They buried Lavrans Bjorgulfson but I pause not to bury but to praise. More than half-way through the book now I have an even deeper appreciation of Sigrid Undset's genius. The book is not overlong, it is long because she shows the reader deep into the psyches of her characters. Whereas even great writers will let the characters speak and let the reader intuit their psyches from there Miss Undset tells us what her characters are thinking. In fact, Kristin does not speak much in the book but Miss Undset tells us at length what she is thinking. Obviously, you get to know the characters much, much better that way than when an author lets words and actions speak for themselves. As others, for example Dickens, she physically describes her characters, but her physical sketches are not as detailed. Her psychic descriptions are extraordinary. And since the book follows Kristin from girlhood to now mother of six with a seventh on the way and God knows how deep into age to come, you see the manifestations of their psyches as they age. I thought this morning, "It's like a physical trait that becomes more pronounced with age." You never outgrow your nose, rather it outgrows you, and you never outgrow your psyches. And so, for instance, Erlend's charming devil-may-care swashbuckling virility of early manhood, you know that is going to come back to bite him in the ass, and it does.
It takes genius to do what Sigrid Undset did in this book, to get inside other people's heads. Psychic character traits are also to some extent inherited, no? "Everyone is born a little bit conservative or a little bit liberal" the saying goes and so I see Ragnfrid's bitterness and grudge-holding passed on to Kristin. I am not clear on the source of Ragnfrid's bitterness, this is a translation and the original translator has been criticized for bowdlerizing some pretty explicit, I am led to believe, sex scenes. Ragnfrid held a grudge against Lavrans, literally till he was on his death bed, because, it's fuzzy but something to do with Lavrans not lusting after her before marriage. There is one particular passage where I understood that Lavrans could not get it up for Ragnfrid, and not just situational impotency but that he didn't physically desire her. Well, that was not passed on from mother to daughter to Kristin. Ragnfrid did however have sex with a suitor prior to Lavrans, which she only tells Lavrans about much, much later in life. That cruelty, and to Lavrans, too! was passed on to Kristin.
It is a book about women written by a woman. That is key. It seems to this man that it is a given in gender relations that men are constantly out-schemed by women who flare once and again with grudges long-held but forgotten by the man. Simon, who married Kristin's sister Ramborg (another lusty young 'un), visits Husaby and sees first-hand these two scorpions in a bottle. Miss Undset writes Simon's thoughts,
...even if they did not quarrel outright, they often came more nigh to it than Simon deemed fitting. And it seemed to him that Kristin was the most at fault. Erlend was quick-tempered and hasty, but she often spoke as though from a deep-hidden grudge.
When in Simon's presence Kristin threw one of her zingers from the depths,
Erlend made no answer, but rose to his feet and went out. And to Simon this seemed an ill speech of Erlend's wife.
Erlend's reaction to the guerrilla shot, ho ho ho. Men, who amongst us has not had that reaction? Ho ho ho.
That's a very uncomfortable position for Simon to be in. And women generally do that too! They instinctively know the safety that an auditor affords them. If Kristin had zinged Erlend exactly as she did but alone, just the two of them, would Erlend have "made no answer"? Hell nooo! There would have been a "quarrel outright" right then and there.
When finally Simon takes leave of Husaby for home he had his horse fucking gallop the hell away from there, "the life at Husaby had so weighed on his mood."
I do have a question, which is more an observation, a criticism: Were there any 14th century Norwegians who lived happy, fulfilled, contented lives? Not in this book. Ben, for godssake, this was Medieval Scandinavia. Okay, so you're telling me nobody did. I don't believe that. Where is the love? There is lust, there is filial piety, duty love, where is the real article? I grew up in a town infinitely more dystopic than Medieval Jorundgaard, Norway and I had a great childhood! Splashed around in the Shit Crick, played up on Red Rock, got the shit beaten out of me in friendly fist fights, walked to school in ten degree weather--it was heaven! My parents who grew up there during the Depression--One time I asked mum what it was like. "Oh Benjamin, we were so poor we didn't notice."--had a happy, fulfilling marriage. We loved Barnesboro! We loved each other; we were one biggish happy family living in Medieval Barnesboro-upon-Susquehanna. Do you mean to tell me there was no, not one, happy fulfilling life in greater metropolitan Jorungaard? I don't believe it. And life is not going to get better in Kristin Labransdatter. I'm now on The Mistress of Husaby Part III "Erlend Nikulausson," and that is not going to end well.
