![]() ![]() ![]() Fortunately, while denigrating its inferior predecessors, Hallström inadvertently describes it perfectly: the book is about the logical and sentimental consequences of the grave decisions that Kristin makes, unhesitatingly, when her aspirations for happiness are at stake. At 1124 pages, the novel is less a portrait of a person than a landscape of a life. I had been struggling to come up with an adequate summary of Kristin Lavransdatter, Undset’s medieval epic which follows one woman from cradle to grave. He congratulates Undset on finding a more lofty subject. But her characters were too ‘prompt to make the gravest decisions as soon as aspirations for happiness were at stake, ready to take the ultimate logical and sentimental consequences of impulsive nature’. These novels are ‘gripping’, he concedes, ‘as far as the scope of the personages permits’. Per Hallström, the Chairman of the Nobel Committee, opened his 1928 presentation speech with a rueful look at Undset's earlier work depicting the lives of contemporary women. Sigrid Undset wasn't awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for her entire oeuvre: rather, it was 'principally for her powerful descriptions of Northern life during the Middle Ages'. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |