B list fiction

A couple weeks ago I finished Sigrid Undset's Madame Dorthea, published in 1939. I found an old copy at the library while looking for a different book, not out of any intentional desire to read it, although I'm glad I stumbled upon it, even though it one of Undset's lesser known works. I almost turned it in unread, because I had picked up half a dozen other books to read that I didn't finish or skimmed as background reading for my class.  However, once I started it, I was drawn into the Nordic world Undset creates so vividly. It was a welcome escape from sunny, affluent Southern California to the chilly, hardworking, peasant life in Norway - I wasn't sure of the time period - perhaps during the late 18th or 19th century?

Madame Dorthea is the mother of a large family - seven children ranging in age from young teens to infants. The book begins with the mother fearing for the life of her sons who are lost in a snowstorm with their tutor. It turns out that they simply got drunk and lost and eventually found the way to her mother's house a day's journey by sleigh away. But before word of the boys' safety reaches home, their father sets out to find them and is lost himself, despite being a hardy, knowledgeable man.

For weeks, even months, the family hopes the father will return. His loss is particularly tragic to Dorthea because she had had a happy marriage with him after a cold, barren first marriage to a cleric many years her senior. When her first husband dies, Dorthea is able to marry Jorgen, with whom she has created a happy life. He is a manager of a glassworks, so they are well off, without being wealthy, but rich in family blessings.

Eventually, the glassworks must appoint a successor for Jorgen, and the family must begin to recreate their family dynamic. The two oldest boys aren't quite old enough to go off on their own, but a variety of friends help them out, one being a captain in the army who has been exiled because he is having an affair with his housekeeper. At the same time he woos Madame Dorthea. She is flattered by his advances, but unattracted by his failings, telling of a weak will.  Her own will is like iron. She helps nurse his mistress when she falls feverish because of a botched abortion, a dark part of the novel.  Because of the remoteness of the farm and the social ostracism of the captain and the housekeeper, Madame Dorthea seeks help with her nursing from a gypsy healer instead of a doctor.  The housekeeper improves with the herbal remedies and bloodletting of the gypsy, who apparently is also responsible for the abortion, but she eventually dies.  Meanwhile the gypsy offers to tell fortunes and spooks Madame Dorthea, who must confront her own superstitions and fears of the future.

Although the attention of the educated and interesting captain made her reconsider the solidity of her marriage, she seems to realize after this incident what romantic ideals can lead to. In a spirit of returning to the importance of family and marriage, she resolves to return to her mother's village for her brother's wedding. She at first had felt it inappropriate to attend the wedding while in mourning. And she had a mixed relationship with her mother who had forced her into her early unhappy marriage, while proceeding to be wed 4 times herself, each marriage progressively happier apparently.  But Madame Dorthea has had to reflect on love and loss and happiness and decides to reconcile with her mother.

The wedding is a lively event, and it does allow reconciliation and understanding between the mother and daughter, now two experienced women. During the weeklong festivities, the two older boys almost get into a fight over a serving girl and nearly cause a scandal, but eventually they, too, have a coming of age moment where they realize they need each other and a good character in order to survive their straitened circumstances.

In the end the family is making do. Nothing is neatly resolved, but the reader feels tragedy has been endured and survived, and additional tragedy averted.  Unlike the Kristin Lavransdatter trilogy, religion plays a relatively minor role in the narrative, and there were several moments where the plot jumped or characters seemed to behave inconsistently. This may not be Undset's finest novel, but it was an interesting reflection on marital happiness and family ties central to the plot.  Class structure is questioned, but ultimately it isn't rejected. If anything, the social structure is affirmed because it provides standards for civil behavior, although a future where class is less important is hinted at, especially in the character of Dorthea's mother who marries up and down the social ladder, and seems happiest with her working class Sheriff husband.

Undset has a gift for creating a richly imagined setting and allows a peek into a culture that no longer exists.  Her characters are sympathetic despite their flaws, even the alcoholic, womanizing captain and the prophesying gypsy.  I don't begrudge the several hours stolen from a couple evenings spent following the fortunes of Madame Dorthea - hours I might have spent glazing over social media.  Why does a fictional family from a far away time and place seem more real sometimes than the faces on the screen?

Here is a harsh review from Time Magazine in 1940
Madame Dorthea is a study of a bourgeois wife & mother in the early months of widowhood. A really good novelist could have made something of the theme with no sales-trimmings. Madame Undset puts it in the 18th Century, replete with archeological detail, dopes it to the teeth with "colorful," superfluous characters, whips up a spurious suspense, and still is too much of a bourgeois wife & mother to bring it off.
http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,772443,00.html