You are either on your knees in penance, or you are on another silly quest for self-actualization. You are either wielding a sword for the Kingdom like Lavrans, or you are waving your ego like Erlend. Reading the tale of Kristin and her Norsemen, you are faced with a decision: Are you are Lavrans, or are you Erlend? There are only two options. We are reminded that men are often weak and downright bad, but that they can also be strong, even good. Undset catapults readers into all the glory and shame and responsibility of manhood. Lavrans or Erlend?īy following the proud and beautiful character of Kristin through most of her life in fourteenth-century Norway, we cannot help but follow the men in her life. It’s time to put off the old man and to take up your cross. Do not be content to watch from the sidelines as the Immaculate Conception crushes the serpent’s head. But history would be a lot more manly if the sons of Adam would start listening to this Scandinavian daughter of Eve. Is Undset a modern prophet? I don’t know. Christ has spoken once and for all from the cross, and Kristin throws this challenge to every man: will you join Him? Your life rises or falls on this one question: will you speak from your cross? It’s as if someone handed Eve a typewriter, and she told the story of a sinful world in Adam’s shadow-the New Adam’s shadow as he hangs from the bloody cross.
Kristin Lavransdatter is in fact the story of Eve as she deals with the consequences of Adam’s silence. Only she could remind men that in the beginning Adam was a medieval Norseman and Eden was the first Christendom.Īdam was standing next to Eve when she ate the forbidden fruit. Only Sigrid Undset could write this book. Only Eve could so accurately capture Adam’s cowardice, his courage, his Catholic heart. There is no such saying-but there should be. Perhaps the old saying is true: “Only a woman can really know the heart of a man.” If this Catholic convert and Norwegian Nobel Prize winning author isn’t a “suitable helper,” then I don’t know who is. God made Adam, and then he made Sigrid Undset. “Real men read novels.” You’ll make your morning offering and kiss your brown scapular, and then you’ll drive to the jobsite…with your tear-stained copy of Kristin Lavransdatter tucked somewhere between your toolbox and your Stanley thermos. “That’s right,” you’ll say, your voice husky from drinking mead with kinsmen after a long Alpine hunt. But you will sleep like a baby, and in the morning you will wake up with a bonfire in your heart. Kristin Lavransdatter will make you weep and shout and stay up way too late with eyes as big as saucers.
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