Then Kristin gets older, is betrothed to a suitably nice boy, has a few mild misadventures, goes to a convent, meets a much more intriguing and handsome young man, falls madly in love, defies everyone, mopes her way through every obstacle that arises, until she finally marries this “true love” and isn’t as happy as she might have hoped. The first really interesting scene involved Kristin being tempted by what appears to be an elf maiden, offering her a wreath from across a stream.
It started off slowly, introducing Kristin as a seven year old, building the atmosphere of the family farm, and setting the stage for medieval Norway. I essentially liked this first chunk of the book. Please pardon the disjointed babble that follows… 🙂 In The Wreath Undset tells the story of a headstrong young woman who defies the expectations of her much-beloved father, the lessons of her priest, and conventions of society when she is captivated by a charming and dangerously impetuous man.
In Kristin Lavransdatter (1920-1922), Sigrid Undset interweaves political, social, and religious history with the daily aspects of family life to create a colorful, richly detailed tapestry of Norway during the fourteenth-century. I’ll use these excerpts from the Penguin Reading Guide that I found online to explain the plot more simply than I’m capable of: In fact I’ve been trying to pull together some thoughts (well actually, I’ve been continuing to avoid doing so) for three days.įortunately I’m not alone – the other participants in this read-along have started posting their reviews, and reading what they have to say and joining in the discussion through comments has kicked my brain back into action. This is slightly unfortunate, I’m finding, now that I am sitting down to try to pull together some thoughts.
I just didn’t bother to think too hard about it. That doesn’t mean that the book didn’t make an impression on me. I didn’t take notes, my yellow highlighter didn’t mark a single page, and the story didn’t settle very far into my consciousness. Overwhelmed by an overly eventful month and my hefty reading choices (all three of them…!) I chose to devote the larger part of three evenings to The Wreath and just get it over with. I read the first section of this book in a hurry.
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