Throughout the trilogy, Kristin is an indomitable presence in every role she undertakes….”Īt age seven Kristin gazes at the view from her home: Even so, her unshakable guilt in no way paralyzes her and she carries on with her life. Kristin never doubts that she has covertly sinned, and the pain of her deceptions remains a lifelong affliction. Writing in the first quarter of the twentieth century, Undset chose a middle path for her heroine. In the latter part of the twentieth century, many of Kristin’s successors were sexual adventuresses whose exploits were pure and liberated triumphs. After they fell, a number of Kristin’s nineteenth-century counterparts were whisked offstage, often to meet a premature end. “In the annals of literary ‘fallen women,’ Kristin Lavransdatter, the twentieth-century/fourteenth-century literary figure, occupies a curious and fascinating place.

Here is something about Sigrid’s singular protagonist from the Introduction to the edition I’m reading: Sigrid Undset won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1928. Published in 1920, 1921, and 1922, Kristin Lavransdatter was a worldwide literary sensation. I see many similarities between Kristin and Claire Fraser, the protagonist of Outlander. The story centers around the life of Kristin from childhood to elderhood, and her sexual, emotional, familial and spiritual pilgrimage across the span of life. A few weeks ago I ordered it the time was right, I thought, especially because the Black Plague has a part to play in Kristin’s story and we’re living through our own time’s pandemic. I vowed to read it again someday from the perspective of a good portion of life lived. I first read The Wreath, The Wife,and The Cross by Sigrid Undset when I was in my twenties, thanks to my college roommate, Kathy, (of Norwegian descent) who highly recommended it. Historical fiction is what I’ve been immersed in lately, what with watching the Outlander series and reading the remarkable 14th century Norwegian trilogy Kristin Lavransdatter. They said that whoever was afraid would be sure to die, and so they blunted their fear with carousing and drinking, playing cards, dancing, and carrying on with women.” – Kristin Lavransdatter,by Sigrid Undset “He was well, but had cast himself into a wild life, just as many young people, out of despair, had done. “An older woman sitting by me on the subway, or waiting beside me in a line at the Department of Motor Vehicles, or having lunch at a nearby table, would cross the boundary separating strangers in order to volunteer that she, too, had once read Kristin Lavransdatter – a remark accompanied by that special glow which comes at the recollection of a distant but enduring pleasure.” – Brad Leithauser, from the Introduction to Kristin Lavransdatter.