Customer Reviews

Kristin Lavransdatter: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)

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I read this as a book-club selection, and I'm so glad I did. Under different circumstances, I might have avoided the title, because of its size and the seemingly dry first page (it starts with a lineage and a history of the family's geographical locations).

Well. Thank heavens for book clubs. Because this is a book I will read again, and I rank it right up there with Marquez's Hundred Years of Solitude.

Undset follows the life of one woman, Kristin Lavransdatter, from childhood to death. The handling of the various season's of Kristin's life are pure genius. Undset captures the qualities of each stage, without being trite or predictable. I think this is why I often felt as if I were inside the mind and heart of Kristin, even though our surface circumstances are wildly different.

Here's an example of a scene that absolutely made me weep, because I could relate to that fearful time of life when one looks at one's parents and realizes they won't always be here. The poignant moment takes place in a "hollow between small hills," as Kristin departs from her father.

"Kristin...ran her fingers over his clothing and his hand and his saddle, and along the neck and flank of his horse; she pressed her head here and there..." (p.544)

The desperation, the sense of wanting to touch and touch again that which is about to slip through one's fingers... how beautifully Undset captures that.

And, how beautifully she also captures so many other moments--of passion and betrayal, of forgiveness and unforgiveness, of acceptance and denial, of longing and loss.

I wish I had a few weeks to hide away in my room... I would pick this up again without pause. Nevertheless, the characters are still with me, calling me to a reflection and deep feeling I haven't experienced in quite some time.

Kristin Lavransdatter is the biggest literary surprise that ever engulfed me, as I read its 1,168 pages in three weeks on the subway, airplanes, theater auditoriums, nature trails, and anywhere else I could sneak in a few pages, the better to channel my way into Kristin's compelling, meticulously created and true-to-life world.

This story starts slowly, like a locomotive, but by the end it builds a staggering, devastating momentum that still swirls in my mind, months after finishing the novel for the second time.

If you like treason, torture, betrayal, drunken assaults, bar fights, sword fights, political intrigue, charging bears, brothels, plague, poison, suicide, damsels in distress, black magic, and human sacrifice, you'll find it in these pages.

And if you like stories of spiritual quests, coming of age and reflections from age, the bonds between fathers and daughters, and of mothers and sons, platonic love, unrequited love, doomed love, the joys of children, the inextinguishable anguish of burying children, the circle of life that never stops turning, and the most tender, heartbreaking passages I've ever read of the love between a mother and her child, you'll find even more of it in Kristin's life story.

And to all the smug reviewers who chastise Kristin and wish they could have just slapped some sense into her, I say this: can you really imagine that Kristin could have led her life any other way? My answer is this:

"All that happened and would happen was meant to be. Everything happens as it is meant to be." (p. 289, "The Cross")

Kristin is not a saint, but neither is she a cautionary tale. As long as we humans can love and live, we will love well, love madly and sometimes love foolishly, and we'll tell stories about it. And this story of Kristin is for me the truest love story ever told, and I will never forget her.

"Kristin Lavrandatter", Sigrid Undset's Nobel-prize winning trilogy from the 1920s, doesn't appear on any college reading list that I have ever seen, despite its beauty, depth of observations about love, marriage, and family psychology, tour de force representation of life in medieval Norway, and the critical praise heaped upon it. It's length (1,000 pages plus in most translations) is probably one factor, and, some might say, another factor was the "medievalist" style of archaic English used in the Charles Archer translation that until recently was the one available. A very recent translation by Tina Nunnally is done in more modern, colloquial English. I should state here that I am probably in a minority in adoring the Archer translation - I did not, as others report below, find the language a chore at all: on the contrary, I found it enhanced the feel of having stepped into the past. I found the newer translation to be less satisfying, stylistically. Unless one speaks fluent Norwegian and can read the original without the veil of translation between reader and author, the matter is somewhat moot. So far as I could tell, Nunnally did not offer anything in her modernist translation that was substantially different from the story and characters presented in the Archer translation.

