J'ai beaucoup aimé ce récit, qui a vraiment tout pour (me) plaire. Le fond, la forme, la nuance des personnages, la dureté des évènements, le cadre tout particulier. Excellente découverte ! Une des meilleures lectures cette année !

Nuovo libro nuova recensione!
Oggi vi parlerò de "La saga di Vigdis" un classico della letteratura scandinava che intreccia tematiche sempre attuali con una storia ambientata nell'epoca dei Vichinghi, presentandoci una donna, Vigdis, vittima del suo tempo ma che con la sua forte determinazione è riuscita ad avere la sua vendetta.
La storia è raccontata in terza persona da un narratore onnisciente che alterna momenti passati e presenti dei due protagonisti rendendo il tutto molto movimentato e dinamico.
Vigdis è un personaggio meraviglioso pieno di luci e ombre, che ha attuato una crescita personale che la renderà una donna forte e non sottomessa alla società patriarcale di cui sono schiave le donne del suo tempo, ma è anche un personaggio che mostra tutta la vulnerabilità e fragilità che contraddistingue gli esseri umani.
Non voglio scrivere altro perché il libro è molto breve e potrei, inevitabilmente, spoilerare qualcosa quindi vi consiglio di dare una possibilità a questo libro e di farvi trasportare nel cuore della Norvegia medioevale.

ვერაფერი შეედრება ზაფხულის ერთ ქარიან საღამოს აივანზე ჯდომას და სიგრიდ უნსეტის "ვიკინგების" კითხვას.

მეთერთმეტე საუკუნის ისლანდია და ნორვეგია. ნორვეგიას სტუმრობს ისლანდიელი, უდარდელი ვიგა-ლიოტი, რომელიც ინადირებს და აუპატიურებს ადგილობრივ ლამაზ ქალს, სახელად ვიგდის გუნარსდატერს. აი, აქედან იწყება შურისძიებათა და ტანჯვათა მთელი ციკლი.

ეს ეპიკური საგა იყო, პირველ რიგში, ვიკინგი ქალების ბუნებაზე - ვიგდისი და ლეიკნი, women power, oh yeah. ლამაზები, ნაზები და თან ძალიან საბედისწერო femme fatale-ები, მბურძგლავს პირდაპირ, რაღაც ძალიან მომინდა კიდევ ერთხელ გადაკითხვა, ისეთი სცენებია, თითებს ჩაიკვნეტ, მოგინდება ცხენებით გააჭენო ლეგენდარულ ვადინში და ვიგა-ლიოტის ლექსებს და ბალადებს უსმინო, აბობოქრებულ ტალღებს ულვართან ერთად შეებრძოლო და ვიკინგური მაგიდა ესამ გაგიშალოს. ბრრრ.

მოკლედ, უდიდესი სიამოვნება მივიღე და ვისაც ჩემსავით გეკეტებათ ძველ საგებზე (სიმღერა ნიბელუნგებზე, მაგალითად), უბრალოდ წაიკითხეთ. მირჩიეთ თუ იცით მსგავსი ისლანდიური, ნორვეგიული, შვედური საგები, სიამოვმებით წავიკითხავდი.

I first heard of Sigrid Undset a couple of years ago after coming across an article about a new English translation of her Kristin Lavransdatter trilogy. Since it's such a huge book, I thought I would read one of her shorter works first and decided on this one.

Gunnar's Daughter is a dramatic story of a woman who was raped by the man she wanted to marry, and how this betrayal of trust changed the whole course of both their lives. That the story is set when Norway and Iceland were in a time of transition between paganism and Christianity, so that the characters sometimes act in a Christian manner, sometimes not, makes it even more interesting. We get a sense of what it was like to live in a time when infanticide, Viking raids, and blood feuds were normal and people were only beginning to question the morality behind those practices. These days one comes across quite a few people who like to dwell on the imperfections of societies with long Christian histories, blame them on Christianity, and think things would be so much better if Christianity were done away with altogether. Beware of what you ask for.....

I knew Undset was trying to emulate the style of the Icelandic sagas when she wrote Gunnar's Daughter, but I thought a saga was a long epic poem, like the medieval lays or the Iliad and the Odyssey. Turns out that the saga is a very pared down prose style that focuses on actions and events and does not dwell on descriptions or the thoughts of the characters. As a result, the story moved at a fast pace and the style gave it a timeless quality. I could not put it down and finished it in one (late) night! The spareness of the style actually gives more scope to the reader's imagination since everything is not spelled out.

