A masterpiece of Scandinavian and early modernist literature—and with more to come.
The third volume in Undset’s classic tetralogy finds the protagonist’s household riven, and with worse on the way.
Olav Audunssøn, the namesake hero of Undset’s epic, is a psychic mess at the beginning of this volume, the second of whose two parts is meaningfully called “The Wilderness.” A witness to the great transformations of the 13th century, Olav gives the reader plenty of reason to think he should have been a Viking berserker. Instead, he’s doing all he can to be a devout Christian, so when he travels from Norway to England on a trading mission, he goes to church to pray rather than pillage. He is obsessed by his deceased wife, Ingunn Steinfinnsdatter, whose life he complicated by murdering her lover, a story that unfolded in the preceding volume. Olav feels little guilt for the killing but endless remorse for Ingunn’s mortal illness, so much so that when a wealthy English lady casts him come-hither vibes, he flees: “Olav was still holding her, but he was staring and listening to something over her head, as he felt his own desire seeping away, not extinguished but flowing far away from this woman. Ingunn was calling to him.” Ensorcelled by Ingunn’s memory, Olav is full of contempt for their son, Eirik Olavssøn, who wants nothing but his love and approval; the fact that Olav calls him a “wayside bastard” suggests there may be some issues with the genealogy, but then Olav, for all his piety, isn’t above fathering a few off-the-books kids out there on the fjord. Eirik and Olav reach something of a détente, though, just in time for a Swedish upstart to come on the scene attempting to stir up a rebellion against the king, affording Olav a welcome chance to kill a few enemies Viking-style—but at terrible cost. Rich in Catholic symbolism and with plenty of family drama and other mayhem, the book is as sturdy and swift-flowing as any work of Hamsun or Laxness.
A masterpiece of Scandinavian and early modernist literature—and with more to come.Pub Date: Oct. 25, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-5179-1334-2
Page Count: 216
Publisher: Univ. of Minnesota
Review Posted Online: July 15, 2023
Vintage Follett. His fans will be pleased.
A dramatic, complex imagining of the origins of Stonehenge.
In about 2500 B.C.E. on the Great Plain, Seft and his family collect flints in a mine. He dislikes the work, and the motherless lad hates the abuse he gets from his father and brothers. He leaves them and arrives at a wooden monument where sacred events such as the Midsummer Rite take place. There are also circles of stones that help predict equinoxes, solstices, even eclipses. This is a world where the customary greeting is “May the Sun God smile on you,” and everyone is a year older on Midsummer Day. Except for a priestess or two, no one can count beyond fingers and toes—to indicate 30, they show both hands, point to both feet, then show both hands again. Casual sex is common, and sex between women is less common but not taboo. Joia, a young woman who becomes a priestess, wonders about her sexuality. After a fire destroys the Monument, she leads a bold effort to rebuild it in stone. To please the gods, they must haul 10 giant stones from distant Stony Valley. Of course neither machinery nor roads exist, so the difficulties are extraordinary. Although the project has its detractors, hundreds of able-bodied people are willing to help. Craftspeople known as cleverhands construct a sled and a road, and they make the rope to wrap around the stones. Many, many others pull. And pull. Meanwhile, the three principal groups—farmers, woodlanders, and herders—all have their separate interests. There is talk of war, which Joia has never seen in her lifetime. Soon it seems inevitable that the powerful farmers will not only start one but win it, unless heroes like Seft and Joia can come up with a creative plan. But there is also the matter of love for Joia in this well-plotted and well-told yarn. The story has a lot of characters from multiple tribes, and they can be hard to keep track of. A page in the front of the book listing who’s who would be helpful.
Vintage Follett. His fans will be pleased.Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2025
ISBN: 9781538772775
Page Count: 704
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
That college love affair you never got over? Come wallow in this gorgeous version of it.
A love triangle among young literati has a long and complicated aftermath.
King’s narrator doesn’t reveal her name until the very last page, but Sam and Yash, the brainy stars of her 17th-century literature class, call her Jordan. Actually, at first they refer to her as Daisy, for Daisy Buchanan of The Great Gatsby, but when they learn she came to their unnamed college on a golf scholarship, they change it to Jordan for Gatsby’s golfer friend. The boys are housesitting for a professor who’s spending a year at Oxford, living in a cozy, book-filled Victorian Jordan visits for the first time after watching The Deer Hunter at the student union on her first date with Sam. As their relationship proceeds, Jordan is practically living at the house herself, trying hard not to notice that she’s actually in love with Yash. A Baptist, Sam has an everything-but policy about sex that only increases the tension. The title of the book refers to a nickname for the king of hearts from an obscure card game the three of them play called Sir Hincomb Funnibuster, and both the game and variations on the moniker recur as the novel spins through and past Jordan’s senior year, then decades into the future. King is a genius at writing love stories—including Euphoria (2014), which won the Kirkus Prize—and her mostly sunny version of the campus novel is an enjoyable alternative to the current vogue for dark academia. Tragedies are on the way, though, as we know they must be, since nothing gold can stay and these darn fictional characters seem to make the same kinds of stupid mistakes that real people do. Tenderhearted readers will soak the pages of the last chapter with tears.
That college love affair you never got over? Come wallow in this gorgeous version of it.Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9780802165176
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Grove
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
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