This great epic of Undset's is divided into three books: The Wreath, The Mistress of Husaby, and The Cross. Set in the 1300s, in feudal Norway, the novel's central character is Kristin Lavransdatter (literally, "daughter of Lavrans"), the eldest child of well-to-do, upright, respected, landowners. Pretty, intelligent, sheltered yet strong-willed, and the light of her deeply religious father's life, the novel opens during Kristin's childhood and ends with her death in old age. In the many pages between, Undset observes a life teeming with conflict, religious struggle, sexual awakening, marriage, and motherhood. And, through these stages of Kristin's life, Undset opens a window onto life in medieval Norway, of the powerful role of the church in everyday life, the restricted roles of women, the custom of arranged marriages, child-rearing, farming, and politics (Norway's monarchy had passed to Sweden at the time).

Undset's achievement at weaving together this enormous tapestry, of presenting so many characters, in addition to Kristin, with all their varied human foibles, is monumental. You will feel as if you have stepped into an alternative, yet quite real universe. Whether you read and prefer the newer translation or (as this reviewer does) the older translation, Undset's knowledge of the poignant, and apparently eternal, realities of relationship and family life should be equally rewarding. Undset had a strong interest in family psychology, women's issues, and was a convert to Catholicism - these interests, together with the painstaking research she undertook, combine to give us this living, breathing picture of life in the Middle Ages.

Book I, The Wreath (the title refers to the golden wreath of maidenhood worn by young girls before marriage) covers Kristin's life from childhood to her wedding; Book II, The Mistress of Husaby, covers Kristin's life from her marriage to her widowhood; Book III, The Cross, covers her life from the death of her husband through her death.

The central conflict of the novel is Kristin's marriage to Erlend Nikulauson. Erlend, although of a noble family and even more well-born than Kristin, has lived in adultery with another man's wife and has two children with her. After Kristin falls in love with Erlend and refuses to marry Simon Darre, the good man that her father has selected for her husband, and who has fallen deeply in love with her despite the arranged character of the marriage, the relationship between Kristin and her father undergoes tremendous strain. A series of tragic circumstances weakens Lavrans's resolve never to wed his daughter to an adulterer, and at last Kristin and Erlend are married, concluding the first book.

Husaby is Erlend's great estate, thus, Book II, The Mistress of Husaby, takes us through Kristin's married life, the complexities of her relationship with her husband, and years of childbearing. Erlend, at heart an adventurer who prefers the open sea to caring for his lands, flocks, and household, chafes under married life and exhibits an undisciplined, weak character except in matters of warfare. Kristin finds she must provide the strengths that he lacks at home and resents Erlend for it. Simon, meanwhile, eventually marries Kristin's youngest sister, although he never ceases to love Kristin, which opens up a breach between the two sisters.

Erlend also becomes embroiled in a failed political coup that eventually deprives him of his lands, forcing him and Kristin and their sons to return to Jorundgaard, Kristin's childhood estate, which is now hers by right after her father's death. Thus, the last book, The Cross, takes us through the hardest years of Kristin's life, with an embittered husband who is killed in a dispute not long after the return to Jorundgaard. Kristin's years as a widow, providing hard-won wisdom and comfort to her brood of headstrong sons, and the spiritual peace she finds at last after her tumultuous life, make up the final section of the book.

Throughout all three books, the role of Catholicism plays a very strong role not only in daily life, but in the psyches particularly of Kristin and her father and mother. The struggle to accommodate the high standards of Christian practice and goodness that conflict with human feelings and weaknesses is a connecting theme in the work, as is the immutable nature of character. One cannot help wondering as one reads what would have happened had Kristin done her father's bidding and married Simon, much the stronger and more sensible man, and one who loves Kristin in his way as much as Erlend does. And yet, Undset makes it clear that the love between Kristin and Erlend, despite all the trials it endures, is one that neither could have lived without.

I cannot recommend this unique and brilliant work highly enough. It will stay with you for the rest of your life.

This book takes a long time to read, it is three novels in one volume, but it is wonderful. History, politics,religon and romance combined. I loved it, as did my 26 year old son and 28 year old daughter. We read it for a family book club and can't wait to discuss it.

Surprised at the vibrancy of Undset's narration, I had trouble putting the volume of "Kristin Lavransdatter" down. I read it in two weeks. From moment to moment in the text, the plot-tension was forward leaning and consistently fresh. I'm left with the impression that many modern novels are quite dull next to what Unset achieved in her intricate story telling.

