Two by Undset: Part 2

Finally, I am ready to go back and do part 2 of the post on the Sigrid Undset books I was reading back in January! Whew, that took a while (and I'm mortified to see that at the end of the post I promised to follow up in "a day or two.") So, the second book was actually a new one: Undset's hagiography of St. Catherine of Siena, which has recently been republished by Ignatius Press.

I didn't know much about St. Catherine of Siena before I read this book. I purchased it mainly for Undset's writing, which I already know and love. I knew Catherine mainly as the holy woman who convinced the Pope to return from his exile in Avignon, but that was pretty much it. I can be slack with my spiritual reading, taking several months to read one book. However, Undset's writing style worked its magic and I practically devoured this book, finishing it in two or three days.

Undset not only tells us about Catherine's life, but paints a vivid picture of life in 14th-century Tuscany. With her usual knack for historical detail, she tells us of the political situation of Italy and the Papal States during Catherine's life, and explains the reasons for the exile to Avignon - basically there were a lot of political games being played between the French and the Italian cardinals, and the French really wanted the temporal power that comes with having control over the papacy. The Italian cardinals were definitely biased towards selecting Italian popes, true - but Undset reveals the reasons for that bias by explaining to us how a non-Italian pope complicated the situation in the Papal States. Non-Italians were less interested in the welfare of the people, seeking mainly to plunder the papal possessions in the name of their country. The historical background is very important for understanding Catherine's life and Undset certainly treats it with all due diligence.

I had always assumed that Catherine of Siena was a nun (most medieval women saints seem to be either nuns or queens), but actually, she was a Third Order Dominican. As a young woman she joined an order of Dominican tertiaries in Siena, mostly widows who lived at home. I was surprised that she chose this route rather than that of a cloistered nun - but obviously God had His reasons for keeping Catherine out of the cloister. Catherine was also from a distinctly middle-class background, in a time when many religious leaders were of the noble class. Her father was a cloth dyer in Siena and her brothers also worked in that trade. She was not highly educated, either - she learned to read and write as an adult, and these abilities came to her almost as a miraculous blessing.

The other really striking thing about Catherine, to me anyway, was her ability to form deep spiritual friendships with men. The young men of Siena seemed to be really drawn to her - she was able to act as a spiritual guide and lead them out of lives of wantonness. Undset described how young men would enter her home, angry that she was converting their best "drinking buddies," and leave converted themselves. These young men often addressed Catherine as "Mamma" emphasizing her role as spiritual mother. In an unusual role reversal, her confessor, Raimondo of Capua, came to regard her as his spiritual guide. He could perceive that Catherine had been given graces far beyond anything he himself would have. Catherine shows that real feminine virtue is attractive to men; men want to have something to aspire to, a woman whom they can look up to as an ideal. Something to remember in our modern times, when the goal for "real women" seems to be to act like rough, crude men. The best in womanhood - graciousness, firmness, chastity - calls out to the best in manhood - courageousness, chivalry, and purity.

I would recommend this biography to anyone wishing to learn more about Catherine of Siena, or about the "Babylonian exile" of the Papacy to Avignon. Catherine is truly an example of God using the weak of the world to shame the strong. She was a woman, in a time when women were not regarded as equal to men; of humble origins, in a time when noble blood mattered most. Yet because of the extraordinary graces given to her by God she was able to admonish and guide kings and Popes, and to accomplish God's will on earth.

Two by Undset: Part 1

The beginning of the semester is always a nice time for leisure reading. I'm not yet bogged down with classes and in the mood for more meditative pursuits. I have been reading two works by Sigrid Undset (you may recall my earlier post on her masterpiece Kristin Lavransdatter). The first is her tetralogy The Master of Hestviken, and the second is her biography of Catherine of Siena, recently republished by Ignatius Press.

I actually re-read The Master of Hestviken, which is composed of the four books The Axe, The Snake Pit, In the Wilderness, and The Son Avenger. I really can't do justice to the plot of this epic novel in a blog post - and it really is epic in the best sense of the word, as Undset was inspired by the old Norse sagas. Like Kristin Lavransdatter, the novel is set in medieval Norway, and is roughly contemporaneous to Kristin (a young Lavrans Bjorgulfson makes a cameo appearance towards the end of The Snake Pit). The main characters are Olav Audunsson, the eponymous heir of Hestviken, and Ingunn Steinfinnsdatter, his foster sister. Olav and Ingunn are betrothed as children and raised as brother and sister. When they grow into teenagers and succumb to temptation, they naively expect that their eventual marriage will shield them from the consequences. Unfortunately, this is not the case. The family intrigues come fast and heavy as Olav rashly kills a relative of Ingunn's and is forced to go into exile. When he returns to find that Ingunn has been seduced and borne an illegitimate child, he kills her seducer, and for complicated reasons, finds himself unable to confess the sin for many years.

