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Ida Elisabet
Translated from Norwegian by Arthur G. Chater; a Borzoi book published by Knopf in the US. No ISBN is on the 1933 C/R page.
439 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1932
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722 people want to read
About the author
Sigrid Undset
287 books890 followersSigrid Undset was a Norwegian novelist whose powerful, psychologically rich works made her one of the most significant literary figures of the 20th century. Best known for her medieval sagas Kristin Lavransdatter and The Master of Hestviken, she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1928 for her vivid portrayals of life in the Middle Ages, written with remarkable historical detail and emotional depth.
Born in Denmark to Norwegian parents, Undset spent most of her life in Norway. After her father's early death, she had to forgo formal education and worked as a secretary while writing in her spare time. Her debut novel Fru Marta Oulie (1907) shocked readers with its opening confession of adultery and established her bold, realist style. In early works like ,i>Jenny (1911), she explored modern women's struggles with love, freedom, and morality, often critiquing romantic idealism and social expectations.
Though she gained recognition for her contemporary novels, Undset felt increasingly drawn to historical fiction. This shift led to her masterwork Kristin Lavransdatter, a trilogy published from 1920 to 1922, which follows the life of a woman in 14th-century Norway as she navigates love, faith, motherhood, and spiritual growth. With its intricate character development and deep moral themes, the trilogy brought her international acclaim and remains a cornerstone of Scandinavian literature.
In 1924, Undset converted to Roman Catholicism, a profound personal decision that shaped her later writing. Her tetralogy,i>The Master of Hestviken (1925–1927) centers on a man burdened by unconfessed guilt, offering a deeply spiritual and psychological portrait of sin and redemption. Her Catholic faith and concern with ethical questions became central to her work and public life.
A vocal critic of both communism and fascism, Undset fled Norway after the Nazi invasion in 1940. Her books were banned by the occupying regime, and she lived in exile in the United States during the war, advocating for Norway and the Allied cause. The loss of her son in the war deeply affected her, and although she returned home after the war, she published little in her final years.
Undset’s legacy rests not only on her historical novels but also on her fearless exploration of conscience, duty, and the human condition. Her characters—especially her women—are fully realized, flawed, and emotionally complex. Her writing combines psychological insight with stylistic clarity and spiritual depth, making her work enduringly relevant and widely read.
Born in Denmark to Norwegian parents, Undset spent most of her life in Norway. After her father's early death, she had to forgo formal education and worked as a secretary while writing in her spare time. Her debut novel Fru Marta Oulie (1907) shocked readers with its opening confession of adultery and established her bold, realist style. In early works like ,i>Jenny (1911), she explored modern women's struggles with love, freedom, and morality, often critiquing romantic idealism and social expectations.
Though she gained recognition for her contemporary novels, Undset felt increasingly drawn to historical fiction. This shift led to her masterwork Kristin Lavransdatter, a trilogy published from 1920 to 1922, which follows the life of a woman in 14th-century Norway as she navigates love, faith, motherhood, and spiritual growth. With its intricate character development and deep moral themes, the trilogy brought her international acclaim and remains a cornerstone of Scandinavian literature.
In 1924, Undset converted to Roman Catholicism, a profound personal decision that shaped her later writing. Her tetralogy,i>The Master of Hestviken (1925–1927) centers on a man burdened by unconfessed guilt, offering a deeply spiritual and psychological portrait of sin and redemption. Her Catholic faith and concern with ethical questions became central to her work and public life.
A vocal critic of both communism and fascism, Undset fled Norway after the Nazi invasion in 1940. Her books were banned by the occupying regime, and she lived in exile in the United States during the war, advocating for Norway and the Allied cause. The loss of her son in the war deeply affected her, and although she returned home after the war, she published little in her final years.
Undset’s legacy rests not only on her historical novels but also on her fearless exploration of conscience, duty, and the human condition. Her characters—especially her women—are fully realized, flawed, and emotionally complex. Her writing combines psychological insight with stylistic clarity and spiritual depth, making her work enduringly relevant and widely read.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 56 reviews
June 15, 2023
I don’t usually notice the deficiencies of translations, probably because the ones I usually read are good and/or timeless—think of Constance Garnett’s Russian-into-English translations, for example. But this book needs a new English translation. It’s full of slang, which might’ve worked when it was first published; but didn’t work at all for me, taking me out of the story, which also seems rather long for what it covers.
(As an aside, the translator Arthur G. Chater seems to have been the only English translator for Gunnar's Daughter as well, though he is not mentioned anywhere on my copy. He is listed as the translator for my copy of The Master of Hestviken. I don’t remember having any issues with those two, but unlike Ida Elisabeth, they’re works of historical fiction and that may be the difference.)
