Sigrid Undset I|Sigrid Undset|nobelprijs literatuur

||boek: Sigrid Undset I|Witte orchideeën|Heideland pantheon nobelprijs literatuur

||door: Sigrid Undset

||taal: nl
||jaar: 1956
||druk: ?
||pag.: 337p
||opm.: hardcover|zo goed als nieuw|broos

||isbn: N/A
||code: 1:000404

--- Over het boek (foto 1): Sigrid Undset I ---

Streven. Jaargang 6 (1938) - [tijdschrift] Streven [1933-1947]

We bespraken reeds in dit tijdschrift het eerste deel van dezen vervolgroman: Witte orchideeën (Streven IV, blz. 692-693). Wat volgen zou, konden we toen vermoeden; maar nu de geheele arbeid, in twee lijvige boeken, voor ons ligt, moet onze recensie van het tweede deel zich ook over het eerste weer uitstrekken.

Over de buitengewone hoedanigheden van de schrijfster weiden we liever niet uit: over haar krachtigen greep in het leven, de echtheid van haar veelvuldige gestalten en verwikkelingen, haar weelderige onbesnoeidheid die meteen de allerverscheidenste levensverschijnselen verstrengelt, haar cordate oprechtheid tegenover beangstigende problemen...: over dat alles vindt men, elders, meer bevoegde aanduidingen en beschouwingen. Ziehier, voor ons, het belangrijkste: de grootste wellicht van de hedendaagsche romanschrijvers, zelf een bekeerlinge, bezorgde ons een authentischen bekeeringsroman die speelt in den modernen tijd. Meer dan dat zelfs - want de geschiedenis van Paul Selmer gaat voort tot heel zijn verleden, ook de fouten er van, in eeuwigheidswaarde is omgezet -: Sigrid Undset bezorgde ons een roman waarin het christelijke leven, op het heidensche leven geënt, dat niet alleen veredelt en verheft, maar het ook, gelijk het was, omvormt en doorstraalt met genade.

Buiten het geloof, zoeken de menschen witte orchideeën van geluk; zij kweeken slechts zwakke stengeltjes met onaanzienlijke bloemen. Binnen het geloof, wordt men geleid waar men niet gaan wil; maar vroeg of laat staat men, veilig en gelukkig, bij het brandend braambosch van Gods aanwezigheid.

De titels van de twee boeken stellen dus, tegenover elkander, hun respectievelijken inhoud. Kind van vrijzinnige ouders die, hoewel gescheiden, toch in goede verstandhouding leven, vindt Paul Selmer, na wat dwaalwegen met Lucie Arnesen (Witte Orchideeën, eerste deel), een betrekkelijk geluk in zijn huwelijk met de onbeduidende Björg Berge (W.O., tweede deel). Reeds een tijd lang katholiseerend, gaat hij tot het Katholicisme over (Het brandend braambosch, eerste deel); dat vervreemdt van hem zijn vrouw die hij, met heldhaftig-barmhartige plichtgetrouwheid, weer aan zich te hechten vermag (B.B., tweede deel). Nog eens ontmoet hij Lucy Arnesen die een ongelukkig huwelijk heeft gesloten: met een onuitputtelijke toewijding weet hij haar, tot aan haar dood, te helpen, ja te redden. Zoo zuiveren de gevolgen van den heidenschen overmoed zijner jeugd zijn christelijken mannenernst en -kracht (B.B., derde deel).

In zijn groote lijnen is dus het werk, al schijnt het heelemaal uit schakeeringen te bestaan, meesterlijk geconcipiëerd. Van deze overtuiging gaat de conceptie uit: alleen het katholieke geloof maakt heel het leven, hoe het ook weze of zou geweest zijn, vast en veilig3. Daartegenover gesteld, houdt het ideaal van een oprecht en fatsoenlijk vrijdenker - Paul's moeder is er de draagster van - geen stand ten aanzien van het driften-leven noch van de groote beproevingen; het berust trouwens op de dwaling dat de mensch eigenmachtig zijn algeheel geluk maken kan en moet. Beschouw integendeel het leven als een dienst en een belijdenis: kinderlijke eenvoud, spontane aanhankelijkheid, oprechte dienstvaardigheid, gerechtigheid en trouw nemen vanzelf hun absolute plaats in. Al is de strijd daarmede geenszins uitgestreden; tegenover veel vijanden staat men zelfs machteloos: - wie naar beste vermogen zijn plicht vervult, ziet, vroeg of laat, hoe Gods lichtende wijsheid over zijn levensloop beschikte.

