Il ritratto di un mondo in cui coesistono religione e credenze popolari. Una donna che rivendica il diritto di scegliere assumendosi la responsabilità delle scelte fatte, dilaniata tra la fede nella propria volontà e il senso di colpa.

“A Dio non aveva mai chiesto se non di poter vivere secondo la propria volontà. Ed ora si trovava qui non perché avesse peccato e volesse riparare e scontare, ma perché ancora una volta, quasi al termine del suo cammino terreno, si preparava a prendere una grave decisione.”

Un libro denso, in cui la vita di Kristin e della sua famiglia si intreccia alle vicende storiche della Norvegia del 1300. La Undset mette a nudo i suoi personaggi, regalandoci pagine di profonda introspezione, di conflitti interiori difficilmente sanabili cui fanno da sfondo paesaggi mozzafiato, inverni rigidi, primavere rigogliose con una scrittura fluida e coinvolgente.

Epic trilogy of historical novels set in 14th century Norway. The narrative follows the life of Kristin Lavransdatter, the daughter of a wealthy farmer from Gudbrandsdal, in the form of a (often tragic) family saga. Unlike other stories set in medieval times, Undset’s writing does not romanticise but is realistic, providing an amazing insight into what life might have been like in 14th century Norway.

Sigrid Undset's epic trilogy of life in 14th Century Norway Kristin Lavransdatter which was responsible for her receiving the 1928 Nobel Prize for Literature is unquestionably a major work that has aged very well. Because, it is a profoundly bleak and depressing work which ends with the heroine dying of the Black Plague, I am thus not quite sure who would actually enjoy it but most literature lovers will unquestionably be impressed by the quality of Undset's writing and thinking.
The first thing that strikes the reader is how accurately Unset recreates the middle ages. There is not an iota of fantasy or romance in this work. Relative to the members of North Americas Middle Classes, the Nobles live in a life of abysmal poverty. The peasants are absolutely wretched. Most children die in infancy. By the time one reaches 50, death is already approaching. There is no golf or skiing in this world; the only leisure activity is consuming alcohol. Most people spend their entire lives within a 200 kilometre radius of their birth place. Only those who are recruited to serve on war or trading ships will ever travel further. Books are available only in Latin. Only a small percentage of the nobles and an even smaller percentage of the noblewomen will learn how to read. For fiction, Kristin Lavransdatter attains a very high level of historical fidelity and for this reason alone is worth reading.
The reason why people continue to read this novel is because Kristin Lavransdatter the heroine is a fascinating character who leads a very full and complicated life. Kristin begins the novel as a selfish and irresponsible teenager who resists her parents' wishes to accept a good match because she is determined to marry a selfish and irresponsible man. In the middle section of the work she emerges as a strong mother who takes charge of the family estates while her husband gets embroiled in political intrigues that will ultimately bring down ruin on the family. In final section of the novel Kristin finishes the novel in heroic fashion as a nun who dies caring for those afflicted by the plague. In the big picture, Kristin is a woman who lives in difficult circumstances throughout her entire life and who acts at all times with intelligence, grit and principle. She is truly a delightful heroine.
The key thing to enjoying this work for a North American may be in the choice of translation. I read the greatly panned translation done in the 1930s by Charles Archer of. According to Wikipedia, the original was written in standard Norwegian but Archer decided to give the work middle age atmosphere by larding the text with archaisms from Renaissance English. The result is a cascade of purple prose that reminds the reader of the waters of the Niagara River falling over the Escarpment between Lake Erie and Lake Ontario.
"Methinks", "Methoughts", "Fains" and "I Trows" abound on every page. The following extract provides a typical example of how the text reads. "Her mind was set on having her own way, and she heeded not else. Let them have their joyance, she cared not a jot. She would fain have drunk more that evening." (p. 640) A parodist with the National Lampoon would have exercised more restraint.
I persisted through to the end possibly because I still have a teenager's taste for grotesque parody. The other explanation might be that I am a miserly sexagenarian who having already paid $2.00 CDN for a 1944 edition that I had discovered at the Salvation Army was reluctant to make a second purchase. Nonetheless, I think most readers would be well advised to spend the $US 20.99 necessary to obtain a Kobo or Kindle edition of the Penguin translation. If you never enjoyed Mad Magazine when you were in middle school, you will the Archer translation unbearable.

