What do You think about Kristin Lavransdatter (2005)?
Its difficult to talk about the books in this series as individuals. Really, it is the story of one life. I was not expecting to be as moved as I was by these stories. These lives wrapped me up so fully that I didn't noticed that I had become so deeply attached to Kristin. And now that I am done and she is gone I feel loss. Its difficult to write much about this story and not sound trite. Sweeping, epic, beautiful, are adjectives that all come to mind. What I can say is that at the end I was struck by how Kristin's life, in all its sadness and beauty was overcome by a larger force. Reading this was almost more than I could bear. I am so glad I've read these books.
—Megan
Well, well, well, Miss Undset has made it onto my 10-star list. She should be proud. She also won a Nobel Prize for her work, so there is that. Her Kristin Lavransdatter books are unquestionably works of massive scope on par with JRR Tolkien's Lord Of the Rings. A strange comparison, you say? Well I agree with you. The only thing that comes to mind immediately is the length of the two. But there is so much more. Where LOTR was preparation for battle with Sauron's forces, Kristin Lavransdatter was an intimate look into a Norwegian community. It's the attention to detail that struck me as similar. Tolkien and Undset both took such great care to imbue their work with eternal life. They captured that elusive something that can't be described, or rather could be described in many different ways. Undset obviously did massive research into 14th Century Norwegian customs before she put pen to paper. The community is not, like in so many other books, a static thing that serves as a canvas for the main character to travel across without resistance. In this sense the book displays Newtons Third Law. Each action Kristin makes is met with an equal and opposite reaction from her community. Such is reality. Sadly...The great wisdom this book imparted on me is what made it unforgettable. It's so layered that it portrays almost all aspects of a woman's life during the 14th century.(I specify the era because many things have changed since then but I wish to stress that I noticed that the similarities between the times are more prominent than the differences) Talk about a woman's perspective! Every budding teenage boy wanting to understand the complexities of a woman's mind should read this. Never before did I realize how different men and women really are. And the layers! How layered life actually is. Everything is like a circle within a circle within a circle with the inner most circle eventually becoming our intimate other. The second and third book are like a survival guide for the married couple. Erlend and Kristin are not always perfectly faithful - there are minor(well, you could call them major) mishaps between the two - but they never truly stop loving each other. They never stop caring for each other and their children, like most normal parents do. Now I can appreciate how remarkable my mom and pops really are, how truly magnificent women can be, and what it means to bring a life into this world. In fact, there is nothing that I didn't not not like about this book(double negatives included). There is magic, most who know me will attest to my love of all things magical. The prose are humble yet beautiful in there delivery. All in all the book was masterful. It taught me to appreciate life, not just my life but also the lives that are close to mine, more. And to quote Kurt Vonnegut 'If that isn't nice, I don't know what is.'
—Milo
Seven reasons why I really, really want to love Kristin Lavransdatter…1) I have long-standing crushes on both Scandinavia and ye olden days, and this book is a free trip straight to the heart of 14th-century Norway. Undset's portrayal of the life of one woman, from childhood until death, is fascinatingly intertwined with the tensions between the Catholic present and pagan traditions in medieval Norway. And her writing so evocative. You can just smell the cook-fire smoke in the wooden rooms, see the vistas of Kristin’s home valley and feel that itchy, stanky homespun tickling the back of your neck. 2) The amount of research Undset put into this project must have been just massive, yet it is integrated seamlessly with the story. None of this, "And now Kristin, you must put on this bridal crown, the wearing of which has been popular among our people from approximately 900 AD, though some records indicate the tradition originated in Sweden," historical-fiction awkwardness for Undset, no siree bob. 3) Kristin is a strong, well-characterized female lead, which is rarer than one would hope and something to appreciate in the fiction world.4) Undset bestowed convincing three-dimensionality upon the host of characters who parade in an out of her >1100 pages.5) The book contains some of the most beautiful and powerful descriptions of motherhood and mother-love I have yet encountered in a work of fiction, including the real pregnancy, birth, breastfeeding and sleep-sharing stuff that that doesn’t usually make the cut.6) Not that I’m a total snob or anything, but…the Nobel Prize, for cripe’s sake!7) And, to cap it all off, the narrative glue that holds all of this together is an epic love story.I mean, sounds pretty amazing, right?? What kind of a lover of obsessively-researched historical fiction could fail to be enthralled by this one? …but just can’t.Well, as it turns out, the kind that I am, apparently. So after mulling it over for a while, here’s my major problem with this book:Stylistically, Undset intertwines a serious realism faithful to the pacing and events of life with the kind of jarring melodrama that would do the soaps proud. And for me, that combo just didn’t work. Even at 1124 pages, this book ain’t big enough for the both of them. And man, I wish the draaama was the one to go. The rest of the book deserves better.Take Undset’s treatment of death, for instance. Many characters died abruptly with little apparent symbolic purpose in the story which, great. Make this a vividly textured saga with the narrative arc of real life. But then the death of another character was so out there that had Kristin’s amnesiac evil twin showed up instead, it would have felt refreshingly believable by comparison. And it was similar with the central love story. On the realistic side, we have two passionate people who engage in repetitive loops of guilt, blame, recriminations, frustrations and misunderstandings and long periods of minimal emotional growth. Okay, fine. Painful, but could feel authentic. But then other times, the characters stubbornly adhered to paths that seemed completely at odds with their personalities and the moral world of the book as Undset herself created them, but conveniently led to maximum soap opera-y drama down the road. Which, I think, is why the entire Kristin/Erlend love thing left me cold from beginning to end. Stone cold. Like will-you-guys-shut-up-and-get-out-of-the-story-so-I-can-read-more-about-minor-characters-because-at-least-I-don’t-want-to-throttle-them cold. Now, I don’t think that unrealistic drama has no place in literature. It totally does. Even Shakespeare did the twins thing. But if you are going to go that route, a spoonful of humor really helps the melodrama go down. Kristin Lavrandatter’s strengths are the vibrancy of its world and Undset’s tone of dignified seriousness. The soapiness just felt silly, and it distracted me from the solemn beauty of the book. Those medieval times: minimal medicine and maximal religious tensions. Plenty of exciting stuff could happen without a single stretch, I promise. The section I ended up liking best focused on the late life of Kristin’s early suitor, because it united the good stuff with emotions and events that felt convincingly human and epic without jumping the shark. One more tiny issue: Undset’s occasional nonlinearity didn't add much for me. Something totally shocking and unexpected would happen, be dismissed in a couple of sentences, only to be explained after dozens, or even hundreds of pages of waiting. Minor quibble, though.Overall, I am glad that I read it, but I wanted so badly to luurrrrve it. Oh well. Maybe I should give its evil twin a call…
—Rachel