Veel bijkomstige beschouwingen en besluiten waren hier mogelijk en op hun plaats; laten wij er slechts drie kort formuleeren:

(1) De schrijfster, een vrouw nochtans, is wars van alle sentimentaliteit. Herhaaldelijk komt Paul Selmer tegen het gevoelsleven van katholieke kringen in verzet; in hem objectiveert Sigrid Undset waarschijnlijk eigen indrukken. Zakelijk, dikwijls niet zonder een complex van humor en ernst, stelt zij de meest aandoenlijke tafereelen voor; kleinheid en grootheid constateert zij in en door elkander: vanzelf vloeien haar waarnemingen samen tot beelden van grootheid.

Op het Neo-Thomisme moet zij zich, sedert haar bekeering, bijzonder hebben toegelegd: zoo moet haar katholieke levensbeschouwing vastheid en breedheid hebben erlangd. Ook bij katholieke schrijvers en gestalten van de XIXe en XXe eeuw moet zij veel hebben gevonden. Op blz. 63 vonden we Newman vermeld en zijn biograaf Ward: ja, niettegenstaande een zeer groot verschil, - veel heeft zij met den grooten Engelschen bekeerling gemeen. De psychologische peilkracht namelijk; het duidelijk besef van de menschelijke waarde en cultureele rol van het christendom; de breede ontvankelijkheid tegenover het moderne leven, waarbij het Katholicisme, zich aanpassend en uitzuiverend, nieuwe teelkracht moet verwerven. Eén werk van den Oratoriaan draagt een titel die op dezen arbeid precies past: Loss and gain, verlies en winst.

(2) Veel heeft men, in de laatste jaren, over den katholieken roman getwist. Wie er nog over schrijven wil, late dit boek niet ongelezen. Neen, als een model-ne-varietur stellen wij het heelemaal niet voor: het is slechts een bepaald werk van een bekeerlinge, met een bepaald doel en in een bepaald milieu. Maar welke vastheid de katholieke leer aan een levensbeschouwing en levenshouding volstrekt verleenen moet, welke hiërarchie van waarden onveranderlijk dient voorgesteld: dàt tenminste kan men proefondervindelijk hier waarnemen.

(3) Hier en daar dweept men, bij ons, met Sigrid Undset, vooral met haar Kristin Lavransdochter. Niet graag werkten wij dat dwepen in de hand; niet graag zagen wij het besproken werk in alle handen. Want het heidensche milieu van de Noorsche steden, zooals de schrijfster het onomwonden voorstelt, zou, bij ons, velen verbijsteren. En meer dan een verhouding of tafereel, hoe weinig prikkelend ook geschreven, kan bij jeugdige lezers verderfelijk inwerken.

Sigrid Undset is geen auteur die men zoo maar liefhebberend leest: het meest misschien van al de hedendaagsche katholieke romanschrijvers vergt zij cultuur, bezinning en onderscheid. Ontwikkelde lezers echter, om de tijdsphenomenen bekommerd en die licht zoeken doorheen den nevel, zullen bij haar waarlijk licht vinden.

[bron: https--www.dbnl.org/tekst/_str007193801_01/_str007193801_01_0016.php]

De Noorse schrijfster Sigrid Undset werkte na de middelbare school als secretaresse om haar moeder en jongere zusjes te onderhouden. Haar vader, een archeoloog met wie ze een hechte band had, was overleden toen ze elf was. Samen hadden haar vader en zij in haar jeugd veel klassieke en middeleeuwse literatuur gelezen.

