Kristin Lavransdatter: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition) [Paperback]

Sigrid Undset (Author), Tiina Nunnally (Editor, Translator), Brad Leithauser (Introduction)

Book Description

Release date: September 27, 2005

In her great historical epic Kristin Lavransdatter, set in fourteenth-century Norway, Nobel laureate Sigrid Undset tells the life story of one passionate and headstrong woman. Painting a richly detailed backdrop, Undset immerses readers in the day-to-day life, social conventions, and political and religious undercurrents of the period. Now in one volume, Tiina Nunnally’s award-winning definitive translation brings this remarkable work to life with clarity and lyrical beauty.

As a young girl, Kristin is deeply devoted to her father, a kind and courageous man. But when as a student in a convent school she meets the charming and impetuous Erlend Nikulaussøn, she defies her parents in pursuit of her own desires. Her saga continues through her marriage to Erlend, their tumultuous life together raising seven sons as Erlend seeks to strengthen his political influence, and finally their estrangement as the world around them tumbles into uncertainty.

With its captivating heroine and emotional potency, Kristin Lavransdatter is the masterwork of Norway’s most beloved author—one of the twentieth century’s most prodigious and engaged literary minds—and, in Nunnally’s exquisite translation, a story that continues to enthrall.

• A Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition with French flaps and rough front
• Includes a new introduction by Scandinavian literature expert Brad Leithauser especially commissioned for this edition

Editorial Reviews

Review

Tiina Nunnally has returned a masterpiece of Scandinavian literature to the English bookshelf -- PEN/Book-of-the-Month Club Translation Prize citation

From the Inside Flap

"The finest historical novel our 20th century has yet produced; indeed it dwarfs most of the fiction of any kind that Europe has produced in the last twenty years."

-- Contemporary Movements in European Literature, edited by William Rose and J. Isaacs

"As a novel it must be ranked with the greatest the world knows today." -- Montreal Star

"Sigrid Undset's trilogy embodies more of life, seen understandingly and seriously... than any novel since Dostoievsky's Brothers Karamazov. It is also very probably the noblest work of fiction ever to have been inspired by the Catholic art of life." -- Commonweal

"No other novelist, past or present, has bodied forth the medieval world with such richness and fullness of indisputable genius.... One of the finest minds in European literature."

-- New York Herald Tribune

"This trilogy is the first great story founded upon the normal events of a normal woman's existence. It is as great and as rich, as simple and as profound, as such a story should be."

-- Ruth Suckow in the Des Moines Register --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 1168 pages
• Publisher: Penguin Classics; Deluxe Edition edition (September 27, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0143039164
• ISBN-13: 978-0143039167
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.6 x 2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (93 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #30,844 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

135 of 142 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Pure Genius that Still Haunts Me September 22, 2006

By L.L. Barkat

Format:Paperback

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.

69 of 70 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Kristin, I can't stop thinking about you January 13, 2008

By Darryl B. Hopkins

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

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.

55 of 57 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Kristin Lavransdatter, for me, is the story of Everywoman. June 3, 1997

By A Customer

Format:Hardcover

The trilogy, Kristin Lavransdatter, tells the story of a Scandanavian woman who lived in the 1400s. The books--The Bridal Wreath, The Mistress of Husaby, and The Cross--were written by Sigrid Undset and won the 1928 Nobel Prize for Literature.

Before I commit to read a book, I have to want to read it. For many years, my younger brother told me I should read Kristin Lavransdatter. My reaction: What is so great about some lady living in the middle of nowhere in the 1400s? Maybe later...on to the bestseller list.

Oops! I had to eat my words and credit little brother with a great pick! Not to mention a total surprise!

This is probably the best set of books I have ever read in a lifelong love affair with the written word. The story chronicles the life of a woman from youth to death. In essence, however, the author touches on the lives of all women who have loved a man or men, borne and reared children, and faced the lighthearted concerns of youth, the cares of everyday adult existence, and, finally, the contemplations of elderly wives, widows, and grandmothers. Kristin's joys and trials are familiar...universal. First, she defies her parents. (Sound familiar?) She makes choices, then lives with the consequences of her choices.

Sometimes the names and terms are confusing; but, ultimately, the story is well worth the effort. Try it! And remember, men, my brother, whose reading tastes revolve around Asimov, engineering, and the Civil War, pushed these volumes rather forcefully into my purview.