Lavinia (Жорж Санд).

Книга "Lavinia" - это исторический роман американской писательницы Урсулы Ле Гуин, опубликованный в 2008 году. Роман основан на легенде о Лавинии, жене Энея из "Энеиды" Вергилия, и рассказывает о ее жизни, которую она прожила в тени мужа-героя. Главная героиня, Лавиния, выступает в книге в роли повествователя, описывая свои мысли и чувства, а также свой взгляд на события, происходящие в ее жизни. Роман представляет собой исследование темы женской идентичности и роли женщин в древнеримском обществе. Книга получила положительные отзывы критиков и была номинирована на несколько литературных премий.

Впервые изданная как отдельный том в 1863 году, "Lavinia” presents Lavinia by a novelist hard to name. The work leans throughout on various features of Georges Sand's writing style – at the surface graceful sentences and complex, emblematic characters intertwined with deep psychology. The novel tells the story of a young woman, Lavinia Hirtzel, who, as a child, left her home in Maisons-Alfort to live with a Hungarian countess, Magdalena Grot. Lavinia first appears in a Paris bookshop where she starts an affair with Maurice Chastenet without remorse.

At the same time, Madame Grandlaugier, mother of Lavinia’s friend Augustine Grandlaugier arranges for Augustine to marry Maurrick, wealthy landowner and friend of Grandlaugier. When Lavinia becomes pregnant, madame Grandlaugiex leaves to tell Madam Grandlauginier of the situation while Lavinia gives birth to a daughter called Jeannette Madame Foreign. Lavinia subsequently renounces her Bolivian real estate and the little girl, but is induced to accept a job as governess to Jeannot and do some shopping for Madame de Douai. Later when Lavinia discovers Jeannot has died of smallpox while attempting to persuade Auguste to bring her home to Paris, she is confronted by the ambitions of Madam Grot, a man hoping to return her affections by resorting to bribery and deception (this presented rather cunningly through Lavinia's elaborate fantasy). However, the final stages of the novel are more hopeful because Lavinia embraces the side of honoring her former lovers — Augustine and Maurice — as well as plots a way out for herself by using Madam Grot's remaining deceptions to her favor.