Kristin Lavransdatter, an enormous novel, provided me with an avenue of escape long ago.
One fall day, I’d had enough.
My wonderful children were ages two and four. My husband had been out to sea on a submarine for a very long time. I did not know when I’d see him again.
Everything in our old rustic house was broken — even the telephone — and I lacked repair skills. My family lived 3500 miles away.
All I wanted was to be transported far, far away. I didn’t even care where. I desperately wanted to be relieved of the drudgery of my life.
With no neighbors, we lived on a granite slab carved out of a New England hillside. At 29, I was the “senior” wife on our submarine. All the wives who “outranked” me had fled to different lives.
I thought I had to hold it all together and be strong for the “junior” wives.
But I felt myself going to pieces.
I remember the fall day I let go and drifted off.
Piles of vivid red, gold, and dull brown leaves needed to be raked in our Connecticut yard. Pumpkins and carrots needed to be plucked from the garden. Diapers needed to be changed, clothes washed, and bills paid.
I just couldn’t do it anymore.
So I checked out for a couple of days.
Physically, I stayed home tending the boys. I fed them, clothed them, and watched them–sort of.
But mentally and emotionally, I was gone.
I didn’t read to them. Didn’t play with them, or even pray with them.
I just existed in a place in my head and went through the motions of motherhood.
I felt guilty. But I couldn’t help myself anymore.
The book
I found my partner in a book — a big, fat, sprawling 14th-century Norwegian tale called Kristin Lavransdatter.
The 1936 “Nobel Prize edition” I read was over 1000 pages long.
The author, Sigrid Undset, won the 1940 Nobel Prize for Literature for the book.
Translated from Norwegian by Charles Archer and J. S. Scott, it contained three books: The Bridal Wreath, The Mistress of Husaby, and The Cross.
I didn’t know anything about Undset when I read her book over two intense days.
A strong, intelligent woman whose circumstances took her to places she didn’t want to go, Undset poured herself into her books. While writing them, she raised her three children in an isolated house in Norway — her husband long departed.
I sat on the rock wall outside while my children played in the fall sunshine all those years ago. It took me out of my personal circumstances for a needed break.
Kristin Lavransdatter is not an easy read. It’s a medieval story of love, adultery, passion, fury, and even motherhood.
The children frolicked outdoors until their cheeks turned red and then came inside to watch Mister Rogers. I fed them hot dogs for dinner. Meanwhile, I poured through the emotions of abandonment, love, hope, and commitment to someone outside of me.
Good literature can do that for you.
The final book tells it all: The Cross.
And we all know who went to the cross.
The lover of my soul knew my circumstances but fashioned them for me.
God cared enough for a lonely, hurting woman to give her fall sunshine for the children to play outside.
The same God who provided healthy children to love me, even when I couldn’t bear to hug them.
He may not have liked the novel (!), but he let me soak into someone else’s life and out of mine for two days.
I may have checked out with Kristin Lavransdatter, but God checked over me.
I finished the book late the second night and awoke the next morning with the heaviness lifted.
We made pancakes for breakfast and took the boys to the library, where we checked out brightly colored picture books. We read them together.
I prayed for them, and for me, and for my husband, still not home from sea.
The days grew shorter, the nights colder, and one day he returned to make our family whole again.
At least a little while.
I’ve never touched Kristin Lavransdatter again. I’m surprised to learn now that it carried controversial themes. It just reminds me of a time when I needed to be transported away, and a thick novel did so.
Have any books taken you far from dismal circumstances? How, why, and what were they?
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