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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.

Lavinia

“…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.