My faculty-wives’ book club struggles with the question of whether to be a book club, or else to give up all literary pretensions and call itself Wine Night at K’s House. My friend K. does, as it happens, have the kind of house that makes you want to collapse onto an inviting sofa with a glass of something in your hand and not think about anything except how comfortable you are, and how pleasant it is to recline with other women who also, truly, at the end of a long day, want nothing more than to collapse on inviting sofas with glasses of somethings in their hands, too.
Last month, to keep ourselves from dissolving into the upholstery — there wasn’t even wine that night, either, just herbal tea, so it wasn’t that kind of dissolution — we vowed to draw up a reading list to carry us through the academic year, because otherwise . . . well, we all remember what Mr. Darcy says, about an accomplished woman’s improving her mind with much reading, and we all Heart Mr. Darcy, as my oldest daughter’s favorite t-shirt has it, so there you are. 
Our list for the year includes Walter Miller’s Canticle for Liebowicz, the first book of Evelyn Waugh’s Sword of Honor trilogy, a new novel by Annie Dillard called The Maytrees, and (my choice) Willa Cather’s The Song of the Lark. We just finished reading Memento Mori, by the late superlative Muriel Spark; this novel, also my recommendation, is a strange read, though I find it no end of fascinating. At any rate, I thought I’d suggest something a little more straightforward for my next turn.
But for the entire fall, we are reading Kristin Lavransdatter. For some of us it’s an introduction to Sigrid Undset, while for others of us it’s a welcome reread. Our thought was that taking on a long novel to begin with was a good thing, so that we wouldn’t lose our momentum. It’s awfully hard not to get invested in Kristin, and we’re counting on her to carry us forward for months to come.
I know that people have strong feelings regarding the proper English translation of this novel; that is to say, there is argument over which translation is the best one to read. For me there’s no question: the book I own is an old single-volume edition of the Archer translation. It’s the one I’ve read, and it’s the one I’ll read this time. Others, meanwhile, are reading the recent translation by Tina Nunally. which restores lost portions of the story as well as, in Nunally’s own words, offering a corrective to the “archaic and really bad” language of the earlier translation.
Personally, I never had a problem with the “archaic and really bad language,” though I am eager to see what I’ve been missing in the way of reclaimed fragments. To my reader’s ear, the old translation at least didn’t occlude what seems most Nordic about the story. Reading the opening of the first book of the trilogy, The Wreath, which in my edition is called The Garland, what struck me afresh is how, from the beginning, the story fits itself into the structure of the old Sagas, in which whole genealogies are mapped out and irrelevant-seeming narrative rabbit trails pursued, because it is the tiny happening — the failure to say Good morning to a certain person, the minor insult or oversight — which ultimately explodes into consequence, even if two or three generations intervene between the small event and its aftermath.
So Undset’s novel begins with the laying-out of the land, in terms of characters. Thus we learn, from the first paragraph, who Lavrans is, where he comes from, what are his people. We learn that it’s by a dogleg of fate that he inherits his land and wealth. We learn of his wife Ragnfrid’s dark interiority, intensified by the loss of three infant sons. All the weight of this history, the random giving and taking-away which has formed the family, comes to rest on the one living child, Kristin.
As I was reading this first section – in the orthodontist’s office on Tuesday, while my twelve-year-old was getting braces — it occurred to me that in the hands of another novelist, the scene which gives the first book of the trilogy its title might have set the story in motion in a radically different direction. That tiny but crucial moment in which Kristin, looking at her own face in the water, finds herself watched and beckoned to by an elf-woman holding a wreath of flowers might, in a different novel, have been the spark igniting a great freedom: from the superstition of religion, from the all-defining social mores of a narrow world, all of that which does, in fact, shape everything which happens to Kristin from the moment of this encounter. That would, in fact, be the most likely pattern for a contemporary retelling, though as I revisit that thought, it’s hard to see where the story would go, absent the set of consequences — absent the idea of this set of consequences — which proceed from that half-glimpsed almost-meeting.