This book is nothing short of depressing, in all honesty. Things never really improve for Olav and Ingunn after the sins of their youth. Just when you think it is impossible for them to make their lives worse, it gets worse, without fail - and they usually do it to themselves. In Kristin, Undset deals with the reality that there is no "happily ever after" and she makes that even more bleakly clear in The Master of Hestviken. Even after Olav secures his ancestral manor and marries Ingunn, she suffers ill health and dozens of miscarriages, dying after years as an invalid. He raises Eirik, her illegitimate son, as his own, alternately trying to do penance for murdering the child's father and hating the boy for not being his own blood. In the end, it is Eirik who resolves the conflict of his parents' sins, but only after following his own crooked path.

Reading this description probably doesn't induce you to read the book - but there is so much more to it than the bald list of Olav's endless sufferings. The love between Olav and Ingunn is beautifully described. Almost like Cathy and Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights, their childhood affinity grew into a love that has so shaped them that they cannot imagine life without each other. (Olav even begs Ingunn to come back to him after she dies, a scene which should be familiar to readers of WH.) In spite of all Ingunn's failings, Olav shows an amazing selflessness towards her which raises them above Cathy and Heathcliff's animal passion. Later, as Olav realizes the gravity of his sin and struggles to confess, we are treated to inner monologues that perfectly describe the crushing weight of sin and the pain of separation from God. It is a book well worth reading - not "leisure reading" but a novel that will help you grow spiritually. There aren't many books I can truly say that of.

After typing up this lengthy post on The Master of Hestviken, I realized that Catherine of Siena really deserves its own post. I will follow up in a day or two.

Kristin Lavransdatter

Reprinted from Crisis Magazine, an excellent biographical sketch of the Norwegian Catholic writer Sigrid Undset.

Most of us here in the United States have probably never heard of Sigrid Undset. I remember it was my grandfather who first introduced me to Kristin Lavransdatter, her brilliant trilogy of novels set in medieval Norway. My father's father was and is a very taciturn, stern man. He was the child of Norwegian immigrants and proud of his heritage. He told me once that my name in Norwegian would be "Kristin." Maybe he liked it because it reminded him of Kristin Lavransdatter. Like Sigrid Undset, he was a convert to Catholicism (something I didn't know until very recently.) His conversion from Lutheranism was probably precipitated by his marriage to my devout Irish Catholic grandmother, in an era when "mixed marriages" were not well looked upon. Whatever the circumstances, he soon became as devout a Catholic as she (somewhat to the dismay of his Lutheran relatives). He probably found much to relate to in the conversion story of Sigrid Undset.

As a child, I was a voracious reader. (I still am!) One summer while we were visiting my grandparents, Granddad suggested I read The Mistress of Husaby (more properly called The Wife as that is the title Undset gave it, translation notwithstanding). Unfortunately the translation was the older one by Charles Archer, and while I was reading well above my grade level at the age of 10, I wasn't quite precocious enough to manage a book chock-full of archaic language like "I trow." Not having read the first book, I also didn't quite understand why Kristin, the heroine of the novel, was constantly depressed and thought that her child would be born deformed. Needless to say I didn't make it all the way through the book.

However, in college something sparked the memory of the Kristin Lavransdatter stories. Maybe it was a blog article about Sigrid Undset, the Catholic author. I logged on to Amazon, ordered the trilogy (in a newer, more accessible translation), and was instantly hooked. Somehow I found I could relate well to my supposed namesake. At twenty I could understand the guilt that sin leaves behind it much better than I could as a child. Kristin is the apple of her father Lavrans' eye - yet she defies him to marry the man she loves - or thinks she loves.

Don't be deceived by the seemingly chick-lit plot I've described so far - this is not light reading. In contrast to today's more popular romances, sin has consequences in this story. Kristin's defiance of her parents, her society, and God has its price. She gets her heart's desire - yet she is somehow never happy with Erlend. He is not the perfect knight she believed him to be, but a weak, fallen man. Although he loves her in his own way, he constantly betrays and disappoints her. However, Undset shows us how Erlend's betrayals great and small shape her into an iron-willed woman and mother. And when Kristin is most in need, it is her former fiance' Simon who keeps faith with her in the most unexpected way.

Perhaps what I like best is that no character in this trilogy is a cardboard cutout. Simon, unassuming at first, soon reveals himself to be one of the most complex characters in the story. His life is inextricably and painfully bound up with Kristin's. The revelation of the secret burden of Kristin's mother Ragnfrid gives us insight into how regret and guilt have shaped her life - as they do her daughter's.

The end of The Cross, the last novel in the trilogy, is perhaps its most powerful moment. Kristin recognizes her utter weakness and fallibility - yet she comes to understand that she has served God in her life. She has been an unmindful, disobedient servant perhaps - but a servant nevertheless.

I have read Kristin Lavransdatter again and again, and every time I read it I find something new in it that I never noticed before. I have yet to read any other novel that has been so enriching to my spiritual life. It is both catholic and Catholic in its appeal. I highly recommend it to everyone.