Kristin’s lifelong quest is for the authentication of human love within it, she encounters the reality of resentment. Only by pressing deeply into the brutal reality of human relationships can we truly begin to live in the grace of the Christian God. And I believe that whoever gazes into life as sincerely and soberly as she did will not be able to deny that the types she represents are real, even if they are chosen with a certain bias.” 1 Hence the power and efficacy of the type of Kristin Lavransdatter, which communicates something difficult about human existence, something denied by modern man yet so desperately desired by him. Indeed, one has the impression that she is compelled to express that which presses upon her as brutal reality. Edith Stein spoke of this in her essay Spirituality of the Christian Woman: “Her creativity is reckless confession. For what is most striking of Undset’s magnum opus is the sheer rawness with which these themes confront us in our humanity, speaking to every age. She has held captive a century of readership, not solely by her medieval erudition and eloquence in storytelling. As the narrative orbits around this relational center, Undset draws out a number of themes pertaining to marriage, family, and Christian conversion. The author, Nobel Prize winner Sigrid Undset, sets the story within the nuptial ambit of Kristin’s marriage to Erlend Nikulaussøn. The novel, itself a trilogy, chronicles the life of a medieval Norwegian woman, Kristin Lavransdatter, from childhood to death.
Indeed it may be so, for it presents marriage not as a tranquil passageway to self-fulfillment, but as an arena for the drama of sin and grace. I t has been said that the novel Kristin Lavransdatter is itself a program of marriage preparation.
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