Als jonge vrouw werkte Undset al aan een historische roman. Voor haar debuut kreeg ze echter van een uitgever te horen dat ze geen talent had voor dit genre. Beter was het om een eigentijdse roman te proberen. Vervolgens voltooide Undset in 1907 het boek Marta Oulie, over een werkende moeder die haar doodzieke echtgenoot ontrouw was. De tweede uitgever ging met Undset in zee en ze kreeg de mogelijkheid om naar Italië af te reizen. Die reis leverde het boek Jenny op in 1911, over een kunstschilderes die een eind aan haar leven maakte.

Structuur van verhalen

Undset schreef tijdens haar loopbaan naast moderne romans en historische literatuur, ook autobiografische boeken en essays. Schrijvers kunnen van Undset leren dat alles wat je schrijft de moeite waard is en zich op termijn kan ontwikkelen tot een hoofdpersoon die een onmiskenbaar deel uitmaakt van de cultuur. En ook dat goede research - Undset verdiepte zich uitgebreid in middeleeuws Noorwegen - mede tot een Nobelprijs kan leiden.

Tussen 1920 en 1922 herschreef Undset met veel plezier haar eerder geschreven middeleeuwse verhaal. Dat werd de trilogie van Kristin Lavransdochter waarmee ze in 1928 de Nobelprijs won. Haar prijzengeld doneerde ze o.a. aan gezinnen die een kind met een beperking opvoedden. In 1924 werd ze katholiek en deze keuze werkte ze uit in twee romans over een jonge man die zich bekeerde tot het katholicisme: Witte orchideeën en Het brandende braambos (in het Noors uitgekomen in 1929 en 1930).

Ellen Schoof [bron: https--schrijvenonline.org/nieuws/tien-keer-een-vrouwelijke-nobelprijswinnaar-2]

--- Over (foto 2): Sigrid Undset ---

Sigrid Undset (1882-1949) kreeg in 1928 de Nobelprijs voor de literatuur voor haar historische romans. Bekend zijn vooral de trilogie Kristin Lavransdatter (3 dln., 1920-1922) en Olav Audunsson (2 dln., 1925-1927). Beide werden vooral populair door de realistische tekening van de personen en het cultuurhistorisch betrouwbare beeld van de late middeleeuwen. Centrale thema's zijn de strijd tussen de eigen wil en de al dan niet door het geloof opgelegde plicht, en de verplichtingen die de enkeling jegens zijn familie en omgeving heeft. Deze thema's vinden we ook terug in haar zogenoemde eigentijdse boeken waaronder haar debuutroman Fru Marta Oulie uit 1907. Hierin staan vrouwelijke hoofdpersonen centraal. Deze persoon 'pendelt tussen de traditionele vrouwenrol en een autonoom bestaan, tussen romantische liefdesopvattingen en moderne ideeën over subjectiviteit en zelfstandigheid' (Janke Klok).

In 1940 vluchtte Undset, die al vroeg op de gevaren van het nationaal-socialisme had gewezen, naar de Verenigde Staten, waar zij zeer actief was voor de Noorse zaak. Behalve romans en novellen heeft zij een groot aantal artikelen over uiteenlopende onderwerpen gepubliceerd.

[bron: https--www.noordseliteratuur.nl/auteur/undset]

De grote Noorse schrijfster Sigrid Undset (1882-1945) ontving in 1928 de Nobelprijs voor literatuur. Haar omvangrijk oeuvre omvat naast de eigentijdse roman, romans die in de Middeleeuwen spelen en literaire en historische essays. Vertalingen van haar werk in het Nederlands zijn te zeer gedateerd of niet meer verkrijgbaar (Kristin Lavransdochter, Lieve Dea, Olav Audunszoon op Hestviken). Met haar controversiële, de maatschappelijke positie van de vrouw ter discussie stellende reputatie, nam zij stevig deel aan het intellectuele en literaire debat in Noorwegen en Denemarken, het land waar Undset werd geboren. In haar eigentijdse romans vindt men de weerslag van haar burgerlijk-feministische opstelling terug.

