More than a theological treatise, Sigrid Undset’s novel “Olav Audunssøn” remains a true love story, one in which we find a reflection of our own story with a God whose love and mercy are pursuing us even now.
Olav Audunssøn by Sigrid Undset
Love is as strong as death, as relentless as the underworld (cf. Song 8:6). Amid the stone and ice of medieval Norway, there can be found a great love story worthy of the epics of old. In Olav Audunssøn, the Nobel Prize-winning author Sigrid Undset tells a tale of love, betrayal, honor, murder, wrath, and redemption. It is easy to think that this tale primarily revolves around the eponymous Olav and his young wife Ingunn. But fundamentally, this saga is the love story between God and man as it unfolds through a life marred by sin and redeemed by grace.
This novel presents the entire life of Olav, an orphan of noble lineage in 13th-century Norway. Throughout, the reader is confronted with the brutally stark reality of sin. As Olav tries to escape the consequences of his sin by his own efforts and by his own pride, he quickly ensnares himself and his loved ones in a web of deception, strife, and suffering. The spark of what seems nothing more than a private sin becomes a great conflagration that consumes the lives of all around him. And soon, even the young Olav’s beautiful and pious love for God becomes hardened into unrepentant bitterness.
Against this cold, dark backdrop—fittingly mirrored by the novel’s landscape—the unrelenting love of God shines through. For those with eyes to see, one could dare argue that God is the novel’s main character. Despite the infrequent references to the divine, subtle and explosive movements of grace adorn every part of Olav’s life. And as the damage and toll of sin keeps increasing, God’s love and mercy prove relentless. The cross of Jesus Christ stands ever triumphant. Yet Undset’s masterpiece tests the reader’s trust in divine providence.
Every thread of the plot spirals out of control into disaster and despair with seemingly no way out, and each page flip becomes claustrophobically tense as fate closes in on our beloved characters. The reader begins to wonder how God’s grace can redeem such a situation, without Undset abandoning her characteristically gripping realism as an author. Without spoiling the ending, I can only promise that the reader’s journey with Olav through medieval Norway’s rough mountains and bitter blood feuds is well worth the effort.
Although not as famous as Undset’s earlier work, Kristin Lavransdatter, it was only after her conversion to Catholicism that she wrote Olav Audunssøn, in which she demonstrates a far more perceptive and penetrating grasp of the dynamics of grace and providence. But more than a theological treatise, this novel remains a true love story, one in which we find a reflection of our own story with a God whose love and mercy are pursuing us even now. For that reason, this novel has proven itself among the classic works of Catholic literature.
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Republished with gracious permission from Dominicana (August 2025).
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