Unknown Sigrid Undset: Jenny And Other Works [Hardcover]

"Jenny" is a story of a young Norwegian lady, a painter and a spinster, who remained in that state despite the fact that she was both physically attractive, and very well liked, a young persona whose companionship was sought by her peers. A small group of artistically gifted young Scandinavian people spends their summers in Rome before World War I, to remain there for a long time, only occasionally coming back to the native soil. Her observations, the observations of a young traveling woman, are full of wisdom, full of realism so much unlike the sentimental, eerie otherworldliness and nonchalance of the contemporary characters, for you have to remember that "Jenny" was written in 1911, when the effects of the decadent new wave in literature and culture were still strong.

At moments I am reminded of the atmosphere in Maugham's "Of Human Bondage", the parts where Philip enters the bohemian world of the painters during his venture as an art student, but it's only a distant recollection, because Undset's novel is infinitely gentler, and the fact is, more fresh than Maugham's - and I find it much more to my personal liking than Maugham anyway. Undset is mercifully brief in her descriptions, which are devoid of ornaments, and I find that I get the picture in a much clearer way, I feel as if I were there, with them, assisting the characters from the position of a crow, sitting on a cold marble stone lion, observing everything in my omni cognitive way of a crow. Maybe it's just because I grew up in Europe, in those mossy old places, where earth gives life to small plants in-between the cracks of old carved stones and buildings, where the early old city morning is incomparable with anything you've seen or felt.

"Jenny" is a grand love story, a tragic story of a young woman who did not seek carnal pleasures, the easy-come-easy-go type of relationship that people her age seemed to enjoy. Attractive and intelligent, she was lonely, very lonely, and when she finally subsided to the impulse, the whole life has changed. With her lover, she entered the morbid world of suppressed unhealthy emotions, which he carried from home like a burden of a graveyard stone on a chest, immovable and paralyzing. The insecure man drowned Jenny in his toxic love, for love is always toxic if the object is not the other person, but he who loves, or rather claims to love. Once the young Norwegians briefly return home, we realize why he behaved as he did, and so the tragic story begins, and for the next two hundred pages a reader will be spellbound by the powerful voice of Sigrid Undset.

"And the worst thing would be to share life with another person but deep inside feel just as lonely as before. Oh, no, no. To belong to a man, with all the subsequent types of intimacy, both physical and spiritual... and then one day to see that she had never known him, and he had never known her, and neither of them had ever understood a word the other person said...(...) So she had to try painting again. Presumably it would be an utter disaster, since she was walking around sick with love. She laughed. That's what was wrong with her. The object of her affection hadn't yet appeared, but the love was there."

This novel is a masterpiece of literature, and it's hard to believe that Undset was very young when she conceived this novel. Only from her letters to her longtime German pen-pal, we learn that she started writing as a very young girl, and that she devoted all her young life to writing, slaving away in an obscure office to be able to support her writing of "Kristin Lavransdatter", a historical trilogy for which much later, in 1928, Undset was awarded a Nobel Prize for literature. Don't be put off just because Undset is Norwegian, and now forgotten. Her writing is wonderful, and I wish people discovered this writer anew, because she deserves recognition, but even more she deserves modern readership. Try it - you won't be disappointed.

Besides "Jenny", the book contains also a novella, "Thjodolf", and a short story, "Simonsen". Both are rather depressing, to tell the truth. The latter is a story of unmet expectations and brutality of life in the turn-of-the-century urban Norway, while the former is a heartbreaking story of a woman and the adopted child. Written when Undset was just sixteen, "Thjodolf" is one of the best novellas I have ever read, and definitely powerful enough to shatter you to pieces. Sigrid Undset was a writer of unmatched class, and it's a pity that her works are not popular nowadays. Let us only hope that the current edition will alter that state.