[bron: https--leuven.bibliotheek.be]

My father's family came from Osterdalen. The first ancestor of ours of whom anything at all was known was one Peder Halvorsen who, in 1730, lived in Grytdalen in the Sollien valley of the river Atna where some men from osterdalen had been allowed to settle and farm the land. My father's folk remained there until my grandfather, Halvor Halvorsen, came to Trondhjem as a non-commissioned officer and became warden of a workhouse. He took the name of Undset from a hamlet in which my grandmother had lived when she became a widow.

My father, Ingvald Martin Undset, obtained his doctorate in 1881 with a thesis on The Beginnings of the Iron Age in Northern Europe. In the same year he married my mother, Charlotte Gyth of Kallundborg, whose family had, for some obscure reason, settled in Denmark toward the end of the eighteenth century. Since most of my father's life consisted of travelling to almost every part of Europe, he set up a temporary home at Kallundborg. It was there that, in 1882, I first saw the light of day - the eldest of three sisters. In 1884 my father moved to Norway to take up a post at the Museum of Antiquities which was attached to the University of Christiania. I was sent to a school run by Mrs. Ragna Nielsen because my father was already aware that his days were numbered, and he was anxious for me to acquire a good education and follow in his footsteps. Mrs. Nielsen's school was co-educational and heavily committed to progressive educational ideas. It played an important role in shaping my character, inspiring me with an indelible distrust of enthusiasm for such beliefs! It was not that I disliked Mrs. Nielsen or suspected her of not being so noble-minded or attached to her principles as she appeared to be. No, it was those very principles which filled me with boundless scepticism; I knew not why either then or for a long time afterwards. Many years later I was to find some kind of an answer in the words uttered by St. Augustine concerning the leader of the Donatists: "securus judicat orbis terrarum". At the time, however, my only reaction was to roll myself up into a tight ball of resistance and it was thus, hedgehog-wise, that I went through my school years.

My father died in 1893 and Mrs. Nielsen offered my mother free education for all of us three children. Then when I was about fourteen, a memorable thing happened. Mrs. Nielsen called me into an empty classroom and told me that though she would keep her promise to my mother, "You, dear Sigrid, show so little interest in the school and there are so many children who would dearly love to be in your place and enjoy a free education, that I am asking you now: are you sure you want to take your entrance examinations?" "No, thank you", was my reply. Mrs. Nielsen looked somewhat startled but all she said was, "Very well then, you must now decide about your future like a grown-up person". I am afraid that my behaviour that day was more akin to that of a small animal! Mrs. Nielsen was as good as her word where my sisters were concerned, but this was one of the few decisions in my life I have never regretted.

My mother had no choice but to send me to a commercial school in Christiania. I did not like it there but it had one great advantage over my old school; no one there expected me to like anything!

Later on, I went to work in an office and learned among other lessons to do things I did not care for, and to do them well. I remained there for ten years - from the age of 17 until I was 27. Before I left this office, two of my books had already been published - Fru Marte Oulie in 1907, and Den lykkelige alder (The Happy Age) in 1908. After leaving the office job, I went to Germany and Italy on a scholarship.

I have published a number of books since, my last two novels being set in the Middle Ages. They are Kristin Lavransdatter, which appeared in three volumes (192O-1922): Kransen (The Garland), Husfrue (The Mistress of Husaby), Korset (The Cross); and Olav Audunsson i Hestviken (1925 ) [The Master of Hestviken] and its sequel Olav Audunssen og hans born (1927) [Olav Audunsson and his Children].

In 1912, I was married in Belgium to the Norwegian painter A. C. Svarstad. I was received into the Roman Catholic Church in 1924, and my marriage was then dissolved, since my husband had earlier been married to a woman who is still living. We have three children.

Since 1919, I have lived in Lillehammer.

