Kristin Lavransdatter

[GemmasGirl]

This came up in another thread a couple weeks ago, and I thought it might be interesting to give it it’s own thread.
Everyone I know who is Catholic that I’ve heard talk about Kristin Lavransdatter thinks it is the best book ever. My YA Catholic book club is in the middle of reading it… And I despise it. Kristin is a jerk, and I liked Arne, Simon and Lavrans way more… Which meant I lost all interest after Erlend the Evil appeared… I’ve been told that in the later portion (I made it through the first volume and a couple chapters of the second) she is properly punished… But I just didn’t like her at all as person.
For whatever it’s worth in analyzing my normal reading preferences, my favorite authors are Jane Austen, Charlotte Bronte, Flannery O’Connor, Dostoevsky, Chesterton, Tolkiem, Louis Dee Wohl, Myrtle Read and Shakespeare.
Anyone else who didn’t like her? Or, if you do, I’d love to hear why!

 

[Tis_Bearself]

I tried to read this decades ago and it wasn’t so much that I didn’t like Kristin, I just didn’t like the book.
To me at age 18 it read like a morality tale. Disobey your father by wanting to marry the wrong guy/ having sexual relations with him, and your whole life will be ruined from your youthful mistake. It seemed like an old-fashioned version of all the young adult fiction books where couples who had premarital sex all had some terrible thing happen to them - usually unplanned pregnancy or an STD - resulting in parental wrath, societal ostacization, loss of economic opportunities, and sometimes worse consequences like traumatic abortions, suicide or other tragic death. This was especially the case when the person disobeying the conventional morality or going against her father’s wishes or whatever was a female.

Now that I’m older, I see there are more dimensions to the book that have to do with the historical setting and social order, and not just with someone’s personal story, and I’ve considered trying to read it again. I also saw there was a new translation that might be easier to read.

 

[Limoncello4021]

I love the book and have taught it to graduate students many times. I think you have to like history (I do) as well as the enculturation of faith to appreciate all the research Sigrid Undset did for the book. It takes place in the fairly brief period of time when Norway was Catholic. Her earlier work, The Master of Hestviken, explores the earliest period of Catholicism, which is fascinating in that it had to meet and take over from paganism. There are still pagan practices, as Kristin finds out, during her times several hundred years later.
It is ok to read a book and not relate to or like the characters. At least to this literature teacher, that isn’t why we read great literature. However, the really Catholic nature of the book–very moving and profound–is in Kristin’s awakening/conversion once all her pride and lust have been stripped of her at the end, and she has to come to grips with the trauma she’s created in her life as well as (and this is the point of the book) how God ultimately still loves us through it and uses it for our good. Tiina Nunnally’s translation is a very good one, but I actually like the original translation better, perhaps because I just got used to it.
Undset was a very interesting person, and she converted to Catholicism because of her research writing Kristin. She wrote eloquently about her conversion, and toured the U.S. at one point giving talks.

 

[TheLittleLady]

Everyone I know who is Catholic that I’ve heard talk about Kristin Lavransdatter thinks it is the best book ever.

Same here. I’ve tried a couple translations, I bought the unabridged audio book, nothing. I simply find it terribly uninteresting (and I enjoy reading encyclopedias and dictionaries).

 

[GemmasGirl]

I understand reading a book and not identifying with a character… Even the main character… I mean, I love Jane Eyre despite nursing a secret wish that she had married St John, and I adore all of Shakespeare’s often quirky, often sinful characters. I think I just couldn’t be self motivated to read the book after Kristin made me so mad by getting all interested in Erlend and forgetting poor Simon… Maybe I should try again… (Takes deep breath)

 

[jeannetherese]

Perhaps reading about the author will renew your interest in the book.
Sigrid Undset by Mitzi Brunsdale is a fascinating read. Stanley Jaki has also written a book: Sigrid Undset’s Quest for Truth.
Best wishes!

 

[Limoncello4021]

Oh gosh, I couldn’t be more different in my opinion. Simon was the safe, predictable guy, Erland dashing and romantic. What kind of a dramatic story would there be if Kristin married Simon? Anyway, the much larger and very beautiful theme of the story–very similar to works like Brideshead Revisited–is the mysterious workings of God to use even our bad or misguided choices for our good in the end. And you have to wait to the end of book 3 to find this out. I had a student once who refused to read Brideshead because Sebastian was both an alcoholic and presumably gay (the story strongly suggests the latter). So he never was able to contemplate how Waugh shows us God’s guiding hand even through our sins and failings. In fact, it is our very weaknesses that God often uses to lift us up. O felix culpa!

 

[jlc2k2]

Listening to the audiobook as a 30 something mother of daughters, I wanted to yell at the Kristin of book 1. I started to relate more later in book 2. And I tried to learn from her more in book 3. But I can’t say I ever liked her. I do think her flaws made her more real to me and made it easier to handle (despite not liking her) than if she hadn’t had them.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

Perhaps reading about the author will renew your interest in the book.
Sigrid Undset by Mitzi Brunsdale is a fascinating read.

I find I often prefer to read the non-fictional story of the authors more than I like reading their fictional books.
Sometimes I even prefer to read the non-fictional story of the spouse of the author if it’s a muse type like Nora Joyce or Zelda Fitzgerald.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

Anyway, the much larger and very beautiful theme of the story–very similar to works like Brideshead Revisited–is the mysterious workings of God to use even our bad or misguided choices for our good in the end.

Brideshead Revisited didn’t do much for me either, once Sebastian and his bear exited the story.

I have difficulty understanding why people take hundreds of pages to just repent already, and why the authors make such a big, tortuous deal out of it.