Sigrid Undset (1882-1949) was a Norwegian novelist born in Denmark who received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1928 mainly for her trilogy Kristin Lavransdatter about the life of a woman in 14th century Norway. Undset is largely unknown today outside of Norway and except by a few Catholic scholars which is a shame because her writing is truly some of the most powerful, beautiful, realistic, and brutally Romantic works ever written. She is my all time favorite writer not only because I revel bathing in the Romantic, obscure, and the beautiful, but because she is indeed one of the giants of western literature.
Sigrid Undset's power as a writer was influenced by several sources. Her father was an archaeologist, and she developed an extensive knowledge of the old Norse and Icelandic Sagas. She was also influenced by several prominent Scandinavian writers of the 19th century like August Strindberg , the playwright Henrik Ibsen, and other writers like the Brontes, Jane Austen, Leo Tolstoy, and William Shakespeare. Though she became renowned for her novels set during the Middle Ages in Norway, Undset's early novels and short stories dealt with the lives of young women living and working in Kristiania, which is now Oslo. Her modern characters show an alienation and lack any spiritual base to help them survive life's often boisterous and brutal storms.
Her novel Jenny (1911) caused a scandal because of it dealt with sexual issues. The main character Jenny is a young artist living in a community of young expatriate artists in Rome. She is loved by a fellow Norwegian artist, but cannot bring herself to respond to him; still she becomes engaged to him. When she returns to Norway, she meets her father, a rather weak man who is hounded by his wife. Jenny feels sorry for him, but does not love him. After a brief liasion with the father, she learns that she is pregnant. The story ends tragically like most of Undset's novels and short stories. Jenny, unlike, Kristin Lavransdatter which is Undset's masterpiece, was out of print until 1997 when I had the longed for opportunity to read it in Tiina Nunnally's collection called The Unknown Sigrid Undset. The descriptions of Rome and the countryside outside the city are breathtaking. You can almost hear, breathe, and smell nature in Undset's stories. You can also relate to the character's feelings and passions.
For years Kristin Lavransdatter could only be read in an older version of English, but in 1997 Tiina Nunnally translated the it into simplier modern English. Kristin Lavransdatter is in three volumes and a must read. It is the story of Kristin the daughter of a wealthy Norwegian landowner in the 1300s, her passionate love affair with the darkly handsome, erotic, and reckless Erlend, who seduces her when she is taking a spiritual retreat at a convent, their turbulent marriage, her decision to become a nun after the death of Erlend, and her and a number of her children's deaths during the Black Death. This novel is a beautiful but difficult read because of the amount of tragedy. It contains passionate love scenes (without sex described in detail), violence, the death and injury of young children, and lush descriptions of nature. The saintly and the sinful are presented. Kristin's spiritual journey is told just as it is in Undset's other medieval masterpiece The Master of Hestviken whose protagonist is male, a highly moral person, who passionately loves the same woman from childhood, but even though he is a highly decent person, goes on to commit murder when the honor of the woman he loves is wrecked.
Sigrid Undset soaked up life. The realism, beauty, passion, Romance, despair, and raw brutality of her works are a reflection of her own life and spiritual journey. When her father died, she had to abandon her dream of getting a university education. For 10 years she was an diligent office worker and secretary, feeling frustrated in having to do work that really did not reflect her talents. Early on, she dreamed of being a writer, devouring works by her favorite authors, and trying her hand at writing a novel set in the Middle Ages. Her first published work was set during the modern era and dealt with adultery. Later she distanced herself from modern themes and placed her characters in medieval settings, but gave them range and emotions that people in all times and places can relate to.
Being rather shy and reserved, Undset probably did not have a relationship until she was 30 when she met a Norwegian painter Anders Castus Svarstad during a trip to Rome. Svarstad was 9 years older and married with a wife and 3 children back in Norway. It was probably love at first sight, and they began to live together, marrying about 3 years later once he was able to get a divorce. The marriage produced children, but eventually broke up. During the time, Undset, because of the demands of being a wife and mother was not able to write. She also had the first rumblings of a spiritual crisis which would lead her to reject Lutherism and become a Roman Catholic.
When Germany invaded Norway in 1940, Sigrid Undset fled first to Sweden and then to the US. While in America she pleaded for her country's liberation through her writings. After the fall of the Nazis, she returned to Norway, but for whatever reason never wrote again. Why she never wrote again is a mystery, maybe she was just too worn out and the creative juices had just dried up. So much had occurred in her life, that she was probably also rather disillusioned.
The article Reading Sigrid Undset gives more insight into her writings as also articles and speechs on Nobelprize.org which can be viewed here.
Oprah Winfrey's endorsement of Tolstoy's Anna Karenina in 2004 (Boy, did I ache with thrills that an African-American woman would promote and recognize a classic of world literature!) helped it to be an bestseller even though Anna, the main character commits suicide and the novel was published in the 19th century . So like Oprah I endorse the Romance and realism of Sigrid Undset.
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