This biggie was three books (1190 e-pages) and I now have finished them all. Kristin, our heroine is strong and fearless yet loving and caring right until the end of the book. I have learned so much about 13th century life in Norway, their customs and lifestyles blew me away in this saga. I did write other words earlier, you may want to review my progress info. If you love history and sagas, this book is for you.

My soul feels heavy after finishing this. I have no idea what to rate it; my feelings are all over the place.

This book is so incredible I don’t even know what to say about it.

https://poseidons99.wordpress.com/202...

Ladies and gentlemen, I do not know if I will have time today, as I intended to return home soon today. They cast a film cycle on 13 swordsmen's TV and I wouldn't miss it for anything in the world. If there's one thing I love, it's swordsmen and cape-and-sword novels as long as they're well done.
In my last review on Dan Jones' "Crusaders" https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... they could see my Hyde version. Unfortunately I cannot promise you that I will be Dr Jekyll today, but we will try to get to the middle ground in fact that is about always trying to get the middle ground, and not penduluming from one end to the other. Although I am very extreme. The novel to be discussed now has been one of my obsessions. For many critics, and literary specialists "Kristin daughter of Lavrans" is the best historical novel that has been written, or at least the best medieval novel. I'm sorry to play the Devil's Advocate, you know I'm a lover of Catholic fiction, and although"Kristin daughter of Lavrans" is not a bad novel to me honestly does not seem the best novel or historical, or medieval that has ever been writer. I don't think even Undset is the best Scandinavian writer. Although if you have to admit that she won the Nobel when it was worth doing, but in my humble opinion that I like it better, or I think it's better than her. I am sorry that I am not a Catholic, I am referring to the great Mika Waltari, who at the moment is the best Nordic writer I have ever read. Nor does"Kristin daughter of Lavrans" seem to me to be Sigrid Undset's best novel. That honor in my opinion should be for another novel of his, maybe not so well known, but that I like better. It is the sequel to another novel of his"Wild Orchid" https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6... We are referring to the majestic"The Burning Bush" https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1... for me to date"The Burning Bush" is the best work of Sigrid Undset, and perhaps paul Selmer's metanoia, is perhaps one of the best conversion stories ever read, and a novel that speaks of writers is current Catholic. It is interesting how what Joseph Pearce writes https://www.goodreads.com/author/show... "Like a network of minds that feed back to each other" becomes a reality, and I add regardless of the language barrier and the nationality of the writer (as this novel I will buy, maybe reread it and write a review about it. All I know is that I want to have it in my Library.) What's interesting is how Undset promotes other Catholic writers and their relationship with English Catholic writers, as in French catolique renoveau. In addition to the fact that the story of Paul Selme, his family, and his adventures delight the reader. Something that unfortunately I have not felt at all reading"Kristin daughter of Lavrans" . I must confess one thing to the shrewd user of Goodreads, that this novel was the fourth, the fifth time I tried to read it. Being generous the third, and that every time I had crashed into the wall"Kristin daughter of Lavrans" has been like a little Numancia for me. One of these books that have resisted me, always until this year 2021. I almost always crashed into the same book"The Woman" https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6... I agree with the writer, and chrism editor Rhonda Franklin Ortiz https://www.goodreads.com/author/show... By the way I pass her article in Catholic World Report, which in turn is collected from another Catholic weekly https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2... who is participating in a colloquium with other greats editors and writers on how to renew current Catholic fiction. Certainly"Kristin daughter of Lavrans" would not be the book I will take on vacation. It means what is a bad novel, or a failure? Answer no. To me I see one of the great merits of the medieval saga of Sigrid Undset set in fourteenth-century Norway. As I said in other reviews of mine such as"A boy of good temper" https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... or"Saint Magnus the last viking" by Susan Peek https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2... https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... https://www.goodreads.com/author/show... show