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by: Sigrid Undset
List Price: $15.00Amazon.com's Price: $10.20 You Save: $4.80 (32%)Prices subject to change. Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 839.82372
EAN: 9780141180205
ISBN: 014118020X
Label: Penguin Classics
Manufacturer: Penguin Classics
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 208
Publication Date: April 01, 1998
Publisher: Penguin Classics
Sales Rank: 449583
Studio: Penguin Classics
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Editorial Review:
Product Description:
More than a decade before writing Kristin Lavransdatter, the trilogy about fourteenth-century Norway that won her the Nobel Prize, Sigrid Undset published Gunnar's Daughter, a brief, swiftly moving tale about a more violent period of her country's history, the Saga Age. Set in Norway and Iceland at the beginning of the eleventh century, Gunnar's Daughter is the story of the beautiful, spoiled Vigdis Gunnarsdatter, who is casually raped by the man she had wanted to love. A woman of courage and intelligence, Vigdis is toughened by adversity. Alone she raises the child conceived in violence, repeatedly defending her autonomy in a world governed by men. Alone she rebuilds her life and restores her family's honor -- until an unremitting social code propels her to take the action that again destroys her happiness. First published in 1909, Gunnar's Daughter was in part a response to the rise of nationalism and Norway's search for a national identity in its Viking past. But unlike most of the Viking-inspired art of its period, Gunnar's Daughter is not a historical romance. It is a skillful conversation between two historical moments about questions as troublesome in Undset's own time -- and in ours -- as they were in the Saga Age: rape and revenge, civil and domestic violence, a troubled marriages, and children made victims of their parents' problems.
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating: - Sparser than her later works but fascinating just the same
This is a much sparser version of her work than her later novel Kristin Lavransdatter. It gives much less detail and characterization so you might find it dry in comparison. I'm glad I read it but I didn't like it nearly as much as I'd anticipated based on her later writing.
Rating: - a MUST-READ for a book club
This novella should fit comfortably beside the plays of Sophocles or Aeschylus or the tragedies of Shakespeare. Don't let that intimidate you: it's more accessible than all of them, and a perfect book for a book club. It's the story of a man who commits a despicable act of violence in his immaturity, against a woman who must live with the consequences all her life - as must he. Questions of justice, repentance, mercy, and forgiveness are raised - and left to readers to answer as best we can. Undset's ... Read More
Rating: - The more things change. . . .
In writing Gunnar's Daughter, Sigrid Undset had two aims: to show that the struggles of the human person against himself, others, and nature have no history; and to reveal a pagan past as it actually was--cruel and bloody in contrast to the growing Christian faith it encountered. In both cases, she succeeded brilliantly.
Take the first case. You often hear yammering from certain quarters that it is possible for human beings to progress as a society beyond their passions. Myopic nonsense! ... Read More
Rating: - A Very Fine Example of the Saga as Modern Novel
In this case of medieval date rape and the grim consequences which follow hard upon it, Sigrid Undset created a wonderfully literate experience using the saga "voice". Although I detected slippages in tone, here and there, and felt the ending too contrived and overwrought to be pure saga, I was still swept along by this book, finishing it in a single sitting. It is short, yes, but also a very compelling narrative as it details the tribulations of two would-be lovers who are yet too proud and self-willed ... Read More
Rating: - Same old same old
Undset, Lagerlof, Bjornson, Hamsun, Gustafsson; five stars aren't enough to reflect the masterpieces that they all wrote, and, in the case of Gustafsson, are still writing. Read all their books and grow a lifetime in a couple of years.
I suppose that anything that sells books makes it to the top of the page, although I appreciate that the first review I read about this book was straightforward, unbiased and sans agenda. I have been reading the great writers of the world since I learned ... Read More
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