Wise elders have always told me to read the classics and, generally, I have obeyed, although the gaps in my reading are still large. This year I read Sigrid Undset’s Kristin Lavransdatter, the story of the daughter of Lavran, a minor nobleman in medieval Norway. Kristin is beautiful, spirited, intelligent, courageous and, in the beginning at least, the perfect daughter of a God-like man. Lavran is a warrior, a farmer, a devoted husband and father, and a man of fierce and unfailing honor and courage. He is also, like most of his neighbors, fellow nobles, and kinfolk, a devout Christian. But this Norway is a world in transition. Demi-gods and woodland spirits still roam the forests, and they can enchant human beings who do not respect their powers. It is the certainty of the existence of these nature deities and the fear of them that make the Christianity of Kristin, her father, and their friends and family such a vital power. Every day these people witness the Manichean struggle between good and evil.
Theology tells them that good will triumph, but experience causes doubt. And so enters evil into Kristin’s charmed life in the imposing form of Erlend Nikulausson, the impossibly handsome and charming nobleman whose past, unknown to Kristin but not to her father, should exclude him from her list of suitors. Kristin is helpless before Erlend’s charms and soon does things no maiden of her time and station should ever do. And of course, in this subtle religious allegory, she must pay the price for her dance with the Devil. A priest, himself a transgressor, who befriends Kristin, says to her, “The Devil’s work is what begins in sweet desire and ends with two people becoming like the snake and the toad, snapping at each other.”
But Kristin Lavransdatter is the story of a whole life, and Kristin learns much about good and evil and accomplishes much that transcends the fevers and desires of youth. An allegory, a study of medieval Norse culture, a passionate love story, and a ripping good yarn full of wonderful characters, bold and justified surprises, and beautiful writing, Kristin Lavransdatter richly deserved the 1928 Nobel Prize.
A second novel whose marvels I have savored is The Howling Ages, by William Hastings (2018). This is the story of Thomas, an American expatriate English teacher in Kuwait who, although dutiful and loving, feels himself beginning to drift from the wife and child whose pixels he sees weekly on the internet. As family and home fade, the mysteries of life in the desert beckon and the young man haunts the kif cafes where he forms cautious friendships over lazy backgammon games. Soon, although only half-aware of it, Thomas is ripe for an adventure. What begins as a commercial arrangement with a Eurasian courtesan becomes a love affair and then a deeper connection that threatens everything that anchors the teacher and his lover to two very contingent lives.
The title, from Jack London’s The Call of the Wild, reminds readers of the prehistoric time when animal-humans felt the call to howl. This wonderful first novel by an extravagantly gifted young writer puts the reader in touch with all that is humanly and animally possible and introduces one of the most frightening and plausibly malign villains I have ever encountered in fiction.
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This article appears in Dec 13-20, 2018.