Biographical note on Sigrid Undset

Sigrid Undset (1882-1949) was forced by the Second World War and the Nazi invasion to leave her native Norway. She went to the United States but continued to support the resistance movement. After the war she returned to her country and received the Grand Cross of St. Olav for her writing and her patriotic endeavours. Her later works are determined by the experience of her religious conversion and are chiefly apologetic in character. Gymnadenia (1929) [The Wild Orchid], Den braennende busk (1930) [The Burning Bush], Ida Elisabeth (1932), and Den trofaste hustru (1936) [The Faithful Wife] deal with contemporary subjects. Madame Dorothea (1939) is a historical novel. Her biography of Catherine of Siena was published posthumously in 1951. Sigrid Undset is the author of the autobiographical volumes, Etapper (1929 and 1933) [Stages on the Road] and Elleve aar (1934) [The Longest Years].

[source: https--www.nobelprize.org]

Sigrid Undset (20 May 1882 - 10 June 1949) was a Norwegian novelist who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1928.

Undset was born in Kalundborg, Denmark, but her family moved to Norway when she was two years old. In 1924, she converted to Catholicism. She fled Norway for the United States in 1940 because of her opposition to Nazi Germany and the German invasion and occupation of Norway, but returned after World War II ended in 1945.

Her best-known work is Kristin Lavransdatter, a trilogy about life in Norway in the Middle Ages, portrayed through the experiences of a woman from birth until death. Its three volumes were published between 1920 and 1922.

Sigrid Undset was born on 20 May 1882 in the small town of Kalundborg, Denmark, at the childhood home of her mother, Charlotte Undset (1855-1939, née Anna Maria Charlotte Gyth). Undset was the eldest of three daughters. She and her family moved to Norway when she was two.

She grew up in the Norwegian capital, Oslo (or Kristiania, as it was known until 1925). When she was only 11 years old, her father, the Norwegian archaeologist Ingvald Martin Undset (1853-1893), died at the age of 40 after a long illness.

The family's economic situation meant that Undset had to give up hope of a university education and after a one-year secretarial course she obtained work at the age of 16 as a secretary with an engineering company in Kristiania, a post she was to hold for 10 years.

She joined the Norwegian Authors' Union in 1907 and from 1933 through 1935 headed its Literary Council, eventually serving as the union's chairman from 1936 until 1940.

While employed at office work, Undset wrote and studied. She was 16 years old when she made her first attempt at writing a novel set in the Nordic Middle Ages. The manuscript, a historical novel set in medieval Denmark, was ready by the time she was 22. It was turned down by the publishing house.

Nonetheless, two years later, she completed another manuscript, much less voluminous than the first at only 80 pages. She had put aside the Middle Ages and had instead produced a realistic description of a woman with a middle-class background in contemporary Kristiania. This book was also refused by the publishers at first but it was subsequently accepted. The title was Fru Marta Oulie, and the opening sentence (the words of the book's main character) scandalised readers: "I have been unfaithful to my husband".

Thus, at the age of 25, Undset made her literary debut with a short realistic novel on adultery, set against a contemporary background. It created a stir, and she found herself ranked as a promising young author in Norway. During the years up to 1919, Undset published a number of novels set in contemporary Kristiania. Her contemporary novels of the period 1907-1918 are about the city and its inhabitants. They are stories of working people, of trivial family destinies, of the relationship between parents and children. Her main subjects are women and their love. Or, as she herself put it - in her typically curt and ironic manner - "the immoral kind" (of love).

This realistic period culminated in the novels Jenny (1911) and Vaaren (Spring) (1914). The first is about a woman painter who, as a result of romantic crises, believes that she is wasting her life, and, in the end, commits suicide. The other tells of a woman who succeeds in saving both herself and her love from a serious matrimonial crisis, finally creating a secure family. These books placed Undset apart from the incipient women's emancipation movement in Europe.

Undset's books sold well from the start, and, after the publication of her third book, she left her office job and prepared to live on her income as a writer. Having been granted a writer's scholarship, she set out on a lengthy journey in Europe. After short stops in Denmark and Germany, she continued to Italy, arriving in Rome in December 1909, where she remained for nine months. Undset's parents had had a close relationship with Rome, and, during her stay there, she followed in their footsteps. The encounter with Southern Europe meant a great deal to her; she made friends within the circle of Scandinavian artists and writers in Rome.

