After reading Jane Eyre I said how I couldn’t help but think it would’ve been a very different novel had Charlotte Bronte wrote it in her 40’s, 50’s, and 60’s. Kristin Lavransdatter is definitely that novel. So now I’m wondering what and where is the novel with the woman writing in her 70’s, 80’s, and 90’s?

Of all three books in the trilogy, The Wife was my favorite in the character depth and variety, and this one, The Cross, was my favorite for its deep thoughts on motherhood and marriage, and because I was finally able to accept and make peace with Kristin. I love how the author really focused on the mental, spiritual, and emotional struggles of Kristin, and then, because I’d forgotten Kristin was also a person with a body, she would completely surprise me with a line about physical suffering, in this case, Kristin’s pained back ever since the birth of the twins.

The male characters were great. I noticed Kristin went through most of her life without any female friends—I wonder if this contributed to who she was as a person and the fact that she bore most of her struggles alone. Her defining relationships were the ones she had with her father, then husband, then sons. Even with all the beautiful and deeply spiritual prose, I didn’t always feel like the author “got” Christianity. It made sense when I read that Unset didn’t convert until after she’d written this book.

A beautiful and though-provoking read. I highly recommend.

The very ending was poignant, but I wasn't as moved by the book as a whole as many of my friends were. I found the story depressing, particularly regarding her boys. It may be my stage of my life (busy homeschool mom of five, one of whom has innumerable therapies for her special needs), but I found myself increasingly annoyed when another side character would be introduced with a long tangent of names and relationships that I'd be struggling to keep straight, only to maybe have them mentioned one other time in the 1000+ pages. Like, do I really need to know the history of Simon's brother's marriage, 700 pages in? (I know Dickens and Tolstoy and other 19th century English and Russian novelists have tons of side characters that do this to some extent, but they never annoyed me--it may be more of a familiarity with English and Russian culture, but it may just be that I had more patience for rabbit trails in novels when I had days to lie about and read them for fun. Or it may be that Undset simply doesn't have the ability to make side characters vivid in the same way the great novelists do.)

There is some lovely prose in here, but it's prose I would enjoy more in a 300 page novel. I will say that Nunnally is a wonderful translator, and I never felt like I was reading a work in translation. She certainly does the work justice.

As for Kristin herself, I think I felt more affinity for her and Erland during the final couple years of their marriage (when they were actually fighting but saying things out loud) than I did elsewhere in the book. Actually, I thought I was finally getting acquainted with Kristin, only to have her fade away again after Erland died. I have friends who feel that Kristin speaks for their own hearts, but I still feel like Kristin is largely an enigma to me, even after 1000 pages. Perhaps it's because I'm very aware of my sins but also very assured of God's grace and forgiveness of my sins, so I don't spend my life wallowing in guilt as she seems to. I don't mean to seem callous or arrogant in my assurance of salvation, but her lifelong struggle seems to be that she can never forgive herself or Erland, or believe that God can forgive her, until (maybe) the very end. It may be that I'm just too Evangelical in my thinking to understand the Catholic mindset here.

I'm glad that I read it so that I can finally converse with the ladies in my circle who talk about it, but I don't know if I will read it again or recommend it to others of my temperament. I also have never felt so Protestant in my Catholic (Well-Read Mom) reading group as I have reading and discussing Kristin!

There are so many good things about these books (an overtly Christian novel that is actually good literature??) but overall I think she errs a little too far on the side of “this world is all misery.” I’m not sure this story ever evokes real joy.

But her characters, her portrayal of human nature, beautiful Norway, a timeless story set in the 1300’s: just tremendous.

The "soap-opera feel" which sometimes annoyed me did continue, especially in the first half of this book. But a poignant and powerful ending, which you do not continue without first understanding, really, the whole life of Kristin.

There is an intense satisfaction in reaching the end of this trilogy. Nunnally's excellent translation allows a full appreciation of Undset's achievement in conveying a medieval mindset whilst reminding us that people then had the same emotions and passions as today.

Really this was an amazing story. So incredibly human and full of depth. It was fascinating to get to hear the thoughts of many of the characters. Their hopes, fears, loves, regrets. I read a more difficult translation and I think if I ever read this story again I would pick a better one. A second read would certainly give me the ability to really dive in to beauty of the story and writing instead of just racing through for the plot.

