Author: Sigrid Undset
Publisher: University of Minnesota Press
Rating: worthy!
Translated from Norwegian by Tiina Nunnally.
DISCLOSURE: Unlike the majority of reviews in this blog, I've neither bought this book nor borrowed it from the library. This is a "galley" copy ebook, supplied by Net Galley. I'm not receiving (nor will I expect to receive or accept) remuneration of any kind for this review. Since this is a new novel, this review is less detailed so as not to rob the writer of their story, but even so, it will probably still be more in-depth than you'll typically find elsewhere!
The novel covers much more than the lone topic of Marta's marital infidelity. It ventures deeply into feminism, it looks at morality, and it discusses the validity of religion, all in the context of what Marta and her husband are doing, how they're interacting, and how she's feeling towards him. Interestingly, Marta's lover, if he can be described as such, who is also Otto's business partner, hardly gets a look in. I found that rather intriguing.
This is very much a novel from Marta's perspective, told in first person PoV, which I normally detest, but which is not obnoxious here. That alone is commendable. It's annoying to have to pick novels without knowing from whose perspective they will be told (the blurbs almost never say - and I'm as guilty of this as anyone), so I always appreciate it when I inadvertently select one and discover that it's not nauseating!
On a technical matter, I have to say that while the Adobe Reader version of this is good, the kindle version is seriously hobbled by really annoying formatting issues. It looks like they simply took the PDF and dumped it unadjusted straight into Kindle format. Now you can argue that this is a "galley proof", and therefore we should not expect it to be perfect, but if you argue that, then I'm going to argue right back that while this novel is set in 1902, we are not! We're no longer living in 1907, when this was written, and novels had to be typeset using trays of metal characters laboriously put in place one-by-one line-by-line by hand! There is no excuse for sloppy proofs in this day and age!
Even rank amateurs have professional quality word processors, spell-checkers and formatting styles available to us! So no, there is no excuse for "galleys" that have line breaks in the middle of sentences or that have words like "UNCORRECTED" and "SALE" randomly mixed in with the text (the Adobe Reader version has "UNCORRECTED PROOF NOT FOR SALE" appearing on every page), or having one person's speech end and the next's take off with only a space (as opposed to a paragraph space) between the two separate quotations. If it had been corrected, though, I would never have enjoyed such amusing sentences as, "And I, the proper little merchant's wife who went around so nice and quiet, tending to my house, UNCORRECTED..."! Yes, this woman needs to be - as the butler put it in Stephen King's The Shining - CORRECTED! Or, "...my heart began to pound as a UNCORRECTED clammy sweat began to pour from my body..."! Correct that sweating, sister! Or how about this one: "It was a natural instinct that broke open inside me, raw SALE and insatiable." Yes, Marta Oulie sold out!
Known as Fru Marta Oulie in the original Norwegian, Undset wrote this in 1907 about a woman who was unfaithful to her husband, but it's not quite as simple a premise as it sounds. This was Sigrid Undset's first novel, but it was not her last. She enjoyed sufficient success to make a career out of writing, including a well-regarded trilogy which might be considered a fantasy story by modern audiences. Some of her life oddly paralleled Marta's. This novel is relevant today even as it seems understandably dated in some regards. It's relevant because there are still double-standards today, over a century later, in how women are perceived and treated in comparison with men. It's relevant in that feminism is just as much an issue today, when it shouldn't be, as it was back then when it was considered to be revolutionary.
You would think that over the course of a century these issues would have been long-ago resolved, and women would truly be equal, but it has not yet happened. It is easier to give voice to inequalities now than it was then, but it's also harder to be heard because ears have become lamentably inured to these issues over such a prolonged exposure. Feminism is no longer fresh in a culture which gobbles down fresh with an astounding voracity, and because it's not fresh any more, women have had to reach towards increasing extremes to get the message out. Consequently, feminists are now in danger of being mistakenly considered extremists instead of being correctly considered to be justified.