In Rome, Undset met Anders Castus Svarstad, a Norwegian painter, whom she married almost three years later. She was 30; Svarstad was nine years older, married, and had a wife and three children in Norway. It was nearly three years before Svarstad got his divorce from his first wife.

Undset and Svarstad were married in 1912 and went to stay in London for six months. From London, they returned to Rome, where their first child was born in January 1913. A boy, he was named after his father. In the years up to 1919, she had another child, and the household also took in Svarstad's three children from his first marriage. These were difficult years: her second child, a girl, was mentally handicapped, as was one of Svarstad's sons by his first wife.

She continued writing, finishing her last realistic novels and collections of short stories. She also entered the public debate on topical themes: women's emancipation and other ethical and moral issues. She had considerable polemical gifts, and was critical of emancipation as it was developing, and of the moral and ethical decline she felt was threatening in the wake of the First World War.

In 1919, she moved to Lillehammer, a small town in the Gudbrand Valley in southeast Norway, taking her two children with her. She was then expecting her third child. The intention was that she should take a rest at Lillehammer and move back to Kristiania as soon as Svarstad had their new house in order. However, the marriage broke down and a divorce followed. In August 1919, she gave birth to her third child, at Lillehammer. She decided to make Lillehammer her home, and within two years, Bjerkebaek, a large house of traditional Norwegian timber architecture, was completed, along with a large fenced garden with views of the town and the villages around. Here she was able to retreat and concentrate on her writing.

After the birth of her third child, and with a secure roof over her head, Undset started a major project: Kristin Lavransdatter. She was at home in the subject matter, having written a short novel at an earlier stage about a period in Norwegian history closer to the Pre-Christian era. She had also published a Norwegian retelling of the Arthurian legends. She had studied Old Norse manuscripts and Medieval chronicles and visited and examined Medieval churches and monasteries, both at home and abroad. She was now an authority on the period she was portraying and a very different person from the 22-year-old who had written her first novel about the Middle Ages.

It was only after the end of her marriage that Undset grew mature enough to write her masterpiece. In the years between 1920 and 1927, she first published the three-volume Kristin, and then the 4-volume Olav (Audunsson), swiftly translated into English as The Master of Hestviken. Simultaneously with this creative process, she was engaged in trying to find meaning in her own life, finding the answer in God.

Undset experimented with modernist tropes such as stream of consciousness in her novel, although the original English translation by Charles Archer excised many of these passages. In 1997, the first volume of Tiina Nunnally's new translation of the work won the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction in the category of translation. The names of each volume were translated by Archer as The Bridal Wreath, The Mistress of Husaby, and The Cross, and by Nunnally as The Wreath, The Wife, and The Cross.

Both Undset's parents were atheists and, although, in accord with the norm of the day, she and her two younger sisters were baptised and with their mother regularly attended the local Lutheran church, the milieu in which they were raised was a thoroughly secular one. Undset spent much of her life as an agnostic, but marriage and the outbreak of the First World War were to change her attitudes. During those difficult years she experienced a crisis of faith, almost imperceptible at first, then increasingly strong. The crisis led her from clear agnostic skepticism, by way of painful uneasiness about the ethical decline of the age, towards Christianity.

In all her writing, one senses an observant eye for the mystery of life and for that which cannot be explained by reason or the human intellect. At the back of her sober, almost brutal realism, there is always an inkling of something unanswerable. At any rate, this crisis radically changed her views and ideology. Whereas she had once believed that man created God, she eventually came to believe that God created man.

However, she did not turn to the established Lutheran Church of Norway, where she had been nominally reared. She was received into the Catholic Church in November 1924, after thorough instruction from the Catholic priest in her local parish. She was 42 years old. She subsequently became a lay Dominican.

It is noteworthy that The Master of Hestviken, written immediately after Undset's conversion, takes place in a historical period when Norway was Catholic, that it has very religious themes of the main character's relations with God and his deep feeling of sin, and that the Medieval Catholic Church is presented in a favorable light, with virtually all clergy and monks in the series being positive characters.