Looking forward to reading more by Sigrid Undset.

What an incredible story! So powerful!!!

Gunnar's Daughter tells the story of a Norse noblewoman who lives around the year 1000 AD. The main plot point that defines her life is falling in love with a man who later rapes her and leaves her pregnant. The prose is like nothing I've ever read before, and I wish I was better educated so I could put it into words what techniques Undset used to cast such a fairy tale/epic poetry tone. Where Kristin Lavransdatter felt like living a whole life because the characters were so real and personal, this book felt like viewing someone's life through water at a great distance. I'll probably update this review more as I think about this one over the next few days!

I'm not sure I could've picked a book more contrary in style and tone to the seven-volume Dark Tower series by Stephen King. Where King is elaborate and at times overpowering in his imaginative vision, Undset is so spare in her narration that her characters are almost always surprising me with their words and actions. I once heard Cormac McCarthy's writing described as 'biblical' for its laconic tone, but in comparison to Undset, McCarthy comes across like a high school girl journaling about her sorrows (with all due apologies to high school girls... seriously, though. Get over it). And it works for Gunnar's Daughter, it really does. It's an earlier work than Kristin, and that's clear without much of a question. Yet the genius of that later masterpiece is already shining here.
As ridiculous as any comparison between Undset and King is (I'd hate to imply that I'm considering as of the same caliber), it really gets at what I love about Undset's writing. Which is not to say I did not enjoy my time spent in King's world--not at all. But as I walked beside Roland of Gilead and his band of gunslingers, my heart was elsewhere. I was measuring them against a middle-aged Norwegian woman living in separation from the father of her eight sons, waiting to find in their story of multiverses and fusion of technology and magic the same contentment-in-mysteriousness that captivated me in Undset's fjords and saeters. Much like the accursed Ljot of the story I've just read, the happiness and rest I found with them only provoked the recognition that they were only a substitute, an adulteration, of what I'd known before.

This book was brilliant. I read it in about three sittings. It reads like a fable -- and was intentionally modelled on norse sagas. The brilliance of this book is in its simplicity. This is a violent, sad, yet beautiful story about passion -- love, lust, anger, desire, perseverance, and most of all the pursuit of vengeance -- all of which are presented in a more straightforward, and unvarnished form than we might be used to. When these passions conflict within and between each character, tragedy ensues.

This is the first novel by Nobel Laureate Sigrid Undset. In it you can see Undset's skill at recreating the people and mentalities of the Norwegian middle ages. The characters are engaging to the modern reader yet at all times remain congruent with the historical era in which the novel is set. Undset's art in Gunnar's daughter is still far from the level attained in her celebrated Kristin Lavransdatter cycle but the work still has its charms.

My new heroes: 14th-century Norwegian women. Our protagonist not only sliced her rapist/would-be suitor with a knife, she also called him a "ghastly bugbear," and her foster mother washed her hair in the blood of her own newly-killed captor/rapist/would-be suitor. Much of the language from this translation needs to be brought back into everyday use. "Dastard" is a noun that deserves recognition on its own instead of being subsumed within an adverb spoken only ironically in contemporary times, and "on the morrow" is just one of my favorite phrases.

I loved it. It took a little while to feel accustomed to the old style of writing and use of Nordic language, but was enthralled from the first page. I definitely felt that I had in my hands a "classic".

This was Sigrid Undset's first venture into the dark world of medieval Scandinavia; later, longer works would win her the Nobel Prize. "Gunnar's Daughter" is spare and harsh; it looks back not just on the sagas, with their manly world of insults and vengeance, but even farther back to the murder ballads. This is a world in which fate is set by a moment's decision, words uttered in anger control destiny. Gunnar's daughter herself converts to Christianity -- the great Christianizing king Olaf Tryggvason has a cameo - but like many a medieval conversion it is a switch of loyalties to a more powerful deity rather than anything to do with the gospels. Undset's view of this material is if anything darker than the world of the sagas; here not even bloodline is sacred, not even love saves. Her prose (at least in translation) and plotting are straightforward, with none of the romanticism that so often comes with this territory and which makes her innovations all the more startling. And the stage may be the largely male one of the sagas, but Undset is more interested in the women: the sad Leikny, who marries a man who cannot love her; Aesa, the step-mother, who has a compelling story of her own; and Vigdis, the passionate, unforgiving, fierce daughter herself.