This becomes A Midnight Summer's Sex Comedy there is so much bed-swerving going on. They had some of the same "exceptions" to unfaithfulness in Medieval Norway as we have retained, e.g. "out of town rules apply." So, while Erlend is away warring and resists the temptations of a Lady of high birth on ship, a Lady of the married persuasion, there were yet "one or two matters that had befallen away in the north, no reasonable man would bring into the account." Quite.
Kristin turns into a MILF-ersson. After her great depression and shamefulness in her sin, after her attempts at absolution, her pilgrimage, after all of that and after having five children in five years starting at age 17, Kristin meets Erlend at the landing when he returns from warring and finds:
She was grown so fair that Erlend caught his breath when he saw her...Her cheeks were round and freshly red...her bosom full and firm...Her thighs were rounder and fuller...Yes, yes--she had but grown more fair...it was a young, rosy and joyful Kristin, mild and beaming with happiness, that went with him this time to the feast at Husaby...
...
But now there came on Kristin a recklessness the like of which she had never known. She grew livelier and less still in her mien when she was out among strangers--for she felt herself very fair...
'Tis speaking a fair peace to say in this period there was in Kristin "a recklessness the like of which she had never known" when one takes account of the stolen copulation with Erlend at the fence of the field of the NUNNERYYY! and the assignation in the house of ill repute, inter alia. Wild as the wind was that child. And then devout and guilt-ridden and depressed so that reader and characters alike thought she would die. But marking that we were only on page 400 or so we bethought unlikely.
Nay, Simon Darre did not stay dead! Miss Undset acts the Resurrectionist with him agayne. In the most unforeseen manner. Comes a letter to Husaby from Lavrans. He has betrothed his youngest daughter, Kristin's sister Ramborg, to Simon. Which Lavrans had betrothed Kristin to Simon before she laid her eyes on Erlend which caused her loins to ache and throb and her young legs to part in every hill and dale and whorehouse in several area codes.
Then Simon "flung himself free of his ties." To Ramborg. To Lavrans. To his own father. First Miss Undset had to free Simon from the ties to his first wife and for his convenience Miss Undset had her die off. Which freed Simon to be betrothed to Ramborg. Whilst engaged to young Ramborg though Simon did a "thing unheard of in his kindred": "he...wooed the rich young widow at Mandvik." Wooed and won her too. "In the devil's name, he would show them all that he could win the noblest wife." Fucking married her. Then discovered that she wasn't good in bed: "her caresses tortured him." And she was barren. As was Simon's first wife, killed off.
On the frontispiece of Kristin Labransdatter is the briefest excerpt from the New York Times review:
"Her supreme achievement is in the appealing humanity and fallibility of her characters."
I find that true. Miss Undset colors her characters fully, deeply and in detail. There is no stereotyping, the characters are not cardboard cut-outs, they are fully rounded human beings in all of their appeal and fallibility. Human, all too human. It is a supreme achievement.
Kristin turns into a MILF-ersson. After her great depression and shamefulness in her sin, after her attempts at absolution, her pilgrimage, after all of that and after having five children in five years starting at age 17, Kristin meets Erlend at the landing when he returns from warring and finds:
She was grown so fair that Erlend caught his breath when he saw her...Her cheeks were round and freshly red...her bosom full and firm...Her thighs were rounder and fuller...Yes, yes--she had but grown more fair...it was a young, rosy and joyful Kristin, mild and beaming with happiness, that went with him this time to the feast at Husaby...
...
But now there came on Kristin a recklessness the like of which she had never known. She grew livelier and less still in her mien when she was out among strangers--for she felt herself very fair...
'Tis speaking a fair peace to say in this period there was in Kristin "a recklessness the like of which she had never known" when one takes account of the stolen copulation with Erlend at the fence of the field of the NUNNERYYY! and the assignation in the house of ill repute, inter alia. Wild as the wind was that child. And then devout and guilt-ridden and depressed so that reader and characters alike thought she would die. But marking that we were only on page 400 or so we bethought unlikely.
Nay, Simon Darre did not stay dead! Miss Undset acts the Resurrectionist with him agayne. In the most unforeseen manner. Comes a letter to Husaby from Lavrans. He has betrothed his youngest daughter, Kristin's sister Ramborg, to Simon. Which Lavrans had betrothed Kristin to Simon before she laid her eyes on Erlend which caused her loins to ache and throb and her young legs to part in every hill and dale and whorehouse in several area codes.
Then Simon "flung himself free of his ties." To Ramborg. To Lavrans. To his own father. First Miss Undset had to free Simon from the ties to his first wife and for his convenience Miss Undset had her die off. Which freed Simon to be betrothed to Ramborg. Whilst engaged to young Ramborg though Simon did a "thing unheard of in his kindred": "he...wooed the rich young widow at Mandvik." Wooed and won her too. "In the devil's name, he would show them all that he could win the noblest wife." Fucking married her. Then discovered that she wasn't good in bed: "her caresses tortured him." And she was barren. As was Simon's first wife, killed off.
On the frontispiece of Kristin Labransdatter is the briefest excerpt from the New York Times review:
"Her supreme achievement is in the appealing humanity and fallibility of her characters."
I find that true. Miss Undset colors her characters fully, deeply and in detail. There is no stereotyping, the characters are not cardboard cut-outs, they are fully rounded human beings in all of their appeal and fallibility. Human, all too human. It is a supreme achievement.
