Why would I give four stars to a book that I struggled to get through? Because Undset’s three-volume story of a 14th Century woman’s life in Norway is compelling and thought-provoking. Although I am not Catholic, I have a deep appreciation for Catholic authors who write about sin, suffering and redemption without fluffy conclusions.

Kristin Lavransdatter (“daughter of Lavran”) grew up in a devout family and chose to go against her parents’ principles in her choice of husband. It is hard to review the book without spoilers so I will just say the bad choices made in the first book have a ripple effect throughout the rest of the trilogy. It is a devastating critique of the high cost of sin. Yet it miraculously avoids being preachy.

4.5 stars rounded to 5 stars.

I have been immersed in medieval life for two weeks with this book. It is about a 42-hour audio book. The narrator was excellent and the translation seemed superb to me. It was tough at the beginning because of the names and keeping them straight, but I soon came to realize that the characters' surnames told that they were the son or daughter of the father, hence Kristin is Lavran's daughter. Things were so much easier with that revelation.

This is the story of Kristin's life. She was only around 50 when she died, so the book doesn't cover a long period. The reader gets to live with Kristin as she lives her day to day life. While at times quotidian, Kristin's life is certainly not boring. Kristin's father Lavran dotes on his daughter. She is the oldest surviving child. None of the boys lived longer than 2 years. She has two younger sisters, but Kristin is daddy's girl. Kristin is betrothed to a well-off young man and she is not unhappy with her betrothal until her path crosses with that of Erlend and falls heads-over-heels in love. Kristin is strong-willed and Erlend wants to marry her. Eventually she does and they have eight children, with only the youngest dying shortly after birth. Kristin loves her children but perhaps not as much as she loves Erlend, despite the fact that, while a champion soldier/sailor, he is not the best provider. Erlend gets involved in a plot against the king and while his head is spared his property is lost. Kristin works very hard and keeps the family in food and lodging despite Erlend, who never seems to grow older. But while their love for each other is fierce, they fight with some frequency, with both berating themselves after.

We live through the births of Kristin's children with her, especially the very painful and long drawn out first one. We are with Kristin when her beloved father dies and, perhaps worst of all, when Erlend dies. We are with Kristin as she chastises herself and is chastised by various religious leaders. We are with Kristin when she leaves her family estate to her son and his wife to run and enters a nunnery and becomes a nun. We are with her when she learns that the plague is coming and with her when she dies.

I very much enjoyed my two-week vacation to Norway in the 1400's - time travel at its best. But I am glad to be back.

In my recent review of Heather Day Gilbert's God's Daughter, I commented that her style in some ways reminds me of Undset's. Perhaps that's a function of the fact that both ladies' writing is shaped by a Christian world-view (Undset was an adult convert to Roman Catholicism), both focus their historical writing on medieval Scandinavian culture, both do a great job of getting inside their character's heads, and both created strong female protagonists. (Though Undset's other major work, which I read as an omnibus volume before this one, the quartet of novels collectively titled The Master of Hestviken, has a male protagonist.) Undset, however, set her work at a later time (the 13th or, in this case, 14th centuries) and covered her main characters' entire lives starting in childhood, which gives her work more of an epic scope. (Of course, in her case, we're also dealing with the body of work produced in a lifetime, not a single first novel.) She also concentrates on fictional rather than on actual historical figures (though the latter sometimes appear briefly here).

The three novels that form this trilogy are The Wreath (the title is also sometimes translated The Bridal Wreath), The Wife, and The Cross. The Goodreads description is reasonably accurate. Human relationships play a central role in this saga, especially the marriage relationship (and Kristen's marriage is often a stormy one, despite having married for love; she and Erlend are two strong-willed and sometimes ill-assorted people, with very real human imperfections), but also parent-child relations and other family and social relationships. But (although the Goodreads description ignores this fact), Undset is as concerned with her characters' relationship with God as with their human relationships; this gives the novels an added dimension of spiritual depth that was a definite plus for me. Kristin is a wonderfully realized, dynamic and proactive character (no docile doormat she!), who's easy to care about and like even when she's doing things you'd advise her against if you could. Medieval Norway comes to life here as vividly as if you'd journeyed there in a time machine, and the plotting held my interest from cover to cover. (The Cross ends in 1348-49 --no spoilers here, but readers familiar with European history will know what was going on at that time.)

Commenting on the prose style of a work you've read only in translation is a tricky business, especially since I don't remember if the translation I read was the Nunnally one cited above or not. I can say that I remember it as eminently readable, well adapted to the tone and subject matter, and with dialogue that sounded authentic but not overly archaic or stilted.

Sigrid Uundset won the Nobel Prize for Literature, at a time long before the Nobel Prize selection process had degenerated into an excercise in "political correctness." If you read her masterworks, I believe you'll understand why, and agree that her award was profoundly deserved!

4.5 stars rounded down. Loved the entire family saga, but the emphasis on sinning and praying and God's will was a bit heavy at times.