The novel starts out rather sensationally with the sentence "I have been unfaithful to my husband", which must have been far more shocking in 1907 than ever it is today. Had this been a modern novel, or even a modern historical novel, I would downgrade it for that. I think it has value in a 1907 novel; however, this did force me into a consideration of how this novel needs to be reviewed. Is it fair to review a 1907 novel by today's standards? There are arguments to be heard for either side. I asked this same question when I reviewed novels like Dracula, Frankenstein, and Pride and Prejudice. This is not a modern novel written in an historical setting, it's truly an historical novel translated into modern idiom. I think that latter fact is relevant: clearly those who brought this translation to published fruition think that this novel is relevant to our times, so reviewing it by the standards of our times isn't inappropriate.
In 1902 Norway, Marta is courted by and marries Otto. She tells us she loves him dearly. The two of them travel in Europe together (whilst Marta is a school teacher with commensurate salary, Otto is a partner in a business which is evidently doing well). They start a large family (by modern western standards), having two boys (Einar and Halfred) and then a girl (Ingrid), and it's with the arrival of the girl and the necessary simultaneous switch to larger accommodations that things begin to sour for Marta. It's not so much that Otto changes as it is that more of who he is starts seeping through un-modulated.
I don't know if Undset did this on purpose - juxtaposing the arrival of a girl (Ingrid, Otto's daughter) in the family with the attendant turmoil of lives being uprooted and moved around. If she did (and I am tempted to think she did), then that's pretty cool and smart on her part. Undset (which is reminiscent of 'upset' or 'unsettle' which is what this novel does) is a capable writer, but since this is a translation, it's really hard to know how much of the technical quality of the writing is due to Undset, and how much is due to her translator, Nunnally. Since I don't read Norwegian, I'll never know! However I take heart in the knowledge that even a bad translation cannot hide a decent plot! And no, this is not a comment on Nunnally's translation. Undset earned herself the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1928 - the last Norwegian woman to do so to date. I'm not a big fan of "literary" novels or of stories written by Nobel laureates, but I would have to assume she's a capable writer even were I lacking other indicators (which I'm not!).
The stakes ratchet up as Marta starts an affair almost accidentally with Henrik, and he starts to feature more in her life until Otto contracts TB, whereupon she feels such guilt that she ends the affair, but continues with the pregnancy. Is it Henrik's or Otto's? The only way to tell back then was by recalling with whom one had enjoyed sex at the right (or the wrong!) time, and since Otto became sick, there has been none with him, so Åse has to be Henrik's. This comes in intriguing counterpoint to the birth of Ingrid: whereas Otto's daughter stirred-up things uncomfortably and was a contributing factor in Marta's falling into an affair, Henrik's daughter has the opposite effect - bringing the affair to a precipitous termination, and sending Marta back to her husband emotionally.
In the end, I don't like Marta Oulie (although I do like the novel), and the reason I don't like her is not because she betrayed her husband, but because she betrayed everyone, including herself, and cruelly so in Henrik's case, who has a daughter with Marta, a child who he will never be allowed to know. I hope this isn't 'the moral of this story': that if you betray your husband you will become lonely and miserable, indecisive and inert for the rest of your life, because that runs completely contrary to the feminist portrayal of Marta which colors the earlier portion of this novel!
Again, there are formatting issues at the end, with the story ending seemingly unfinished and very abruptly, and being followed without a break by some notes on Undset's life, yet the author's name is spelled with all lower case characters, which is not only inexplicable, it also seemed rather an insult. I mean why make a big deal about bringing this woman's writing to a modern audience if you're going to slight her in this way?! She's not edward estlin cummings after all.... The name of Marta's lover appears on more than one occasion spelled with a lower case 'h', which is hard enough to explain since it's something which is easily fixed with search & replace, but to trot out the author's name like that is downright weird! However, I am willing to rate this novel as a worthy read, in the hope that the final version will have these formatting and case issues resolved.
