I'm just gonna crawl in a hole now and cry for several hours about this beautifully tragic story.

Lent 2023 read. The ending absolutely tore my heart out.

W.O.W.
The Kristen Lavransdatter trilogy is one of the best books I've ever read. Sigrid Undset is so underrated. Why is that? I can't believe that I hadn't heard of her until just a few months ago, when Kristen Lavransdatter was mentioned in a New York Times review for Alison Weir's Eleanor of Aquitaine novel, as an example of how powerful and complex a representative of the historical fiction genre can be (Weir's novel was not, by the way). The ending of The Cross felt like a sledgehammer to the face. There aren't many other times I felt really disturbed by a book. Including Kristen Lavransdatter, I can count them on one hand - Sophie's Choice, Maus I & II, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Night. Kristen Lavransdatter was beautiful. It was beautiful and harsh and exquisite and so realistic it hurt. I don't even know what to say.

My goodness, Sigrid Undset is something else!!! If you haven't yet read her, you must discover this extremely talented author, but be careful! When Undset writes, the reader must read with her heart because it is a matter of fact that you will be required to give an emotional response.

We read #kristinlavransdatter #Undset22 as a group of 81 readers. For a few of us, this was our first time reading Undset. For many, this was a nostalgic reread. I believe we even had a few readers on their third read. We read from different translations and in other languages. This is a trilogy that will stay with you being that it will have pulled, nay yanked on your heartstrings.

A good read to be enjoyed!!!

My favorite of the trilogy. What an ending.

This was my favorite book of the trilogy. It would be a disservice to stop reading this series after the first or second book. I loved this story deeply.

This is the last volume in the trilogy. I loved all three but this last one is my favourite. I read the Charles Archer translation editions and feel something was at times lost in translation. I hear the Penguin version may be better so at some future point I will try to pick that up.

This work, by Nobel prize winner Sigrid Undset, needs to be read more than once to get the full measure of it. I am not going to write more at this point because this is a group read and will await the completion by others before adding further thoughts.

Basically a woman's life of love, hopes, faith, and self awareness as she seeks ever to understand the God that created her and what she is here to learn.

The writing in this book is amazing. It is easily the best book I’ve read this year.

Admittedly, I felt pretty frustrated at the beginning of this book, because Undset spent a lot of time further developing Simon Darre’s character, all this time later, and it was really hard to see the value in doing so. I didn’t care about Simon, I felt like his whole character would have been better left in the past, I found it almost impossible to sympathize with him and his obsession (and they ways in which it hurt Ramborg), but nor did I even care enough about his character to be mad at him. He just seemed pathetic and I didn’t want to read about him. But wow, this sour start had a huge payoff before long, and at that point the book was only just beginning!

It’s hard to say much without giving spoilers, but after trudging through a beginning that I didn’t care for at the time (which was really only a small percentage of the book), the entire rest of the novel was an incredibly satisfying read. There were so many amazing subversions of the expectations built up in the first two books, with some of the characters thought to be the most ignoble showing themselves to be in fact the most noble, and those thought to be the most noble showing themselves to be the worst. And I don’t just mean that there are good redemption arcs and falling-from-grace arcs. No, while carrying the story forward, Undset also makes you reevaluate everything you’ve read previously, by showing you who her characters are, and in many ways have always been, on a continuously deeper level.

This third book is aptly named, because the bulk of it really is its own kind of Via Crucis, but truly an Everyman kind of Via Crucis. There is so much moral, mental and intellectual growth in this book (sometimes slow, other times fast) and so much backsliding (sometimes by inches, other times, plummets); it is, at times, hard to read, because it’s real. It has a lot of heart. And in the end I felt inspired.

I loved following Kristin’s story. I loved the way that this imperfect but always exceptionally pious woman, comes to find out more and more in her maturing wisdom, how insufficient her piety (and in general, her motivation) is, always has been, and will be. Reading her story felt like reading that of one of the great saints.

