Kristin Lavransdatter

Well, I did it. 1100 pages, three volumes, the latest and thought-to-be-best translation. I finished book 3, Kristin Lavransdatter: The Cross.

And I've been struggling with how I feel about this book on a second reading, the first having been more than 25 years ago.

There were things I loved. Undset had a way with description that made the Norwegian countryside so vivid, and I'm usually someone who can't visualize things from words, so that's saying a lot. I also think she did an amazing job of incorporating her historical research into the text. I often veer away from historical fiction, because I've read one too many books where the author wants to use Every. Little. Bit. Of. History. they learned about, necessary to the story or not. But Undset seemed to use only what was necessary to set the scene and keep the story moving forward, and never with a "Hey, look at all the cool research I did!" mentality.

That said, the political intrigue lost me in various places. Yet the outcome--Erlend's loss of status--was clear enough, and painful for the daughter of Lavrans.

The first half or more of The Cross seemed to me to be same old, same old. Kristin agonizing over various sins. Kristin moping. Kristin fighting with Erlend. Then the whole thing with Erlend hightailing it into the hills, and their eventual reconciliation followed by yet another standoff, was highly annoying.

It wasn't until--sort of a spoiler alert here--Erlend's death that the book started turning around for me. Kristin's life as a widow, her disappointments in her sons, the pain of Gaute following the same path she and Erlend had taken, all seemed much more vivid and understandable. The scenes where the sons talk plainly about their life growing up with such difficult parents are painful. Kristin's final decision to leave Jorundgaard and take up life in a convent was completely believable, and even then life isn't as easy or graceful as she'd hoped.

Yet she's learned a bit about life and perseverance:

"Now, whenever she took the old path home past the site of the smithy--and by now it was almost overgrown, with tufts of yellow bedstraw, bluebells, and sweet peas spilling over the borders of the lush meadow--it seemed almost as if she were looking at a picture of her own life: the weather-beaten, soot-covered old hearth that would never again be lit by a fire. The ground was strewn with bits of coal, but thin, short, gleaming tendrils of grass were springing up all over the abandoned site. And in the cracks of the old hearth blossomed fireweed, which sows its seeds everywhere, with its exquisite, long red tassels."

I remember reading this trilogy when I was in college and loving it passionately. It's interesting--and more than a bit sad--to realize that somewhere along the way, something changed. It may be due in part to the translation--according to the introduction in the Tiina Nunnally edition, the version I read years ago had been embellished with all kinds of Victorian language and convoluted sentence structure. That would have appealed to me at that point, no doubt. And I can certainly see that Nunnally's translation is cleaner and beautiful, and likely much closer to the original. I wonder if I would have liked it as much back then?

Not to be maudlin, but the re-read also brings up another one of those imponderables: In college, I read this along with one of my best friends. She was at a slightly different stage in life, having married out of high school, suffered a bad marriage and miserable divorce, and entered college later. Even though we came to it with different backgrounds and an age difference of a few years, we both loved it.

But she died right after college, 25 years ago. So while re-reading it, I had an increasing sense of "What would Lesa think? Would she still like it too?" And of course, I can't answer that. So the re-read was a disappointment from the sense of not liking it as much as I had before, and sad from being reminded of a good friend who died far too young and isn't here to help me re-evaluate the book--or to enjoy any book.

Even with all that, though, I'm glad I did re-read it. Thanks to Emily for hosting this read-along. It certainly was thought-provoking. 

Comments

[Valerie]

It's interesting that both times (25 years apart) that you read KL, you have read it with others! The first time with your friend, and this time with us read-along parcipiants. Perhaps that's really the best way to make it through the trilogy. I know that if it were not for the read-along, I would have given up after a while (I actually had the first book before the read-along-- it probably would still be in my TBR pile for eternity otherwise).

By the way, I also got confused at times by the political stuff, too...