The Master Of Hestviken Book 2 Chapter 15

A complete and unabridged recording of the original English translation of the Norwegian novel The Master Of Hestviken by Sigrid Undset. I have used the translation of Arthur G. Chater, dating from 1934. Set in the late 13th and early 14th century, it is a grand, sprawling novel of nearly 1000 pages that follows the life of Olav Audunsson, from his earliest years as a foster child, after the death of his father, and his betrothal as a mere boy to Ingunn, the daughter of his foster family, the Steinfinnsons. Olav never doubts the authenticity of his union and fights for it, against the machinations of his foster uncles who try to arrange another marriage for Ingunn, going so far as to kill the cousin who insults her. He is outlawed and spends years away from his wife but his commitment never wavers, even after he learns that she has borne a son after being raped by an itinerant Icelander. He murders the rapist then, after bringing his family to his ancestral home of Hestviken on the Oslo fjord, against all the traditions of kinship loyalty, raises the boy as his own son in secret. Undset's descriptions of Olav's struggles as he wrestles with the ongoing moral and intellectual ramifications of his marriage are sustained and incisive, as she imagines her way into the intimate relationships of husband and wife, father and adopted son, brother and sister and friends. In doing so she maps the terrain of many of the pitfalls that encumber any long-term relationship – the joy and dangers of youthful intimacy, the harsh realities of sickness, child-birth and infant mortality, separation. There is murder and attempted suicide, the slow and painful decline and eventual death of Ingunn and the on-going inner turmoil that comes with passing his illegitimate son off as his rightful heir. But throughout it all are the constant battles Olav wages with his God. Medieval Norway was Catholic and Undset, a born-again Catholic herself, creates a society, only recently avowedly pagan, now staunchly Catholic where every interaction, every action, almost every thought is governed by Catholic dogma and ritual. The dominant physical element of the book, after the wonderful descriptions of the natural scenery of the fjord country, are the numerous churches, convents and palaces of the Catholic hierarchy. Gloomy and dark or lighted by sunshine coming through the stained glass windows, they loom large, practically and figuratively, in the lives of the people and, together with the estate of Hestviken itself, are the hubs around which the action of the book swirls. The medieval world that Undset has created pulsates with questions of love and desire, intellectual independence, filial duty, response to change, the treatment of women and the fragility of friendships. In her hands, the attempts at resolution of some of these issues reveal her to be an imaginative guide through the private lives of her protagonists.