Published about ten years after the Kristin Lavransdatter trilogy was completed, Ida Elisabeth is set in basically the same time period Undset was writing in. Focused on a self-sufficient young woman, it holds some of the same themes as the former: the repercussions of mistakes made early; the beauty that can arise from the suffering caused by these early mistakes, if/when one becomes open to it. It’s impossible to know for sure, but I likely would’ve been more immersed in the story with a better translation.
(As an aside, the translator Arthur G. Chater seems to have been the only English translator for Gunnar's Daughter as well, though he is not mentioned anywhere on my copy. He is listed as the translator for my copy of The Master of Hestviken. I don’t remember having any issues with those two, but unlike Ida Elisabeth, they’re works of historical fiction and that may be the difference.)
Published about ten years after the Kristin Lavransdatter trilogy was completed, Ida Elisabeth is set in basically the same time period Undset was writing in. Focused on a self-sufficient young woman, it holds some of the same themes as the former: the repercussions of mistakes made early; the beauty that can arise from the suffering caused by these early mistakes, if/when one becomes open to it. It’s impossible to know for sure, but I likely would’ve been more immersed in the story with a better translation.
February 5, 2022
Ida Elisabeth is the first "modern" woman of Sigrid Undset's that I've met. I read this through the lens of Gertrud von le Fort, who discusses "Ida Elisabeth" in the third chapter of her book "The Eternal Woman" and I am glad I had read her perspective on womanhood and motherhood, as it helped me read this novel more deeply.
A favorite line: "...one cannot refuse to live simply because one is afraid it may hurt."
And another: "Children have a right to demand this of their parents -- that they give them the feeling that there is something they can rely on in this world."
And "...if, for example, one were forced after death to confess how much one really knew and understood, but was unwilling to admit to oneself that one understood, during one's life on earth -- well, that must be like a kind of purgatory. Hell perhaps -- if one had deliberately chosen to live in one's imaginings, refusing absolutely to allow the truth to exist."
I could go on with quotes like this for pages...I marked so many to revisit that I'll be better off just re-reading this book that solidified Sigrid Undset as one of my favorite authors.
A favorite line: "...one cannot refuse to live simply because one is afraid it may hurt."
And another: "Children have a right to demand this of their parents -- that they give them the feeling that there is something they can rely on in this world."
And "...if, for example, one were forced after death to confess how much one really knew and understood, but was unwilling to admit to oneself that one understood, during one's life on earth -- well, that must be like a kind of purgatory. Hell perhaps -- if one had deliberately chosen to live in one's imaginings, refusing absolutely to allow the truth to exist."
I could go on with quotes like this for pages...I marked so many to revisit that I'll be better off just re-reading this book that solidified Sigrid Undset as one of my favorite authors.
March 19, 2013
Working my way through the Undset corpus has proved to be a truly rewarding endeavor. With the same simple, ordinary style and grace of her medieval fiction, Undset takes up contemporary characters and situations that, while less mysterious, are closer to home. With Ida Elisabeth she fixes her attention on the question: Am I to take what I desire and let my children pay for it? Throughout the events and conversations of her life, Ida Elisabeth (nicknamed "Lisken" by her husband's family) must return again and again to that fundamental question.
Undset's approach considers several answers, some of which arise from sociological trends as well as those that arise from faith. Ida Elisabeth is neither in step with the times nor a believer, and so is forced to work out a practical viewpoint from which she must navigate the demands that are made on her as well as the consequences of her own choices. It is the story of a single mother who possesses enormous strength and dedication, but seems to be surrounded by people who are incapable of taking care of themselves and regard it as a matter of course that she tend to them and their needs. In the case of her children, this seems natural; but in the case of her husband and his family, she extricates herself from a situation that pits the natural against the unnatural.
The somewhat philosophical discussions she has with a local doctor named Sommervold provide much of the context of her own experience:
"We had an institution here in Norway in the saga times which was called debt-servitude. When a man had incurred more debts than he was able to pay, he could hand over his children to his creditors, and they had to work as thralls until they had earned enough to cover their father's indebtedness. I don't believe children are told anything about this debt-servitude in the schools nowadays. But they're destined to experience it."
Ida Elisabeth nodded: "They won't have a good time, those who come after us."
"No. And that brings up the question we were talking about a little while ago. Will those who come after us be content to bear all the burdens which we still feel it our duty to shoulder? To help all that neither can nor will help themselves? Submit to all old people living on till they die a natural death and even do what they can to prolong their existence? Especially when the young are aware that the old have taken upon themselves to determine, that they should come into the world, and when they should come, and how many should be put into the world to take over the burdens when they themselves are no longer able to bear them."
