Absolutely gutting depiction of pride as the worst of all sins.

“The sin of all sins is to despair of God’s mercy.”

This one will sit with me for a while. Olav deeply struggles with the enormous weight of unconfessed sin slowly bearing down upon him, yet he still strives to do his best by everyone. As a Christian man, he knows he cannot atone for his own sins but tries anyway, and his attempts to do so lead him further into misery.

4.75 / 5

So heart wrenching; I’m not sure I could continue with the series if I didn’t know with Sigrid Undset there has to be a beautiful redemption at the end.

The Snake Pit is essentially a sudser describing the trials and tribulations of a couple fostered together who, while they love each other, have a joyless marriage during which each has an adulterous liason and an out of wedlock child in late thirteenth and early fourteenth century Norway. The details of everyday life are more interesting than the story. The Norwegian version was published in the late twenties and this translation dates from 1930. It badly needs to be redone. The English used is very archaic and is in some places unreadable, and in others so confusing as to make no sense. A rendering into modern English is badly needed.