READING/ Remembering Kristin Lavransdatter

Now that I’m deep into The Master of Hestviken, which I wrote about here and here, I thought it was time to look back at Sigrid Undset’s other great multivolume work, Kristin Lavransdatter. The following is one of the first posts I wrote for “Why I Am Catholic,” the blog I founded in 2009.

Sigrid Undset (left) won the Nobel Prize in 1928 largely on the strength of her 1,100-page trilogy of Medieval Norwegian life. I recently read it for the first time on the recommendation of a friend in Communion and Liberation (CL). I have since recommended it to other friends and family. Most people don’t have the time for such a long read.

Here’s my Letterman list explaining why I think you should make the time.

10. It starts out as a father-daughter story, and I am a sucker for father-daughter stories.

9. It is a work of fiction in which faith is central. Some would say faith is fiction, and therefore so what? But faith, as Fr. Giussani taught and as CL makes clear, is quite the contrary. Faith is founded in Fact.

8. Kristin lives in a world where family is central. If you want to understand what it is about the traditional family that the Catholic Church holds sacred, read what a binding force family was in Kristin’s world and then imagine how unhinged our world
could be one day without it.

7. Kristin lives in a world where sin and its consequences are realities, and few in the novel are more sinful than Kristin. Through her experience, we can better appreciate the role of sin in our lives and our need for forgiveness.

6. Kristin’s devotion to her husband, despite his screaming failings, is deeply touching, and I say that as a husband with failings, some of them pretty loud, who could not have married a more forgiving woman. In fact (this is a corollary of sorts to #8), the depth of love in even the most troubled marriages in the novel is a testament to the enduring value of family.

5. The liturgical calendar alone is used to date events in the novel. A death never occurs on August 6. It happens “a week after St. Olav’s Day.” This, and countless other historical details, plunges the reader into a world as different and convincing as Tolkien’s Middle Earth.