Kristin! She feels like a friend who’s life you watch go by and you see all the mistakes and good things they do and how they cause chain reactions in everyone’s lives around them. Super good stuff, I’m really glad I read this. The family and marriage drama transcends time!

I read these books because they were my mother's favorite when she was around 13 in the early 50s. They are very long (and slow) but filled with all sorts of cool tidbits about Norway in the early 1300s (the books well researched) and a lot of drama. I was not a huge fan of Kristin, the main character, so I felt a bit less invested in the books overall. That said, I thought the author did an amazing job of taking Kristin through her life and having her grow and evolve in an extremely organic and real way. No huge plot twists, no OMG growth experiences for anyone - just real humanity. Very much liked that aspect.

The third and final book of the Kristin Lavransdatter and possibly my favorite of the three. The family has moved back to Kristin's family estate where they are more tolerated than embraced. Kristin and Erlend have little more to do than focus on their family and farm. This third books is great as they are given opportunities to really reflect on their lives and relationships and see their sons flourish into men. Kristin is still a bit miserable but I thoroughly cried at the end and really appreciated the saga. Undset really digs into what it means to be living at that time and is able to write so well on all the feelings of the family between love, lust, jealousy and sadness. It really is an epic trilogy.

It's just a tough act to follow. By the time I'd finished this book, I'd spent about six weeks in the daily company of this fictional woman whose every thought I understood, throughout decades of love and trials. Try picking up a normal book after this, it's weird.

In terms of what it's like to read this one, I enjoyed almost everything about it. Especially the opportunity to spend quite a lot of time with Simon, a bittersweet sort of irony hanging around so much of him. But oh me, quite a lot happens, as is the norm in this story. Two-thirds into this final volume I was starting to get happening fatigue, reckoning with all the pages there were left for things to still happen in.

One of my favorite observations about these books came in the introduction to the last volume, which gave a historian's view of the story. It pointed out that unlike most historical novels which seek to situate characters amidst the backdrop of a great happening of the world, Kristin Lavransdatter takes place in one of the quietest moments of the Middle Ages. Probably not one historical topic from this meticulously accurate story will ring any bells for you, until the ending. (And, what a one. You've heard of it.) It goes deep and long, and it does so to show you history lived through the life of average people, in as average a time as the era permitted. As someone who loves, for example, visiting a historic house and looking out the windows that past inhabitants watched the same street out of, maybe this is the quality that drew me most. The people, being real.

I can scarcely think of a more knowable and infuriatingly sympathetic pair of people being real in a novel than Kristin and her Erlend. I liked the idea put forward in this volume's introduction, that the marriage of Kristin and Erlend tells a version of the downfall of courtly love, which was a prevailing sentiment at the time of their romance. (In a nutshell the same dilemma western culture still sticks on: do you have a passionate relationship, or do you have a stable one?) However, it's not really what I was thinking about while I read it.

While I read it, I was just constantly dropping my jaw and gripping my chest in disbelief that this author let loose so many intense feelings about heterosexual norms. Kristin's marriage is a paradox, in a way that I think is relatable for almost everyone in a broader sense. Sometimes a relationship works, and sometimes it doesn't, and those two things can exist at the same time. With all friends and lovers, there are things that draw you together permanently, that will always bond you, that can be revived whenever you make the effort. There are also things that poison the well when you know a person too closely, and rely on them enough to stress you out.

And the way Kristin and Erlend fight is FRANKLY TERRIFYING, and painful and too real. They aren't good to or for each other, except of course when they are. They're stubborn and furious and as flawed as any actual person you could hitch your life to. Then over and over, when the crap hits the fan and real danger is coming, it all melts away in an instant, and they couldn't be righter.

This tragic recognizability really tugged at me during the part of this book when Kristin visits Erlend at his pseudo-bachelor farmstead, arriving for a showdown between two stubborn mules, and instead immediately falling into their happiest days in years, in love and under a lusty spell. It's that thing where sometimes all you need to do is go on vacation and get away from doing the laundry for a while, and suddenly you are just a lot nicer and more in love than ever. (Er… it could be that is just about me.) In the introduction, it's pointed out that here Erlend is like the mountain king of the sagas, begging her to stay tucked away from the world in their bliss. To me, it was more a clear picture of these two truly real human beings: they do work, they just don't work in the way that they're supposed to, amid the annoying crap of life.