In Norway, Undset's conversion to Catholicism was not only considered sensational; it was scandalous. It was also noted abroad, where her name was becoming known through the international success of Kristin Lavransdatter. At the time, there were very few practicing Catholics in Norway, which was an almost exclusively Lutheran country. Anti-Catholicism was widespread not only among the Lutheran clergy, but through large sections of the population. Likewise, there was just as much anti-Catholic scorn among the Norwegian intelligentsia, many of whom were adherents of socialism and communism. The attacks against her faith and character were quite vicious at times, with the result that Undset's literary gifts were aroused in response. For many years, she participated in the public debate, going out of her way to defend the Catholic Church. In response, she was swiftly dubbed "The Mistress of Bjerkebaek" and "The Catholic Lady".

At the end of this creative eruption, Undset entered calmer waters. After 1929, she completed a series of novels set in contemporary Oslo, with a strong Catholic element. She selected her themes from the small Catholic community in Norway. But here also, the main theme is love. She also published a number of weighty historical works which put the history of Norway into a sober perspective. In addition, she translated several Icelandic sagas into Modern Norwegian and published a number of literary essays, mainly on English literature, of which a long essay on the Brontë sisters, and one on D. H. Lawrence, are especially worth mentioning.

In 1934, she published Eleven Years Old, an autobiographical work. With a minimum of camouflage, it tells the story of her own childhood in Kristiania, of her home, rich in intellectual values and love, and of her sick father.

At the end of the 1930s, she commenced work on a new historical novel set in 18th century Scandinavia. Only the first volume, Madame Dorthea, was published, in 1939. The Second World War broke out that same year and proceeded to break her, both as a writer and as a woman. She never completed her new novel. When Joseph Stalin's invasion of Finland touched off the Winter War, Undset supported the Finnish war effort by donating her Nobel Prize on 25 January 1940.

When Germany invaded Norway in April 1940, Undset was forced to flee. She had strongly criticised Hitler since the early 1930s, and, from an early date, her books were banned in Nazi Germany. She had no wish to become a target of the Gestapo and fled to neutral Sweden. Her eldest son, Second Lieutenant Anders Svarstad of the Norwegian Army, was killed in action at the age of 27, on 27 April 1940, in an engagement with German troops at Segalstad Bridge in Gausdal.

Undset's sick daughter had died shortly before the outbreak of the war. Bjerkebaek was requisitioned by the Wehrmacht, and used as officers' quarters throughout the Occupation of Norway.

In 1940, Undset and her younger son left neutral Sweden for the United States. There, she untiringly pleaded her occupied country's cause and that of Europe's Jews in writings, speeches and interviews. She lived in Brooklyn Heights, New York. She was active in St. Ansgar's Scandinavian Catholic League and wrote several articles for its bulletin. She also traveled to Florida, where she became close friends with novelist Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings.

Following the German execution of the Danish Lutheran pastor Kaj Munk on 4 January 1944, the Danish resistance newspaper De frie Danske printed condemning articles from influential Scandinavians, including Undset.

Undset returned to Norway after the liberation in 1945. She lived another four years but never published another word. Undset died at 67 in Lillehammer, Norway, where she had lived from 1919 through 1940. She was buried in the village of Mesnali, 15 kilometers east of Lillehammer, where also her daughter and the son who died in battle are remembered. The grave is recognizable by three black crosses.

Honors

• Undset won the Nobel prize for literature in 1928, for which she was nominated by Helga Eng, member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters.
• A mountain on the moon, east of crater Lambert at Mare Imbrium, was called Mons Undset, however, it was erroneously mentioned as Mons Undest on Lunar Topographic Orthophotomap 40B4. The International Astronomical Union (IAU) refused to include Mons Undset in the alphabetic gazetteer of officially named lunar formations. This mountain is nowadays known as Lambert gamma.
• A crater on the planet Venus was named after Undset.
• Undset was depicted on a Norwegian 500 kroner note and a two-kroner postage stamp from 1982. Neighboring Sweden put her on a stamp in 1998.
• Bjerkebaek, Undset's home in Lillehammer, is now part of the Maihaugen museum. The farmhouse was listed in 1983. Efforts to restore and furnish the houses as they were during the time of her occupancy were begun in 1997. New public buildings were opened in May 2007.
• Undset is depicted on the tail fin of a Norwegian Air Shuttle Boeing 737-800, with the registration LN-NGY.

