May 23, 2007

• Kristin Lavransdatter

  

  This photo was taken from the campground where we just spent two days with my husband’s folks.   We spent one day mushrooming (boy-howdy, did we get the morels) and one day bass fishing.

  

  

  Curt and I have an understanding:  I bring a book and read until the fishing is hot.  Then, and only then, will I fish.  Otherwise, he gets to run the boat, cast away, reel in to his heart’s content.  Better yet, he doesn’t have to untangle lines.  We’re both content and get to be together doing what we love.  We soak up the quiet, punctuated by the plop of a  fish jumping, the quiet hum of the trolling motor or the gossipy chuck-chucking of a chukar on the bank.

  My book fascinated and occupied me.  I first heard of Kristin Lavransdatter reading a book list; I took note when Elisabeth Elliot named it her favorite novel.  Set in medieval Norway, it tells the tale of a young woman who grows up her father’s favorite child, but refuses his choice of husband preferring a morally unsuitable man.  [I read the first book of the trilogy, The Bridal Wreath.]  Well.  This is a tale of universal application – girl loves the wrong boy. 

  What I appreciated about this book is the same thing I liked in Anna Karenina. It is an honest portrayal of love, lust, sex and everyday life after the roll(s) in the hay.  The wages of sin is death, but we’re dishonest if we pretend that the advance draw isn’t delicious.   Sigrid Unset does an excellent job revealing the deceit, the subtle changes in thinking, the isolation and the separation that follow Kristin on the path she takes.

  And sometimes in church, and elsewhere too, she would feel a great yearning to take part in all that this meant, the communion of mankind with God.  It had ever been a part of her life; now she stood outside with her unconfessed sin. (p.166)

  When I was a girl at home ’twas past my understanding how aught could win such power over the souls of men that they could forget the fear of sin; but so much I have learnt now: if the wrongs men do through lust and anger cannot be atoned for, then must heaven be an empty place. (p.174)

  It is painful to see the tight knit love between Kristin and her father Lavrans snag, tear and unravel.

  You have wrought sorrow and pain to many by this waywardness of yours, my daughter — but this you know, that your good lies next to my heart. (p.211)

  “Father,” said Kristin, “have you been so free from sin all your life, that you can judge Erlend so hardly–?” “God knows,” said Lavrans sternly, “I judge no man to be a greater sinner before Him than I am myself.  But ’tis not just reckoning that I should give away my daughter to any man that pleases to ask for her, only because we all need God’s forgiveness.” (p.226)

  People in the midst of self-gratification seldom think of the effect their actions will have on other people, or how many people they will affect. 

  “Much have I done already that I deemed once I dared not do because ’twas sin.  But I saw not till now what sin brings with it — that we must tread others underfoot.” (p.259)

  In the end, Kristin gets what she wants – minus the joy.  What she thought would fulfill her doesn’t satisfy.

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