As I kept reading articles about these books, I saw over and over again the assertion that feminists don't like them. Well… okay. I am a feminist, though, and I love Kristin and the novels and the novelist. I'm on board for it. Kristin is herself, and she spends three novels evolving and trying to know her self, and that is what a good book is made of. I don't need them to act in ways or mouth off things that I agree with in order for me to like the novel; I need them to act like themselves and be fascinating.

Although I've never been there to fact-check, Kristin and everyone else in the book feels remarkably true to their time in the early 1300s. They want and expect things it makes sense for people to have wanted and expected then. Although the author, in the 1920s, was undoubtedly inventing her story and characters with a converted Catholic's eye on meaning, she did so with as much faithfulness to historical customs as to her own personal values. Sigrid Undset, I think, could agree with me: the characters don't need to repeat everything she thinks in her contemporary view. She preferred to figure out how to have them act like themselves and be fascinating.

And it's true, there are LOTS of Catholic interest websites about how great these books are for promoting their point of view. I guess I'm glad I didn't delve too much into that before I read them, because it might have put me off, to be honest. In reality, to me, these books are dirty, and raw and mean, and none of that is apparent from this reputation of piety. No one here is an ideal, least of all Kristin, awesome though she is. The books would not be great if they were made like that.

The next thing I tried to write here was something like, "Kristin and I may not have much in common, but" or "Kristin and I have made different life choices, but" or "Kristin and I don't have very similar struggles, but" and then every time I tried to explain it in words I had to stop, because none of those statements are really true. She is universal enough, as wild as it is. Our lives are not going to end up in the same way (I HOPE, OMG) but I can't deny that it feels like I lived with someone real in my life as I made my way through hers for the past six weeks.

There's an argument, I know, that this imperfect depth also serves the spiritual purpose more greatly. To which I say, that's great, and let's share.

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Picked up a copy of this today, though weirdly did not find the second volume, but oh well.

Found this at More Than Words Bookstore & Cafe in Waltham, MA which is my new favorite thing in the entire world, honestly, can we all have these, please.

This was my 2nd read of Kristin and it was even more gut-wrenching than the first. Gut-wrenching in a sanctifying kind of way, emotionally difficult but good for the soul.

Tercera y última entrega de la trilogia de Cristina Lavransdatter donde somos testigos de los últimos años de Cristina, una madurez muy distinta a su vida anterior y aquí la autora vuelve a adaptar el tono de su estilo a ese ocaso de una vida; Cristina hasta ahora luminosa, activa y entregada viviendo la vida en toda su amplitud y ya con sus hijos mayores, alejados con nietos que ni siquiera conoce por la distancia, se encuentra más sola que nunca.

Es un último volumen donde te sientes más cerca que nunca de ella porque ya la conoces íntimamente con sus virtudes y defectos y sabes que la recompensa a toda una vida de entrega, no es la justa, pero incluso habiéndome gustado muchísimo esta obra mastodóntica, he seguido perdiéndome entre sus siete hijos, a veces tenía la impresión de que no controlaba sus idas y venidas. Hay un poso de tristeza, de amarga distancia entre sus hijos y ella ya mayores y esa injusta soledad en el final de su vida es quizás lo que más me ha impresionado y lo que más me demuestra la universalidad de lo que cuenta aquí Sigrid Undset: la vejez en soledad.

Me ha parecido una obra magnífica donde se cuenta la vida de una mujer de bandera en todas sus etapas y a medida que avanzas, (Kristin, un personaje luminoso pero también con sus sombras), vas conociendo cada vez mejor su interior y su alma de mujer atormentada por ciertos hechos del pasado. El final es abrumador en cierta forma, lo que hace grande y universal esta trilogía.

"- Cristina, mi señora, ¿aún no sabes que pueden ocurrir cosas que tú no has pedido ni ordenado? Ya veo que no te das cuenta, ni siquiera después de tantas ocasiones como has tenido, de que no tienes derecho a lleva sola el peso con el que cargas a tus espaldas".

El bosque de pinos murmuraa sobre sus cabezas, el estruendo del agua en la costa se acercaba y alejaba según el capricho del viento. Era noche cerrada en el sendero.

Al poco tiempo Ulf dijo:

-No es la primera ez qu te sigo, Cristina, cuando sales de noche, ¿No es natural que te acompañe esta vez también?

(...)

-Creo, amigo, que siempre me has juzgado con más indulgencia de la que merecía, con lo que tú sabías de mi vida".

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