Works by Sigrid Undset

• Gunnar's Daughter is a brief novel set in the Saga Age. This was Undset's first historical novel, published in 1909.

- Gunnar's Daughter, ISBN 0-14-118020-X

• The Master of Hestviken series is of four volumes, published 1925-27, which are listed in order below. Depending on the edition, each volume may be printed by itself, or two volumes may be combined into one book. The latter tends to result from older printings.

- The Axe: The Master of Hestviken, ISBN 0-679-75273-0
- The Snake Pit: The Master of Hestviken, ISBN 0-679-75554-3
- In the Wilderness: The Master of Hestviken, ISBN 0-679-75553-5
- The Son Avenger: The Master of Hestviken, ISBN 0-679-75552-7

• Kristin Lavransdatter is a trilogy of three volumes. These are listed in order as well. Written during 1920-22. In 1995 the first volume was the basis for a commercial film, Kristin Lavransdatter, directed by Liv Ullmann.

- Kristin Lavransdatter: The Wreath. ISBN 0-14-118041-2
- Kristin Lavransdatter: The Wife, ISBN 0-14-118128-1
- Kristin Lavransdatter: The Cross, ISBN 0-14-118235-0

• Jenny was written in 1911. It is a story of a Norwegian painter who travels to Rome for inspiration. Things do not turn out as she had expected.

- Jenny, ISBN 1-58642-050-X

• The Unknown Sigrid Undset, a collection of Undset's early existentialist works, including Tiina Nunnally's new translation of Jenny was assembled by Tim Page for Steerforth Press and published in 2001.
• Men, Women and Places, a collection of critical essays, including 'Blasphemy', 'D. H. Lawrence', 'The Strongest Power', and 'Glastonbury'. Tr. Arthur G Chater, Cassel & Co., London. 1939.
• Happy Times in Norway, a memoir of her children's life in that country before the Nazi occupation, features a particularly moving and powerful preface about the simplicity and hardiness of Norway and its people, with a vow that it will return thus after the evil of Nazism is "swept clean." New York; Alfred A. Knopf. 1942. ISBN 978-0-313-21267-3
• Saga of Saints, ISBN 0-8369-0959-3; ISBN 978-0-8369-0959-3. The coming of Christianity.--St. Sunniva and the Seljemen.--St. Olav, Norway's king to all eternity.--St. Hallvard.--St. Magnus, earl of the Orkney islands.--St. Eystein, archbishop of Nidaros.--St. Thorfinn, bishop of Hamar.--Father Karl Schilling, Barnabite. Chapter of this book also published as "A Priest From Norway, The Venerable Karl M. Schilling, CRSP" by the Barnabite Fathers through the North American Voice of Fatima, Youngstown NY, July 1976.
• Ida Elisabeth, novel
• Catherine of Siena, Novel. Sigrid Undset's Catherine of Siena is acclaimed as one of the best biographies of this well known, and amazing fourteenth-century saint. Undset based this factual work on primary sources, her own experiences living in Italy, and her profound understanding of the human heart. Catherine of Siena was a favorite of Undset, who was also a Third Order Dominican. This novel was republished by Ignatius Press in 2009.
• Stages on the Road is a collection of saints' lives, with a foreword by Elizabeth Scalia, and published in 2012.
• The Wild Orchid is a novel set in twentieth century Norway and published in 1931. The title is in reference to the garden of the main character's mother.
• The Burning Bush is a continuation of the novel The Wild Orchid and published in 1932. It examines the conflicts arising in the main character's life after his conversion to Catholicism.

[source: wikipedia]