

The tapestry is as intricate and fascinating as people and societies are intricate and fascinating. Undset biographer Yola Miller Sigerson describes the feel:Ī profound study of human behavior, it is a spellbinding, meticulously researched adventure story about medieval Norway–and the adventures are both physical and psychological ones. Immersed in Kristin Lavransdatter, one absorbs the sights and smells of the old north country and aches over the obstacles its people endured. His own interests were more ancient than medieval, but he gave his daughter an abiding love for the tales of the Norse and the careful scholarship of the historian. Sigrid Undset’s father was a well-traveled and distinguished archeologist who died when she was eleven. #1 KL is a lavish journey into another time and place. If you’ve heard about this bewitching Scandanavian saga but haven’t picked it up because of its length, let me offer three reasons to begin reading Kristin Lavransdatter and take your time with it. Somewhere beside the fork of a southern Colorado river, I finished its final pages while my husband fished his way upstream. I’ve spent the past three years with Kristin, savoring Undset’s medieval Norway by reserving one volume a year for winter evenings and summer camping trips. You may well remain connected to the characters even when you set the book aside for months of another kind of reading. There’s no need to let the trilogy’s length deter you if you simply give yourself permission to take your time. When asked what she was currently reading, she replied “ Kristin Lavransdatter” in a tone one might use to describe dark chocolate, and the ooohs of appreciation around the room told me it would be worth it. The length of this trilogy deterred me for years, but I never forgot the relishing tone of an award-winning spiritual memoirist whose writing workshop I attended one summer in Santa Fe. I recently finished this Nobel-winning trilogy and used a credit on the 44 hour listen anyway. Kristin Lavransdatter was recently released in an Audible edition, and it’s included in a Washington Post review of the best new audiobook releases.