Life is not a Disney movie. And neither is it a Cormac (nee Charles) McCarthy novel. We do not merely endure, at times we flourish. I recur to what Jonathan Spence wrote in the preface to The Search for Modern China,
No country, over the past few centuries, has been free of turmoil and tragedy. It is as if there were a restlessness and a capacity for violence at the center of the human spirit that can never be contained, so that no society can achieve a perfect tranquility. Yet in every country, too, humans have shown a love of beauty. a passion for intellectual adventure, a gentleness, an exuberant sensuality, and a yearning for justice that have cut across the darkness and filled their world with life.
It takes genius to do what Sigrid Undset did in this book, to get inside other people's heads. Psychic character traits are also to some extent inherited, no? "Everyone is born a little bit conservative or a little bit liberal" the saying goes and so I see Ragnfrid's bitterness and grudge-holding passed on to Kristin. I am not clear on the source of Ragnfrid's bitterness, this is a translation and the original translator has been criticized for bowdlerizing some pretty explicit, I am led to believe, sex scenes. Ragnfrid held a grudge against Lavrans, literally till he was on his death bed, because, it's fuzzy but something to do with Lavrans not lusting after her before marriage. There is one particular passage where I understood that Lavrans could not get it up for Ragnfrid, and not just situational impotency but that he didn't physically desire her. Well, that was not passed on from mother to daughter to Kristin. Ragnfrid did however have sex with a suitor prior to Lavrans, which she only tells Lavrans about much, much later in life. That cruelty, and to Lavrans, too! was passed on to Kristin.
It is a book about women written by a woman. That is key. It seems to this man that it is a given in gender relations that men are constantly out-schemed by women who flare once and again with grudges long-held but forgotten by the man. Simon, who married Kristin's sister Ramborg (another lusty young 'un), visits Husaby and sees first-hand these two scorpions in a bottle. Miss Undset writes Simon's thoughts,
...even if they did not quarrel outright, they often came more nigh to it than Simon deemed fitting. And it seemed to him that Kristin was the most at fault. Erlend was quick-tempered and hasty, but she often spoke as though from a deep-hidden grudge.
When in Simon's presence Kristin threw one of her zingers from the depths,
Erlend made no answer, but rose to his feet and went out. And to Simon this seemed an ill speech of Erlend's wife.
Erlend's reaction to the guerrilla shot, ho ho ho. Men, who amongst us has not had that reaction? Ho ho ho.
That's a very uncomfortable position for Simon to be in. And women generally do that too! They instinctively know the safety that an auditor affords them. If Kristin had zinged Erlend exactly as she did but alone, just the two of them, would Erlend have "made no answer"? Hell nooo! There would have been a "quarrel outright" right then and there.
When finally Simon takes leave of Husaby for home he had his horse fucking gallop the hell away from there, "the life at Husaby had so weighed on his mood."
I do have a question, which is more an observation, a criticism: Were there any 14th century Norwegians who lived happy, fulfilled, contented lives? Not in this book. Ben, for godssake, this was Medieval Scandinavia. Okay, so you're telling me nobody did. I don't believe that. Where is the love? There is lust, there is filial piety, duty love, where is the real article? I grew up in a town infinitely more dystopic than Medieval Jorundgaard, Norway and I had a great childhood! Splashed around in the Shit Crick, played up on Red Rock, got the shit beaten out of me in friendly fist fights, walked to school in ten degree weather--it was heaven! My parents who grew up there during the Depression--One time I asked mum what it was like. "Oh Benjamin, we were so poor we didn't notice."--had a happy, fulfilling marriage. We loved Barnesboro! We loved each other; we were one biggish happy family living in Medieval Barnesboro-upon-Susquehanna. Do you mean to tell me there was no, not one, happy fulfilling life in greater metropolitan Jorungaard? I don't believe it. And life is not going to get better in Kristin Labransdatter. I'm now on The Mistress of Husaby Part III "Erlend Nikulausson," and that is not going to end well.
Life is not a Disney movie. And neither is it a Cormac (nee Charles) McCarthy novel. We do not merely endure, at times we flourish. I recur to what Jonathan Spence wrote in the preface to The Search for Modern China,
No country, over the past few centuries, has been free of turmoil and tragedy. It is as if there were a restlessness and a capacity for violence at the center of the human spirit that can never be contained, so that no society can achieve a perfect tranquility. Yet in every country, too, humans have shown a love of beauty. a passion for intellectual adventure, a gentleness, an exuberant sensuality, and a yearning for justice that have cut across the darkness and filled their world with life.