Yet this does not simplify the question for her, as the possibility of a real companion, a man who truly knows her and to whom she wishes to belong entirely, once again pits her happiness against the interests of her sons. How is she to choose? As the jealousy of her boys over this new interest in their mother's life rises to the surface, what is to be done? Again and again the crosses come as separation, parting. Undset manages to create convincing motives and subtle indications of her characters' intentions without also leaving a sense of mystery that at once draws and impels them to choose.
From this issue too comes a unique consideration of what it means to even bring children into the world, and how:
[Doctor Sommervold]: "I am still unable to agree with Ciss here, who thinks people ought either to get married and accept all the youngsters the Almighty chooses to send them, or go into a convent. But I admit that those of us who are of a different opinion might do well to adopt the lofty morality which the gipsies of old are said to have practised––disappear of our own free will, when we begin to be troublesome to our successors. Otherwise we may run the risk of finding ourselves in too painful a situation. When the offspring fully realize that their parents have emancipated themselves from the old religious subordination in their family life––I'm not speaking merely of the Christian religion, but of fertility religions, and ancestor religions and belief in fate and all the rest. Of course it is something entirely new that people are to grow up with the knowledge that they owe life a decision made for them by their parents, unfettered by considerations for a higher power to which the parents had to submit. So I expect we'll have to take it gracefully if the family suicide rock comes into fashion again in some form or other."
"Ugh, how you talk!" said Ida Elisabeth.
Ciss Oxley said seriously:
"But I've heard other people talk like that––young people who say, why couldn't our parents have bought a dog or a car or a camera when they thought they must have something that would make their life interesting? Are we to smart for it for sixty or seventy years because they got an idea that it must be so delightful to have a little baby, and perhaps into the bargain they suffered from the delusion that they were fitted to bring it up and that they themselves were estimable people––and may easily have been so according to the standards of their time. They were fond of us, naturally; we were provided in order that they might indulge in the pleasure of having children––and when their pleasure in us is a thing of the past we have to adjust ourselves to the world as they have organized it––see what we can make of the data they have provided, no matter how impossible and disgusting we may find them. Voluntary fatherhood and voluntary motherhood have thus been practicable––but what is to be done to preclude involuntary childhood? Well, I've heard many argue like that, and at any rate it's consistent. And I suppose that's just what the sin consists in––starting people on a line of rails that must end in the suicide rock, if they follow it the whole way."
"Just so, Ciss", said the doctor. "That is, if one looks upon the suicide rock as such a terrible thing."
"I do, you may be sure. But if I belonged to your confession," she said defiantly, "I expect I should consider it mere sentimentality to have any prejudice against it. Merely one more instance of people rejecting the demands a religion makes on them, long before they renounce the consolations it offers them."
There is a great deal of felt life in this book, and for this reason I heartily recommend it.
Undset's approach considers several answers, some of which arise from sociological trends as well as those that arise from faith. Ida Elisabeth is neither in step with the times nor a believer, and so is forced to work out a practical viewpoint from which she must navigate the demands that are made on her as well as the consequences of her own choices. It is the story of a single mother who possesses enormous strength and dedication, but seems to be surrounded by people who are incapable of taking care of themselves and regard it as a matter of course that she tend to them and their needs. In the case of her children, this seems natural; but in the case of her husband and his family, she extricates herself from a situation that pits the natural against the unnatural.
The somewhat philosophical discussions she has with a local doctor named Sommervold provide much of the context of her own experience:
"We had an institution here in Norway in the saga times which was called debt-servitude. When a man had incurred more debts than he was able to pay, he could hand over his children to his creditors, and they had to work as thralls until they had earned enough to cover their father's indebtedness. I don't believe children are told anything about this debt-servitude in the schools nowadays. But they're destined to experience it."
Ida Elisabeth nodded: "They won't have a good time, those who come after us."
"No. And that brings up the question we were talking about a little while ago. Will those who come after us be content to bear all the burdens which we still feel it our duty to shoulder? To help all that neither can nor will help themselves? Submit to all old people living on till they die a natural death and even do what they can to prolong their existence? Especially when the young are aware that the old have taken upon themselves to determine, that they should come into the world, and when they should come, and how many should be put into the world to take over the burdens when they themselves are no longer able to bear them."
Yet this does not simplify the question for her, as the possibility of a real companion, a man who truly knows her and to whom she wishes to belong entirely, once again pits her happiness against the interests of her sons. How is she to choose? As the jealousy of her boys over this new interest in their mother's life rises to the surface, what is to be done? Again and again the crosses come as separation, parting. Undset manages to create convincing motives and subtle indications of her characters' intentions without also leaving a sense of mystery that at once draws and impels them to choose.
