"Kristin was quiet and shy when she was with her betrothed; she found little to talk about with him. One evening when everyone had been sitting and drinking, Simon asked her to go outside with him to get some fresh air. As they stood on the gallery in front of the loft room, he put his arm around her waist and kissed her. After that, he did it often whenever they were alone. She wasn't pleased by this, but she allowed him to do it because she knew there was no escape from the betrothal. Now she thought of her marriage as something she had to do, but not something that she looked forward to. And yet she liked Simon well enough, especially when he was talking to the others and did not touch her or speak to her."
I do not believe that this passage from The Wreath, the first part of the Kristin Lavransdatter trilogy by Nobel Prize winner Sigrid Undset, was intended to be funny. But laughing I was, here and in a few other parts as well. This is always what I fear when I hear "historical fiction" or the dreaded word "saga." Characters whose story is not so much reflective of the historical references in which they are couched as they are placed upon an historical staging. Undset's depictions of medieval Norway are often well-rendered, and she tells her story of Kristin's coming of age in The Wreath with skill and a boldness in terms of sexual frankness that must have been cutting edge in its day. But Kristin's story, that of a young woman spurning the well-regarded suitor her parents have brought before her for a spoiled but disgraced knight who, even judged by the patriarchal society of the day, is somewhat of a misogynist, has not drawn me in yet. But in the best of company for this shared read, I will keep reading. This may get better. This is just the first book of three.
This read leaves me questioning so much about the genre of historical fiction. It is easy, as I have done here, to play the snob, and say that this is not normally my cup of tea. To make assumptions based upon a conflation of historical fiction and historical romantic fiction. To equate the genre with reductive anti-feminist works, or novels that infuse a modern female sensibility and empowerment inappropriately for the historical period depicted. But the truth is, I do like some historical fiction. We all do. We may prefer to say we only enjoy postmodern historical fiction. We may prefer not to think of that treasured The Name of the Rose as representative of the genre. But it is. So how do we define historical fiction? How broad? Think I will give it two more parts of Kristin Lavransdatter before I take up this question again.
So what do I like about The Wreath? The descriptions of the natural beauty of Norway. They kept me reading for their simple beauty.
''For those who were waiting for the redemption of spring, it seemed as if it would never come. The days grew long and bright, and the valley lay in a haze of thawing snow while the sun shone. But frost was still in the air, and the heat had no power. At night it froze hard; great cracking sounds came from the ice, a rumbling issued from the mountains, and the wolves howled and the foxes yipped all the way down in the village, as if it were midwinter. . . . Kristin went out on such a day, when the water was trickling in the furrows of the road and the snow glistened like silver across the fields. Facing the sun, the snowdrifts had become hollowed out so that the delicate ice lattice of the crusted snow broke with the gentle ring of silver when she pressed her foot against it. But wherever there was the slightest shadow, the air was sharp with frost and the snow was hard."
Wouldn't mind being there. Just wish Kristin and her ill-chosen husband weren't hanging about. Feel like her father crying into his hands at the thought of it all. And hoping things look up from here.
