Name: Sigrid Undset
Year Won: 1928
Read: Kristin Lavransdottir
Original Language: Norwegian
Reason: "principally for her powerful descriptions of Northern life during the Middle Ages"
About: This is an epic story of a girl (Kristin's) life set in Medieval Norway, spanning from when she is a very young girl until her death.
It starts with Kristin growing up with doting parents who adore her and want her to have the happiest life possible. Only in her mid-teens she falls in love with the much older Erland, a charming member of nobility who has been living with another man's wife in sin for over a decade. This does not stop Kristin, who surrenders her virtue to him and continues to thwart her parents to see him.
Eventually she marries him, but has to live with the sense that she has made her parents miserable (and sinned against them) for the rest of her life as she raises seven sons and becomes more devoted to Catholicism.
While this is the basic plot, much of the story is devoted to living a normal life in Medieval Norway. This includes everything from brewing beer to ordering servants about. It is fantastically researched and wonderfully vivid.
What I liked: It's a wonderful portrayal of an era with exquisite characters. For a while, this was actually a very popular novel in English translation and it's not hard to see why. While thought provoking and intelligent, it also reads like a fun historical novel in a lot of ways. It's a great read. (Even if it is around 1,100 pages long in total...so not a short read! But it's divided up into much shorter books.)
What I Disliked: Almost nothing. This wasn't just a literary book, or a well researched historical novel. It was also a *fun* book. Undset is clearly the Hillary Mantel of the 1920s and anyone who loves her should check this out.
Should it have won a Nobel: Yes.
Next up: Thomas Mann's "Buddenbrooks"
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