Kristin Lavransdatter by Sigrid Undset

Kristin Lavransdatter

by

Sigrid Undset

Every few books that I listen to from my audible account I choose a very long one.  That way it takes over a month to listen to it and I have a couple of credits that stack up to listen to more than one shorter book for a little while without spending money on additional credits.  The selection that I chose to be my long one this time was indeed long.  It was a forty hour trilogy called Kristin Lavransdatter by Sigrid Undset.   The setting of the books is Norway in the 1300s.  The author uses a lot of detailed descriptions to make what life was like in that time and place very real.   I found the diseases and injuries that occurred and how they were treated very interesting.  A large part of the book deals with the superstitions people had back then during the beginnings of the orthodox church.  The first book describes a young woman's love story and proceeds from her childhood to her marriage.  The second book covers the time of her married life where she is a young mother.  The third book takes Kristin from her empty nest struggles to widowhood and then up to her own death.  Although I found the foreign sounding names confusing I was able to follow the book enough to know what was happening.   It was very interesting me to how the people lived back then.  The natural elements of the cold climate made it very challenging to survive.   But what shocked me the most was that while people lived very differently so much remains the same.  The book deals with relationships between parents and children and husbands and wives and raises issues that people continue to have today.  These novels were a bit of a challenge to get through but very much worth sticking with them.  I highly recommend the trilogy and think it should be required reading in school.  I don't understand why I was never exposed to this book or why I never heard of it before.  I am not sure how it came into view for me but I am glad I heard of it and listened to it.  Please click on the book title and authors name above to follow links to more information.  And watch the video that follows that is a review of the book.  I hope this is made into a mini series someday.  I am surprised it has not yet been.  One movie was made from it in the mid 1990's but it was not in English.  I would definatley encourage people to take the time to enjoy this book.