us a thing como the Vikings became more interesting when they became Christians and not the other way around as modern critics, secularist historians, and an increasingly de-Christianized mass argue. "Kristin daughter of Lavrans" is proof of what I say. Undset has turned it into a Christian saga. It was something, which could be expected since Undset was the daughter of an archaeologist. It also has a very positive thing. In fact this very positive feature would pigeonhole this book into a special everyday life category of the Middle Ages. Also an important novelty. At least at that time. Although Lavrans has remote noble ties. He is actually an allodium, or a medieval peasant. This novel does not star the nobñes, the bishops, or the kings but by the most humbles estates so that the public will feel more identified with the protagonists of this novel than that of other historical novels. Here for example Sigrid Undset was ahead of Annale and the Study of Mentalities, and other currents that were going to flee from positivism, and nineteenth-century historicism. This is a great success on the part of Undset. As well as the Christianization of the Norse sagas. Although we already have Christian sagas such as"Yngvar the traveler" https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2.... Another of Sigrid Undset's great successes in this novel is the great orthodoxy she has, and her great religiosity, which I personally miss in today's literature. While telling this book I was telling a goodreads user that what Sigrid Undset lacked was a writer like Anya Seton that was more attractive, more dynamic, less dense and easier to read. I think especially of "Avalon" https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3... https://www.goodreads.com/author/show... However, I see Anya Seton as a lack, that what lacks a sincere religiosity does not possess. In fact, Anya Seton's characters are not religious, but seem slaves to the fashions, trends, and times they have lived through. We can never reproach Sigrid Undset for this. In fact the characters in"Catherine" https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3... anya Seton were bad Christians, or already had clear heretical tendencies. In this case they had a relaxed religiosity, and allowed themselves to be carried away by emotivism, or spuiritualism by the zeitgesia, or spirit of the time. In Catherine's case they allowed themselves to be carried away by the nefarious influence of the proprotestant Wycleff. You see one thing that religion was fine to fill his novels, but it was not sincere, nor credible and that"Avalon" seems to me a wonder, or a masterpiece. A novel that was what I wanted to read, and I was finally able to read what I had in my mind, or more longed for, but unlike Robert Hugh Benson https://www.goodreads.com/author/show... https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1... , or Sigrid Undset whose protagonists are Catholics, or sincere Christians. The same cannot be said of those in Seton. However "Kristin daughter of Lavrans" has major flaws. For example, what always fails Undset. You don't need to put pages and pages in to make great novels. In my opinion it happens like me, and it lacks the capacity for synthesis. It feels like to write novels you need to fill pages, and pages, and that's unnecessary. In fact, you can write better novels by removing pages, or synthesizing. Shusaku Endo https://www.goodreads.com/author/show... for example gets with 200 pages the same as Undset with 500-1000, and also the novels of Endo make me deeper and leave a greater imprint than what Sigrid Undset does. In fact, Undset is affected by folletinism and this is a trend of nineteenth-century writers who paid them the more pages they wrote and therefore lengthened their novels as much as they could. This is an increasingly simplistic world that gets tired of how densoy is a remarkable artistic drawback. In fact, it slows down the novel. I reading "Kristin daughter of Lavrans" read pages and had the feeling that it did not advance swallowed the hours like a black hole what it had around it. There were times when I wasting almost three hours to read 100 pages, and there was a time when I was about to give up reading, which curiously was when I abandoned it in previous attempts. About half in the second book "The Wife". I wouldn't say that "Kristin daughter of Lavrans" is a story without history. There are times when things are described and events are narrated, but nothing remarkable happens, and there are other times when too many things happen. The problem is that when you want something to happen nothing happens, and when you want nothing to happen too many things happen, and they impact you. In a sense the prologue I read from Publishing Encuentro the edition I read