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Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:
- Grab your current read
- Open to a random page
- Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
- BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
- Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!
Another Tuesday, another teaser. This time it comes from my current read ‘Lavinia’ by Ursule K. Le Guin.
“…the life he gave me in his poem, is so dull, except for the one moment when my hair catches fire – so colourless, except when my maiden cheeks blush like ivory stained with crimson dye – so conventional, 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.”
I had a bit of difficulty choosing my teaser this time, because Le Guin writes so beautifully! Every page holds a treasure. I really want to highlight the perspective of this novel and how Le Guin asks real, deeply intuitive questions about the spirit of poetry and how it can immortalise a moment of time, like a fly caught in amber, yet confine the players of those legends to very narrow, limited lives.
The afterlife gained by people such as Lavinia, Aeneas and the Helen of Troy is highlighted by Le Guin as one that may not be so glamorous or desirable. ‘Lavinia’ is a novel where Le Guin tries to tap into the obscure legend of a daughter of Italy and re-write her history the way she may have wanted, thus correcting Vergil’s oversight in the ‘Aeneid’.
Ok, history lesson aside, this is a great book and one I’m enjoying thoroughly! Can’t put it down. I highly recommend it.
I like your teaser. Those are such a beautiful sentences.
‘existing century after century’ << is he an immortal?
Lavinia is dead, but she lives on in the epic poem ‘Aeneid’ by Virgil. The story is based on the thought that Lavinia is not happy with the way the poet portrayed her. She doesn’t want to be remembered in that way. This is like her version of her story. It’s pretty good!
oh wow…that’s a really ggood theme. But I can’t imagine story like that to be in a long novel, is it a short story?
It’s 300 pages or so, it’s average. But it’s not a hard book, quite easy to read actually. It’s amazing how Le Guin has made a piece of poetry into a really detailed story!