Kristin Lavransdatter: The Wife

Classic in Translation. The Wife by Sigrid Undset (1920), translated by Tina Nunnally

In The Wreath, Kristin Lavransdatter defiantly resists her parents plans for her, abandons her respectable betrothed, and marries the unsuitable man she passionately loves. Now a married women, Kristin must reclaim prosperity for her husband and her sons on his neglected lands. When political intrigue threatens the life she built, Kristin must decide to respect her husband and stand by him although he hardly deserves her love and trust.

It took me the entire year to get back to this series, but I’m so glad I didn’t give up on Kristin after her appalling behavior in The Wreath. I’m also relieved that I read it near the end of the year so I only have to wait a few days before starting The Cross.

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A note on translations. I was so excited to find the second and third books at Half Price Books that I didn’t even consider the translation. When I started to read, I quickly realized that I couldn’t hack through the original translation by Charles Archer and J.S. Scott. I switched to the modern version Kindle, and it was smooth sailing. Here’s the explanation of the differences from Wikipedia.

Kristin Lavransdatter was originally translated into English by Charles Archer and J.S. Scott in the 1920s. The choice of archaic and stilted English phrasing (“thee”, “I trow”, “methinks” etc.), intended to reflect the 14th-century setting of the novel is considered by critics today to cloud Undset’s clear prose, rendering it unnecessarily formal and clumsy. In some instances, Archer’s choices are deliberate reflections on the original language (for example ‘I trow’ adopted from the Norwegian ‘tror’ meaning “to believe”). With this in mind, some may find the translation genuine, rather than needlessly archaic. It was also criticized for expurgations, as some scenes, particularly sexually explicit ones, had been omitted or edited. The quality and difficulty of the translation therefore impeded the adoption of Kristin Lavransdatter into standard literature of the English-speaking world.

A new and complete translation by Tiina Nunnally was released by Penguin Classics in 2005, and is considered by many critics to be the superior of the two, particularly for its clarity, reflective of Undset’s “straightforward, almost plain style.”