is interesting, comparing "Kristin daughter of Lavrans" with a river and with writers closer to realism and naturalism I think especially of Dostoevsky https://www.goodreads.com/author/show... or Emile Zola https://www.goodreads.com/author/show... perhaps it is also very interesting to compare Undset with a writer, who today is not well known, but who was in his time. I am referring to the Frenchman Paul Bourget https://www.goodreads.com/author/show... . Especially when we analyze those human passions, which surround the characters. While I was lecting "Kristin daughter of Lavrans" I wondered if what I was describing wasn't too modern. The influence of the first Sigrid Undset closer to feminism, and to the sensibility of women, was too noticeable. Especially when analyzing the domestic messes that engulfed both Kristin and Erlend. The way to get rid of Eline. Their fights, and quarrels. In this subject more than a novel set in fourteenth-century Norway I saw the powerful influence of life that influences art. But first I think it is necessary to tell something about "Kristin daughter of Lavrans" you have to see it as a family saga, which counts first as Lavrans (never has a more exemplary father been seen in literature with the exception perhaps of Anne de Vercor in "The Annunciation of Mary" https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2... by Paul Claudel). Lavrans (apart from that is a model of positive masculinity, not only come immature men, and irresponsible inspired by the first couple of Sigrid Undset. Paul Selmer is an example of a full-backed man. The antithesis of the man who emerged from the catastrophe of May of '68 irresponsible, colleague, selfish, epicurean, individualistic and diligent with his children. This does not enter the head of modern feminism that is unable to appreciate that even though less and less due to the social and cultural pressure of the antitinatalist globalist plutocracy there are mature, responsible men, who are good people, and are capable of being exemplary heads of families. The model of masculinity to which one must return) that there is also an Allodian peasant, and owner, related to the nobility of Swedish descent marries an older woman whom he pampers too much. He's a fair, good, religious man, maybe Lavrans' only flaw is that he's a little underpants and that his wife and daughters. He will have three daughters, and no sons. Kristin, Ulvhild (who will be handicapped by a clumsiness committed by a relative of Lavrans. One of the most interesting things is the way in which people with disabilities are treated. Far from the eugenic pressure established and promoted by the secularist, globalist, neo-Malthusian anti-Christian plutocracy. It is quite possible that when treating people with disabilities Undset had as models some children that his first partner had before starting his relationship with Sigrid Undset.) Anyway and returning to the thread of Ariadne previous so as not to get lost in this intricate labyrinth. The third daughter is named Ramborg, and she will have more weight in the end. Anyway, Lavrans' favorite is Kristin, who is going to dispute her affection with her mother Rangfreid, but it will be shown that Lavrans loves both of them. What catches the eye of the first book is Kristin's childhood, how attached she is to her father, the description of fourteenth-century Norway and the reign of King Haakon. It's a book in which even though Norway is already Christian. It was around the eleventh century, and finally in the twelfth century. In fact, St. Olaf will be a shadow present in the novel. But there were still respents of paganism. That strange and mysterious apparition of the Queen or Lady of the Elves, or the dwarves. We don't know if it's a fig of Kristin's imagination, or not. Although Lavrans believes it. Another important factor is Kristin's relationship with the priests around her. Here the author and shows the priests as they are. There are saints, good, regular and bad. Above all, there is an advantage of the regular clergy over the secular clergy. The case of the Anglo-Norwegian Edvin Rikardsoen a very pious mendicant priest, who will die in loor of holiness. But she's also jealous, and she's violent. Sira Erik will be one of the regular priests. He was a former pirate in the service of a certain Alf, who had a conversion. Before becoming a priest he was married. Having offspring, and this is going to be the cause of many ills, because he has not managed to get his family on the sidewalk. Already Louis de Wohl in his magnificent "Citadels of God" explained https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2... https://www.goodreads.com/author/show... why he did not like married priests. The same purpose had Barbey D'Aurevilly in his novel https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5... (continues)

