the term [...] her ultimate concern is with the real world. In this novel, Virgil’s imaginary Italy allows her a manipulatory freedom which a more realistic method would not. [complete review]
Tobias Hill
The Guardian
Times Literary Supplement
May 22, 2009
(Excerpts)
...Ursula Le Guin’s vivid novel gives Lavinia a voice, without any serious pretence that the experience of a princess of the Bronze Age can be recalled. ... The world she describes in tender detail is a pastoral utopia, sufficiently alien from modern values to catch the interest of an author who has always chosen to examine the workings of contemporary society by imagining something wholly different....
...The most haunting passages of the novel imagine Lavinia meeting the shade of Virgil at the sacred shrine of Albunea, where spirits communicate with the living. These encounters are necessarily perplexing, for Lavinia knows that she has no life outside Virgil’s poem.... Virgil is brought to acknowledge that he has not done justice to the self-possessed, dark young woman who stands before him: “I thought you were a blonde!” Here Le Guin makes her authority felt, insisting on a different kind of reality.... But this is not a matter of Le Guin affirming a superior understanding. Virgil’s dignity and stature are given their full weight, and a sense of his sadness suffuses the novel....
...Lavinia’s enduring vitality lies in her love for her flawed and courageous husband, who represents a society with ‘certain homely but delicate values, such as ... loyalty, modesty, and responsibility.’ Le Guin has her own modesty, and would not claim to have superseded Virgil’s achievement. Her novel ... is a moving testament to the conversations that great writers sustain through the centuries.
— Dinah Birch
Times Literary Supplement
May 22, 2009
“[A] subtly moving, playful, tactfully told story, a novel that brought me to tears more than once.”
— Charlotte Higgins
The Guardian, 23 May 2009
[complete review]
“...a perfectly balanced blend of feeling, metre and storytelling...”
— Guy Haley
Death Ray
[complete review]
[240Kb PDF]
 “...deserves to be ranked with Robert Graves’s I, Claudius.”
— —Publishers Weekly starred review
[complete review]
 “...a love offering to one of the
world’s great poets...”
—Library Journal starred review
 “Arguably her best novel...”
— Kirkus starred review
“Le Guin’s accumulated wisdom and clear-eyed awareness of political and gender issues are quietly folded into a dignified, courageous heroine — giving her a depth and warmth that makes this compelling reading.” Deirdre Baker reviews Lavinia for The Toronto Star. [complete review]
“Sing Muse, of the woman unsung:
Ursula Le Guin’s Lavinia is for both scholars and laymen.”
The Inkwell Review interviews UKL and reviews Lavinia.
“Ursula K. Le Guin, True Original” — Rick Simonson reports on UKL’s Lavinia reading at Elliott Bay Book Company in Seattle, for PW.
“...a highly readable, wise, contemporary novel....” Clay Evans reviews Lavinia for the Daily Camera, Boulder, CO
[offsite link]
“Lavinia is a magnificent book,
an intellectual, moral and emotional
achievement...” Cecelia Holland reviews Lavinia for Locus [complete review]
The Book Show, ABC Australia, interviews UKL. Transcript and audio. [Offsite link]
“Le Guin resists the urge
to pass
judgment, letting the story tell itself. Her narrator’s
empathy and
tolerance not only make her a compelling character. They
also illuminate
what is best in The Aeneid, offering us a fresh
perspective on our
leading epic of how the West was won.”
— Mike Fischer, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
[complete review]
“Lavinia has no feminist ax to grind, but immortality has
given her a lot
of time to think and she wants to set the record straight.”
— Susan Balée, Philadelphia Inquirer
[complete review]
“...devotees and new readers
alike have an
immensely important work — perhaps the masterwork of her
career — to
revel in.”
— Victoria A. Brownworth, Baltimore Sun.
[complete review]
“...the inspired novelist has turned back toward the past — or, to be precise, poetry and myth about the past, because Lavinia is a literary rather than a historical figure — and written one of the finest novels she has ever made....’”
— Alan Cheuse, Chicago Tribune.
[complete review]
“Le Guin recasts this story with primal vigor and spare but powerful language.”
— Barbara McMichael, The Olympian Online
[complete review]
“...ripe with that half-remembered virtue, wisdom...”
— Laura Miller, Salon.com.
[complete review]
“Ursula Le Guin’s delightful new novel...”
— Alan Cheuse for “All Things Considered”
[complete review — Text or audio]
“In simple, stately prose that does no violence to Vergil’s
work, Le Guin presents the rough, unpretentious dignity of
the ancient pagans.”
— Eve Ottenberg, The Washington Post.
[complete review]
“...an absorbing, reverent, magnificent story, one I will
be pressing upon my friends all year.”
— Karen Long, Cleveland Plain Dealer.
[complete review]
“Everywhere Le Guin catches the rhythms of the great epic, echoes them, riffs. In a way, this is a jazzy book, playing in odd syncopation with a massive canonical work.”
— LA Times Calendar Online
[more]
“Ursula K. Le Guin’s brilliant new novel...”
— Portland Oregonian
[more]
“...compulsively
readable... a winning combination of
history and mythology....”
— Booklist
[more]
“Ursula Le Guin Champions Vergil’s Neglected Heroine.”
— Yvonne Zipp, The Christian Science Monitor
[complete review]
“A Princess Seeking a Voice.”
— Cynthia Crossen; interview & review, The Wall Street Journal.
[complete article]
|
