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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Kristin Lavransdatter, by Sigrid Undset.  Get the modern translation, which has a black cover and all three parts of the trilogy in one book.

It won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1929, I think.  It is the story of a marriage in medieval Norway.  I have read it dozens of times, and get more out of it every time I read it.  Reviewers have said only Brothers Karamazov could rival its study of human nature.

The first few chapters start a little slow, with Kristin's childhood, but then the action is unrelenting, soul-rending, and so real.  You will BE Kristin, but you will want to shake her, too.

I will give it to each of my daughters when they are 16, so they can understand love, what marriage is like, what it is like to be a woman.  You get to live someone else's life, all her mistakes, and it will haunt you.[/quote]

Sounds terrific, and I put it on hold at my library. They asked which volume I wanted, so I went with 1, so is it a series? [/quote]

It is a trilogy, but the modern translation has all three installments in one volume:

http://www.norway.org/ARCHIVE/culture/literature/nunnally/

The first book ends with Kristin's marriage, the second is when she is young and raising children, and the third is from when her children are growing up until her death of the plague.

I actually love the old-fashioned, original translation (it's kind of Shakespearean), but the modern translation makes it a very fast read.[/quote]

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