Greek Mythology was one of my favourite elective courses in school. I find the stories of vying immortals and daring humans endlessly fascinating, not simply for the action-packed quests, but also for what their emblematic position implies about those who invented them and believed in them.
Myths in every culture are an attempt to explain what cannot be easily understood with the information and experience at hand. Without the science of vulcanology, an angry god with the power to spew molten rock out of the earth in a fit of rage is as good an explanation as any, and allows people to feel slightly more in control of natural events – as gods may be appeased. The myth-makers put reason into the world, and in doing so create very human drama and causes around natural phenomena.
Revisiting myths has always been a popular literary habit, and their influence is pervasive; although we’ve moved beyond the original religious purposes, anyone can appreciate the adventure and drama of the stories. One of the more intriguing projects in recent years has been The Myths series put out in this country by Knopf Canada, where popular contemporary authors retell classical stories. (Alexander McCall Smith takes on a Scottish legend, Jeanette Winterson looks at the myth of Atlas.) These modern versions of old tales serve as reminders of the strength of these narratives, that address and dramatize the most common and fundamental urges and conflicts that drive life.
Unlike modern gods, those of antiquity were quite human – their actions were driven by foibles like jealousy, anger, lust, or sometimes a simple, almost child-like destructive whim. And their influence was felt in daily life; a bad harvest or a healthy pregnancy was seen as a result of an almost personal relationship with the gods. Proper observances and sacrifices had to be made – things that we would now term useless superstition, but that must have given a liveliness to the most mundane task. Everything was noticed; details mattered.
In the course of reinventing an old story, writers build upon the common knowledge (presumed or actual) of their readers, drawing out a particular theme or element that has resonance in and relevance to the present. As in The Myths series, or in Marie Philips’ new book, Gods Behaving Badly, familiar figures are used to create a new perspective – whether it’s by transposing characters to the current day, as in Philips’ book, or by telling an old story from a different point of view, as Ursula K. Le Guin does in Lavinia.
Myths are heightened stories, and gods exaggerated versions of ourselves, showing what we might be capable of with greater power, immortality, or fewer scruples. While most now look to science to explain events over which we have no control, one may still look to ancient stories for an understanding of how people behave and why. My grasp of the natural world may be more comprehensive than that of a woman living in ancient Greece, but in essentials, she and I would be much the same.
Katherine Wootton is a writer, filmmaker, and bookseller.
Lavinia
By Ursula K. Le Guin
Harcourt
288 pages, $26.96
Alidë Kohlhaas
Of all the languages, I favour Latin for its beautiful sound and expressiveness. Hence, I can understand Ursula K. Le Guin's desire to read The Aeneid in Virgil's Latin, a feat she accomplished in her 70s. This inspired her to give both a voice and a full life to Lavinia, who appears as a mere whisper in The Aeneid's Book VI, then in Book VII, and twice in the final book: XII. Lavinia, the resulting novel, may in time be viewed as the almost 89- year-old Le Guin's finest. Its elegance of language alone lifts it above her other works.
Even if Virgil's work is unfamiliar, Lavinia will capture your imagination. If you know the epic poem, you may recall that she, like Helen of Troy, became the cause of war. Not that Lavinia had done anything to bring about this state of affairs; unlike Helen, she did not defy the gods or her father. She remained a dutiful daughter, or so we surmise from the little Virgil gave us.
Le Guin builds her story on what is the only moment in The Aeneid, that final time Lavina appears in this hymn to battles and heroes, that she is not just spoken of, but is allowed human emotions. Her ivory-coloured skin blushes; she has tears in her eyes as her mother, Amata, urges Turnus into hand-to-hand combat with the Trojan, Aeneas. When one reads Virgil, one senses Lavinia is in love, but the old Roman left in doubt whether her affections lie with Turnus or Aeneas.
Le Guin has opted for the latter, and picks up Lavinia's tale during her 19th year. Gathering salt at the mouth of the Tiber for a sacred meal, she spies ships that she senses carry her future husband. Omens and prophecies had warned her father, King Latinus, not to marry off his daughter to a suitor from the surrounding Italian kingdoms. The most ardent of these wooers is Turnus, who also happens to be Amata's favourite. Instead, Lavinia must marry a stranger to found Italy's most noble line, the future rulers of the Rome to come.
In this well researched, detailed, and evocative novel, it is Lavinia who tells us the story of her life as it draws to a close. However, this is not just Lavinia's story. In many ways, it is a story that carries us to the present, to places where women are still as voiceless as women were in ancient Greece or Rome, as voiceless as our own grandmothers were until the early 20th century.
Whether or not Le Guin intended this, her tribute to Virgil is a modern tale. Lavinia's story may be set in the eighth century BC, but it has modern echoes. Le Guin searches the depths of history and mythology, and reveals a world that is alien and familiar at the same time.
Alidë Kohlhaas is an arts writer, translator, and designer based in Milton, Ont.