“Surely she had never asked God for anything except that He should let her have her will. And every time she had been granted what she asked for—for the most part. Now here she sat with a contrite heart—not because she had sinned against God but because she was unhappy that she had been allowed to follow her will to the road’s end. She had not come to God with her wreath or with her sins and sorrows, not as long as the world still possessed a drop of sweetness to add to her goblet.”

I have run out of superlatives for the Kristin Lavransdatter trilogy. Suffice it to say that The Cross continues/finishes the story without any drop in the consistently high standard. Focus shifts to other characters (Simon, Erlend, her sons) but keeps returning to Kristin and her maternal feelings and also looking back on her life. There are some heart-breakingly powerful passages, especially towards the end. A fitting conclusion to an indisputable masterpiece.

I did it. The intimidating book that has been sitting on my borrowed & recommended pile is finished. Writing this collectively about the 3 “books” as 1 book.

First of all, this book is just impressive. The sheer amount of research Sigrid Undset had to have done in the 1900s to recreate such a foreign setting. I have never read a historical fiction book that was so detailed, so LONG, so thorough, so intricate, and so vivid. The physical geography with the beautiful and untamed Norwegian land and features that moves throughout the entire country, the complex familial relationships, lineages, and histories, and especially the devout, rigorous Catholicism with the lingering influence of the pagan magic and lore. The beautiful, imperfect character development for several different characters. I am amazed.

The book became a spiritual read for me. I finished The Wreath annoyed at Kristin’s weaknesses, ignorance, and selfishness. I was pretty aware that it was no doubt because she reminded me too much of myself and my own struggles at that age, but I figured that was the extent of what it was going to bring up—it wasn’t until I was a good way into The Cross that I was wrestling with pity for young Kristin being unprotected from and unprepared for those situations. Now, 17 seems so young to me. She was sent to an unfamiliar place with unfamiliar people and no one to truly watch over her. She obviously still has culpability for her actions, but I had grace for her. And then I had grace for myself. Lots more thoughts for personal conversations.

Reading most of The Wife was raw & sweet, as I’m in that stage of motherhood, with young children clinging to me, learning to run a household, and experiencing the joys of newborns and firsts and pregnancy.

The Cross was lots and lots of tears. The learning of detachment from the things of the world, good and beautiful things, she’d clung so tightly to for so many years. The loss of everything familiar and comfortable and supportive. The learned surrender. Especially the surrender of her children.

I’m sure there are rereads in the future—probably as a mom with emerging adult children, then again with that stage in hindsight. But for now, I just have lots to sit with.

This last book is a first-read for me. Unbelievably moving. Undset somehow created one of the most real characters in fiction.

“Now she realized her mother’s heart had been deeply etched with memories of her daughter, memories of her thoughts about the child from before she was born and from all the years the child could not remember, memories of fears and hopes and dreams that children would never know had been dreamed on their behalf, before it was their own turn to fear and hope and dream in secret.”

“Faint and scattered and pale wS the only way the eternal light had been mirrored in her life. But it dimly occurred to the mother that in her anguish and sorrow and live, each time the fruit of sin had ripened to sorrow, that was when her earthbound and willful soul managed to capture a trace of the heavenly light.”

“Surely she had never asked God for anything except that he should let her have her will. And every time she had been granted what she asked for—for the most part. Now here she sat with a contrite heart—not because she had sinned against God but because she was unhappy that she had been allowed to follow her will to the road’s end.”

This was a beautiful, sad story. My favorite aspect was how well motherhood was portrayed: the intimacy of the little years and the worry mixed with pride in the later ones (not that I know that yet, but considering how much I connected with the description of the little years I figure she's got it right as they get older too!). The relationships were complex and while I thought the characters made an awful lot of bad decisions, I cared about them all through. Kristin just seemed so real from the first book to the end of the last.

If I read this again someday, I'd be very interested in reading the newer translation since I hear that it improves upon some decisions made in the older translation, which is I what I read this time.