Sigrid Undset has a way of sucking you into the story and not letting you go until it is finished. Even though the tale could be described as a tragedy, it somehow captures my interest thoroughly. Maybe it's the Old Norway setting or just the way she portrays how people have ways of creating suffering for themselves or at least intensify the suffering when there were chances for making amends and living more happily.

She also captures the conflicting ethics of the Pagan/Viking way of life to Christianity so well.

Here's someone who explains sort of what I mean:

“The intertwining of . . . lives and the kind of effect
that the failure or success of one life has on
another is so powerfully depicted that you’re reminded
that you don’t act your life in isolation
from others.”

Deal Hudson, in
his MARS HILL AUDIO interview

უდიადესი ქალები (ვიგდისი და ლეიკნი) ჰყავს სიგრიდ უნსეტს, რაც, ალბათ, ყველაზე მეტად მომეწონა ამ წიგნში. სცენებიც საინტერესო და დინამიკური იყო, მაგრამ ვერ ვიტყვი, რომ ძალიან გამორჩეული. თუმცა ატმოსფეროს გამო და კიდევ იმიტომ, რომ ბოლოს ცოტა ძაან ბევრი ვიტირე აქ 4 კი წერია, მარა 3,5-ს დავუწერდი.

Dark, beautiful, heartbreaking.

I'm going to try not to gush, but it's going to be tough. I am in awe of Sigrid Undset. Total and complete awe. The style of the novel was intriguing. Undset models the book after the old sagas, which gives it a fundamentally different tone than that of Kristen Lavransdatter. At first, I was not entirely convinced; it seemed a little awkward and artificial, but thankfully after a couple of chapters she seemed to settle into the form. Or, perhaps, she simply abandoned her initial strict adherence to it and let her own voice come out more. I love how she can write such an intimate account of a character with such simplicity.

The story, in typical Undset form, is heart-breaking. I won't go into the details of the plot, but Vigdis Gunnarsdatter is a pretty remarkable woman. She faces a fairly horrible life head-on with a level of independence, determination, and viciousness that could never have been expected of her. I liked how she didn't fold under the weight of it all. In fact, I liked just about everything about this book. Read it!

უკარგესი რამეა. ყველამ,ყველამ წაიკითხეთ ❤️

The novel has a dry, spare prose echoing the old Icelandic epics. The story is divided into three parts. I found the first part stunning and read it breathlessly through in one sitting. Our hero is a young woman who meets a young traveller who is a visitor to her father's hall. We are told that he is young, but has already accomplished much. Everything looks good for the two until he finds out that she has another suitor; he kind of freaks out about the other man, jealousy rears up and everything he does drives a wedge between himself and his beloved. He challenges this other guy to a horse duel (historically accurate!) and things go badly - not only does he loose the duel, he pisses her off for starting the duel in the first place and accidentally kills the other guys horse, which as it turns out was a gift from the girls father to the other suitor. Now everyone is pissed at him. Rather than apologizing, he takes refuge with a rival clan, but still has the guts to sneak back and ask the girl if she will still marry him. Despite all this, she still wants him and comes up with a plan to win her father's approval. Hearing that this is going to take some time, he decides that he should leave the area for a while - and almost incidentally rapes her on the way out. In a lesser author, this would feel exploitative or there might be an icky feeling of romance about it, as if she wants it but can't give in for moral reasons and he has to be the man and take charge. Here, refreshingly, realism wins, and the girl reacts in a real life manner: she avoids everyone, won't talk about it, contemplates suicide, and ignores the fact the she is now pregnant. Eventually she has to have the baby, and does so alone, on a barren hillside where she leaves the child to perish. Finally, she confides in her stepmother, who gets a chapter to tell the story of her own life - and it is even worse, echoing the theme of violence against women. The girl realizes that it was a mistake to have exposed the baby, but only because she wants to raise it to hunt down and kill her rapist. Luckily, her stepmother's son found the baby and has been raising it as his own and returns it to her. About this time someone makes a crack to her father about the bastard child and the two fight, the father receives a mortal wound and crawls back home to die. The girl takes her knife and goes out and kills three people from the other guy's family, being sure to leave the knife in the neck of the last guy she kills so that everyone knows who did the deed. Although she feels elated to get to do to someone what she wants to do to her rapist, she sets off another cycle of violence. Her father's estate is burned, with everyone in it. She manages to escape with her son across a frozen lake on skis and eventually falls in with a band of thieves, though not before loosing a couple of fingers to frostbite. Surprisingly, (probably intentional irony) the thieves don't assault her, but help her, and the head guy offers to marry her. She declines, but asks for their help to go to the king to get reparation for the lose of her family and home. Even with only eight fingers, she must be pretty hot, because even the king wants her as the Norwegian equivalent of a concubine. She staves him off, and he respects her and gives her her family land back and pardons her friends, the thieves.
The second part of the novel is the story of her rapist, who is never happy from that day forward, and neglects his own wife and family. There is a poignant moment when his wife is about to leave him and he realizes that despite the fact that he has been pining for someone else, he truly loves his wife. Eventually his family all die and he goes off a roving. In the third part, he meets his illegitimate son, saves his life, and goes raiding with him, the whole time treating him like a long lost son, but never telling him the truth. Eventually there is a meeting of the mother, son and father, in which the mother demands only one outcome, destroying all their lives.
The author was quite familiar with the old epics and the story is informed by their style and themes. But really the novel, though set in the past, is about the present. The novel's realistic treatment of rape and recognition of the cyclical nature of violence are far ahead of their time (originally published in 1909). The main characters are well developed, and it is interesting to see how one act of violence skews them from who they could have been to how they are at the end of the novel. I rate this 4.5 stars, rounded up to five.