In any event, in the middle of these thoughts I was called back to discuss the finer points of oral hygiene and to cart home my newly orthodontified adolescent, who right now feels that the consequences of his meeting with Dr. Nice Teeth are not at all, in any way, worth what we paid for them. Given all that, I’m looking forward with redoubled avidity to Wine Night at K’s House. And if I get to have some conversation along these lines, that’ll be nice, too.
PS: At my friend Maclin Horton’s blog, Light on Dark Water, there was some good conversation a few months back about Undset, Kristin Lavransdatter, and the question of translations. But I think all the good stuff was in the comments, which since the blog’s move from Blogger to Typepad I can’t find any more. Seems to me that most people were heartily in favor of the new translation, but I may be remembering that wrong. Meanwhile, here’s a meditation on Kristin’s character which might start some new conversation.
PPS: Overheard as I was finishing this post: “I don’t think you’re a very good brother, and I’m not going to let you feed my fish.”
Speaking of character . . . which is to say, ultimately, “Speaking of the human condition . . . ”
PPPS: A question it’s never occurred to me to ask . . .
I have the Nobel Prize edition, picked up at Goodwill for $.99 years ago. I read it, mostly enjoyed it. Mostly.
I liked that it is very accurate historically. The characters are very believable and the Faith is treated with respect. It was wonderful to find myself mentally in this old Medieval world for a time. Undset wrote beautifully.
Throughout most of the book, however, I wanted to fling Fløtepudding at Kristin’s head. She is terribly annoying. She spends too much of her life blaming everyone for her own stupidity and rash behavior. And she does a LOT of stupid things. Over. And Over. And Over.
She seldom accepts the blame for anything and holds grudges against her husband as if she had nothing at all to do with anything, like, say the two of them creating a child before the wedding date. Not like she sneaked out of (if memory serves) a convent to meet him or anything. More than once.
Yeah, I know. In real life people are like that. And she does ‘get better’ eventually although it is like in the last 50 pages or so. On the good side, Kristin wasn’t Miss Havisham, my number one literary nemesis. But she’s right up there on the list.
So, it was mixed for me. I’m glad I read it and I loved the writing, but unlike a lot of my other favorite books, reading it once was plenty-enough.
If you look at the bottom of that post you linked to, you’ll see “Pre-TypePad Comments (12)”. Those are the original comments made when the post first appeared, back at the dawn of time when the blog was at Blogspot. There’s a bit of discussion of translations there. I’m not sure if there was ever any more than that. If so, it may have been on one of Janet’s Undead Threads, which are not, alas, searchable (I won’t bore you with the explanation).
And thanks for the link. I happened to look at my Sitemeter page and wondered what had provoked that flurry of hits on a three-year-old post.
I’ve sort of half-promised myself some minor literary sub-deity that I wouldn’t read Kristen again until I’d read Master of Hestviken. Still waiting on the right time for that.
Walker Percy’s The Moviegoer, perhaps? Walter Miller’s A Canticle for Leibowitz. I like the Kristin Lavransdatter suggestion — have had it on my “to-read” list for about, um, a quarter-century now. Cheers!
Chan — Aha, it’s Walter Miller. I was thinking that that was a Walker Percy I hadn’t heard of. The Moveigoer, yes, I know well.
Shana — Yes, I think that’s what “Kristin is a brat” is all about. She is maddening. As my book-club friend K says, you want to strangle her all the time. Yet you keep reading . . .
It’s funny that as I’ve been writing this, my teenager has been reading Middlemarch, and she keeps saying what a twit Dorothea is, and how she’d like to strangle her. She hasn’t read KL yet, and I’d be very interested to have her stand Dorothea-as-Twit up against Kristin-as-Twit . . .
Maclin, thanks. This was probably a loop of conversation that had nothing to do with an original post at all (ie, probably an Undead Thread rabbit trail). I just vaguely . . . remember it . . . somehow . . . but maybe I only dreamed it.