For those who have trouble understanding some of the conflicts in the text, it must be understood that in Kristin's culture, a formal engagement was very serious. In breaking her formal engagement to have an affair and be impregnated by Erland was one of the most dishonorable things she could have done. She was, in that act, not only offending Simon, but bringing a bad name to her father Lavrans.

That sin becomes the plot's datum, its consequences are seen throughout, even in leading up to it. It is only at the end of her life that she redeems herself with a self-giving that's quite saintly.

Be prepared to make a commitment to "Kristen Lavransdatter," but if you do you'll be amply rewarded. I call this book the masterpiece of the 20c. that no one's ever heard of. Yet this vividly imagined story of life in the first half of the 14th c. deserves to be widely read, especially as new life has been breathed into it with the Tiina Nunnelly translation.

Kristen Lavransdatter is the lovely daughter of a Norwegian nobleman and landowner, who foolishly falls in love with the dashing Erlend Nikulausson and starts down a long road of passion, love, heartbreak and pain. She and Erlend break the rules of church and society, and come to realize that their marriage is not enough to erase their sin--at least given the people they are. They are larger than life people, heroic and heartless, passionate and proud, stubborn, devout and selfish. In other words, very human. It's rare to read historical fiction where the characters take the front seat, but that's what happens here. At the same time the re-creation of life in Norway in the 14th c. is rich and authentic--the rigors of winter, the constant threat of lean times, the overwhelming presence of the Church, and the traces of myth and superstition.

The society and politics of the time are meticulously portrayed, and there's much to admire. Education is prized, as is individuality and freedom. There doesn't seem to be capital punishment except for the most heinous of crimes, such as treason; banishment and forfeiture of properties are most often the harshest punishments meted out. Women are subservient to fathers and husbands of course, but there seemed to be a lot of room for women to control wealth and land.

The Catholic Church is omnipresent in everyday life, and the characters struggle with the ideas of grace and forgiveness, sin and redemption, men as well as women. This was before the Protestant reformation, and it's clear that all must answer to religious as well as secular authority. In the crucial areas of marriage and separation, inheritance and legitimacy, the Church ruled supreme. Kristen is torn by guilt and sin as often as she struggles with other emotions. Kristen is a complex character, often immature, selfish and unloving, but at the same time capable of great sacrifice for others. Erlend her husband is foolish and rash and always the center of attention, and brings great grief to his family and kin, but he exhibits great courage in protecting his co-conspirators when the plot to overthrow the king is discovered. Other characters are similarly complex, from Kristin's parents to the loyal Simon Andresson, Kristen's bethrothed whom she rejects in favor of Erlend.

I read a few passages of the old English translation that dates back from the publication of this trilogy in the 1920's, and Nunnelly's version is obviously far superior. The Penguin classics edition with the complete trilogy is handsome and cleanly printed, a big consideration when attempting to read an 1100+ page book in paperback. I hope that someone, someday will attempt a table of characters, because I certainly needed one. Naming conventions of the time were different, certain names were in wide use, and everyone was related to everyone, which made the book slow going at times. But persevere--you'll find this book will give you much to contemplate.

No wonder the author won a Nobel Prize for this grand epic. I absolutely loved it! Yes, it was very long (over 1000 pages!) and yes it was slow sometimes and the characters were hard. But this book is a masterpiece!

I recommend it to people with patience, discriminating taste in literature, and muscles because this book is hard to schlep around with...

This is a beautiful edition of this classic, and inexpensive, too! It makes a nice gift, if you are looking to share the joys of Kristin Lavransdatter.

Here's a tip - have a paper and pencil and now and then make a drawing of family trees! It's Norway in the middle-ages where I imagine the population might have been maybe a few hundred thousand perhaps? Well, lineage is very important and half the plots wouldn't be plots if no one cared about family names and lineages. In some instances I really had to turn back pages to see who exactly was whose kinsman's child out of wedlock through which servant!

(EDITED TO ADD - I just checked wikipedia and there is a family tree there. Both, the fictional characters and historical ones. Damn. Wish I had a print out of this while reading the book!)

I read this trilogy of books years ago, when I was a young woman. Twenty-five years later, I want to read it again: I still remember it as one of the best novels I have ever read - perhaps even THE best. Every one over the age of 30 should read it. It will haunt you for the rest of your days.