Norway on on the cusp of converting from paganism to Christianity. The transition between two incompatible cultures. Most thought-provoking for me was the accepted pagan practice of infanticide versus the Christian practice of infant baptism.

A lot of themes to uncover in this novel. Themes touched on in this novel are fully fleshed out in Kristin Lavrensdatter, but this one is of a much less intimidating length. I'm glad I read Kristin first because I had a fuller picture of the cultural context, otherwise I might have been lost a little, no being very well versed in Nordic history.

A good story ahead of its time

I am not ready to rate this book at the moment because I have so many conflicting emotions. This book follows the life of Vigdis, a daughter of a chieftain, in the 11th century in Scandinavia. I couldn’t put this book down, but I can’t say that the writing blew me away? I felt that the book was more short little stories that told a continuing story. I had a love/hate relationship with Vigdis....I get that she went through some hardships, but the fact that she just held onto this terrible vengeance her whole life that made her so unhappy, drove me crazy. Also, this book is such a great example of how important communication is!

A fantastic little novel, the absolute best of Undset condensed in a two sitting read. Written in the style of prose edda, this is a compelling historical melodrama that I enjoyed every second of. An excellent primer before attempting Lavransdatta or Hestviken

This was a dramatic and challenging reading. If it’s not because my reading goal of female nobel prize in literature, I’d never thought I’d picked this book, plus it’s the kind of (love) story that I don’t know how to appreciate, but I’m glad I read it and grateful for this discovery! Good job to myself!
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Set in the Middle Ages, between Norway and Iceland, the story of Vigdis Gunnarsdatter, a woman of courage and intelligence, was seduced and raped by a man she loved. She raised her child alone and break thought the adversity in the world govern by men.
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This book was first published in Norway 109 years ago. Can you imagine the chaos it would stir in the society back then? This story made me think a lot about women rules back in the day and now. We have come so far yet there are still things that had never change about gender equality and society norm.
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I made a little further research and found that her literary theme are mostly around woman affair. Her most famous work " Kristin Lavransdatter" portrayed the anatomy of women's life from birth till death. Undset's writing and prose are powerful and she's one of the best storyteller. She definitely deserves more attention.
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Sigrid Undset, Nobel Prize in literature 1928, Norwegian-Dennish, novel, "principally for her powerful descriptions of Northern life during the Middle Ages"

Inspirerad av den sparsmakade isländska saga-traditionen, skapade Undset denna luftiga text. Det är så skönt med en så här ren text, som låter mig meditera över temat. Oavsett att jag alltid varit intresserad av historia, och hur mänsklig tidsanda förändrats genom århundradena... så är detta en historia som är relevant än idag.

Grundtemat är våldtäkt, och det psykiska lidandet som det kan leda till. Detta vävs samman med blodshämnd, heder som skall hämnas, öga för öga. Men denna våldsspiral var inte bara historisk, tvärt om, när boken skrevs var spänningen mellan könen högeligen närvarande, samtidigt som krigshetsarna växte till sig, att lösa problem med våld. Första världskriget låg bara fem år i framtiden.

Så Undset hade en mission, att få sina läsare att meditera över.