But . . . but . . . one could go back and read an Undead Thread if one wanted, could not one?
Glad you got a flurry of hits, even if it was ancient history! That really was a good post on KL.
Thanks. Yes, the Undead Threads are with us still–just look in the sidebar box labelled “Here”.
Sally,
I went over and read the ‘Kristin is a Brat’ entry after I put my $2.52 worth in here first!
It is true – the whole time I was reading and wishing I could personally push Kristin into a fyord, I couldn’t help but keep reading the gorgeous text all the way to the end. And sadly, it isn’t until the end that I liked her at all. I wish the author had given her a greater smattering of virtue much earlier in the story – or let her grow in faith and virtue at a more reasonable pace – even if she went off course now and again later. Kristin would have been a much more interesting character, I think.
Was I the only one who thought The Wife was intolerably boring after reading part one? I enjoyed reading The Wreath, but I struggled through The Wife; and by the time I started reading The Cross, I was too bored to continue after fifty or so pages. This is coming from a person who reads classics all the time, so I think I have some level of tolerance for slow reading.
I, too, have the old edition in lovely condition with tissue-thin pages which I first read before I had children. Should I want to re-read it in the next twenty or so years I’ll probably have to get a sturdier copy. I’m glad I have a good excuse to own two copies
I hated Middlemarch and thought Dorothea a complete twit. Without any disrespect towards George Eliot (because I could never write a novel!) I just couldn’t see any of myself in Dorothea. I just found her thoroughly annoying.
Kristin, on the other hand, sort of made me sick. Of course I wanted to hate her, too, but. if I were honest with myself, I could just see too much if myself in her. Not that the particulars of our lives are similar in, really, anyway. And, certainly, her Big Sins were not mine. But even as an engaged woman reading the book I could see how easy it would be to let small things eat at your soul, and your marriage. How easy it is to focus only on oneself. She had a few Big Sins, to be sure, but most of Kristin’s problem was all the little things that she refused to let go.
The Maytrees is lovely. A very good choice after plowing through the Lavransdatter.
I should get the new translation and re-read it.
Thanks for the Maytrees endorsement, Sal. I haven’t read Annie Dillard in years — read Pilgrim at Tinker Creek and others and loved them in my twenties, but haven’t revisited them since (not deliberately; so much to do, so little time). My friend who recommended it hadn’t read it, either, but having read all those other Annie Dillard books was interested in pursuing this one.
My friend K’s idea was that we should have “women to talk about.” I should have thought of Dorothea in Middlemarch as a counterpoint to Kristin, but that didn’t occur to me till my daughter started reading the latter. And although I don’t dislike Dorothea so much, that would maybe be too much heavy going on top of KL. I do like Thea in Song of the Lark very much — by the time we get to her, Kristin will be a distant memory, but unlike as they seem, I’d be interested in how they resonated against each other as female protagonists, and how their worlds clash, too, for that matter.
For many years, I snobbishly thought I was the only living person on the planet who had read this book. I would bring it up at parties…”have you read”…and then eventually found out that this classic is well loved by many. I have two copies – and was unaware that there were more translations. Thanks for the tip. For some unknown reason, I slip back into that book evey couple of years, as I have since first finding it in 1970. Now I have to find a new translation. I kind of am looking forward to it!
Happiness all ’round — a merry review and a merry discussion. Thanks to all!
But I am sorry about that herbal tea thing.
Goodness it’s been more than a decade since I read Middlemarch– so I’m not sure how she matches up against Kristen– but I did definitely think Dorothea was a twit. Kristen was aggravating but she wasn’t such an intellectual brat as I remember Dorothea being. And I thought the final scenes of The Cross completely redeemed Kristen. In fact, contra so many, though I thought The Wife dragged, I don’t know that I would want Kristen to change until the very end of the novel. There is something satisfying to me about that final grace at the end.
Oh, the herbal tea was great. Probably better than dissolving into the upholstery for more bibulous reasons.