Kristin

Andrew Lytle, the last survivor of the 12 Southerners whose ""I'll Take My Stand"" became a masterwork on the passing of the Agrarian way of life in America, has had a distinguished career as novelist, as critic and as teacher. Here he turns his creative insight to a relatively overlooked literary classic, Nobel Prize-winner Sigrid Undset's ""Saga of Kristin Lavrandsdatter"". First published in the early 1920s, Undset's epic trilogy of Kristin Lavransdatter and 14th-century Norway ""embraces more of life, seen understandingly and seriously, than any novel since Dostoyevsky's Brothers Karamazov"" according to Commonweal. Although little has been written on this classic trilogy, Andrew Lytle has included it in his teaching for nearly half a century, honing his insights into its characters and themes with each passing year. Lytle's interpretation illuminates each of the major characters in the trilogy. Especially appealing is his exploration of the complex moral nature of the saga's heroine and, by extension, all humankind. The brief foreword by Thomas M. Carlson of the University of the South discusses the significance of Undset's trilogy.