Kristin is a 'luckier' Tess. That being said, I do think Tess had at least one genuinely happy day in her life.

This is my favorite novel of the year. I read it about 30 years ago in the old translation and loved it, but the Tiina Nunnaly rendering is beautifully simple, without the creaking archaisms of the other, which was done in the 1930s, I think.

Reading this again reaffirmed my conviction that many modern historical novels are pap of the tenth magnitude, identifying the sympathetic characters for the drowsy reader by giving them value systems and attitudes that didn't evolve for centuries. The main male character is always sympathetic to the feminist perspective; you can also spot him by the fact that he's the one who's friends with the Moor. The heroine probably spends half her life in men's clothes, wandering the forest with a bow in her hand and looking for a man to outshoot. To read these things, you'd think the Forest of Arden was wall-to-wall with comely armed maidens, when in fact this kind of gender switch (especially dressing in men's clothes) was sufficiently rare that it was one of the pretexts for burning Saint Joan at the stake.

It's a crap technique, a shortcut that violates both history and good taste; dress a modern character in a jerkin and set him down among louts who have never flossed, and you've got a hero. Ken Follett comes, or rather, leaps to mind.

Sigrid Undset will have none of it. The three novels that make up Kristin Lavransdatter are set in the 14th century, and she gives us 14th-century people, both female and a dazzling array of male characters. Sigrid's epic traces a life that's charted by what people of Kristin's time regarded as a mortal sin, and virtually everything that happens in the 1200 or so pages has its roots in that. Kristin herself is a towering character, resilient, strong, even valiant, and also petty and clinging and fearful. If the men in her life were any more dissimilar they'd be members of different species; everyone oohs and aahs when a man writes good female characters, but in Kristin Lavransdatter, Undset creates an entire gallery of males, including Kristin's many, many sons, and every one of them convinces.

I think this is a masterpiece. I'd also bet a large sum of money that Margaret Mitchell read it before she wrote Gone With the Wind. Kristin, Erland, and Simon are like Ur-figures for Scarlett, Rhett, and Ashley. And this triangle, as potent as it was in GWTW, has a whole different, and even primal energy here.

Just a great, great read. Undset was the first woman ever to win the Nobel for literature, and she had it coming.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Sigurd Undset was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1928. Kristin Lavransdatter is the name given to this trilogy and it is her crowning achievement. The individual novels were published in 1921, 1922, and 1923. The original titles were The Wreath, The Wife and the Cross.

To briefly summarize is a difficult task, the first book is the story of Kristin’s childhood, the second is the story of her marriage to Erlend Nikulausson, and the third is the story of Kristin and her sons after Erlend loses the family’s property and inheritance.

This was a monster of a book, 1145 pages total. It was an eye opening look at life in Norway in the 1300’s. The influence of Church was up front and center as well as Norwegian political intrigue of the era.

Things I didn’t know: married women all wore “wimples” and people were called to prayer 5 times a day. The similarities to Islam surprised me and I would love to learn more about this - when the wimple habit fell away as well as all that praying. Needless to say, epic historical novels like this are right up my alley. My favorite kind of book!

ATY Goodreads Challenge - 2023
Prompt #16- Three books, each of which is set in a different century (Book 2 - 14th century)

Reread

I first read this novel thirty-seven years ago. It means more to me than I can express. My physical copy, the 1929 edition translated by Charles Archer, has its own backstory (my photo of my book: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...). I didn’t doubt I’d still love the novel, but I also didn’t think I’d read it again. With the opportunity of a group read led by the indomitable, indefatigable Reem (thanks, Reem!), I decided to read the newer translation by Tiina Nunnally. I understand the allure of both translations and loved my experiences with both. And while the newer one is probably more “readable” and amenable in style, there's at least one important line I came across in which I preferred the earlier translation.

This time my sympathies may have ebbed and flowed over different “minor” characters than before, though I don’t really know. I only wish I remember how I'd felt about Kristin’s mother the first time, as she has become a favorite character. Both reads gave me the same overwhelming immersive experience. As I read the beginning of one crucial scene in the last volume, the memory of my first reading of it returned to me—viscerally—as if the courtyard and its occupants were right in front of my eyes: an eerie phenomenon.

I didn’t want this tome to end. I lingered over its final pages; I was left bereft—not by the ending, but because it ended.

*
Addendum (Sept. 20, 2023): Re the 2nd sentence of my review, I ended up trying to express "it" further in an essay about a teacher, this book, and of course motherhood at Literary Mama: https://literarymama.com/articles/dep...