From this issue too comes a unique consideration of what it means to even bring children into the world, and how:
[Doctor Sommervold]: "I am still unable to agree with Ciss here, who thinks people ought either to get married and accept all the youngsters the Almighty chooses to send them, or go into a convent. But I admit that those of us who are of a different opinion might do well to adopt the lofty morality which the gipsies of old are said to have practised––disappear of our own free will, when we begin to be troublesome to our successors. Otherwise we may run the risk of finding ourselves in too painful a situation. When the offspring fully realize that their parents have emancipated themselves from the old religious subordination in their family life––I'm not speaking merely of the Christian religion, but of fertility religions, and ancestor religions and belief in fate and all the rest. Of course it is something entirely new that people are to grow up with the knowledge that they owe life a decision made for them by their parents, unfettered by considerations for a higher power to which the parents had to submit. So I expect we'll have to take it gracefully if the family suicide rock comes into fashion again in some form or other."
"Ugh, how you talk!" said Ida Elisabeth.
Ciss Oxley said seriously:
"But I've heard other people talk like that––young people who say, why couldn't our parents have bought a dog or a car or a camera when they thought they must have something that would make their life interesting? Are we to smart for it for sixty or seventy years because they got an idea that it must be so delightful to have a little baby, and perhaps into the bargain they suffered from the delusion that they were fitted to bring it up and that they themselves were estimable people––and may easily have been so according to the standards of their time. They were fond of us, naturally; we were provided in order that they might indulge in the pleasure of having children––and when their pleasure in us is a thing of the past we have to adjust ourselves to the world as they have organized it––see what we can make of the data they have provided, no matter how impossible and disgusting we may find them. Voluntary fatherhood and voluntary motherhood have thus been practicable––but what is to be done to preclude involuntary childhood? Well, I've heard many argue like that, and at any rate it's consistent. And I suppose that's just what the sin consists in––starting people on a line of rails that must end in the suicide rock, if they follow it the whole way."
"Just so, Ciss", said the doctor. "That is, if one looks upon the suicide rock as such a terrible thing."
"I do, you may be sure. But if I belonged to your confession," she said defiantly, "I expect I should consider it mere sentimentality to have any prejudice against it. Merely one more instance of people rejecting the demands a religion makes on them, long before they renounce the consolations it offers them."
There is a great deal of felt life in this book, and for this reason I heartily recommend it.
February 2, 2022
Subtle and beautifully written with complex characterization, especially of Ida Elisabeth, a young business woman and mother in 1930s Norway, who at first seems no-nonsense and even a bit hard because of what she has had to go through, but is revealed to be a person of great kindness and integrity.
June 14, 2023
A slower novel, but filled with deep and resonant questions about marriage, motherhood and fidelity. Not really a crowd-pleaser, but this came across my path at a good time. I love Ida Elisabeth - she reminds me of me, which kept me locked in to discover how her character might grow and change through the events of her life.
I hope to read more by Sigrid Undset!
I hope to read more by Sigrid Undset!
January 23, 2018
«Los que nos sucedan, ¿estarán dispuestos a cargar con todos esos lastres que nosotros aún nos sentimos obligados a echarnos encima? ¿Ayudarán a todos aquellos que no saben ni quieren ayudarse a sí mismos? ¿Aceptarán que todos los viejos vivan hasta que se mueran por sí mismos e incluso que se haga todo lo posible por alargarles el final?»
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Siguiendo con el reto de #WomenPNL de @todo.mi.ser, recorremos la obra de las catorce mujeres que ganaron el PN Literatura. La tercera, la noruega Sigrid Undset, lo recibió en 1928. Ida Elisabeth, escrita en 1932 y ambientada en esa época, me ha sorprendido por todas las cuestiones, aún actuales que plantea: responsabilidad de los actos propios y ajenos, conciencia, moral; pero también la lucha de una mujer por ser independiente, aprovechar segundas oportunidades, luchar por sus sueños e inquietudes propias. Muy recomendable. #WomenPNL #SigridUndset #IdaElisabeth #Nobel #LeoAutoras
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Siguiendo con el reto de #WomenPNL de @todo.mi.ser, recorremos la obra de las catorce mujeres que ganaron el PN Literatura. La tercera, la noruega Sigrid Undset, lo recibió en 1928. Ida Elisabeth, escrita en 1932 y ambientada en esa época, me ha sorprendido por todas las cuestiones, aún actuales que plantea: responsabilidad de los actos propios y ajenos, conciencia, moral; pero también la lucha de una mujer por ser independiente, aprovechar segundas oportunidades, luchar por sus sueños e inquietudes propias. Muy recomendable. #WomenPNL #SigridUndset #IdaElisabeth #Nobel #LeoAutoras
December 15, 2020
Although much of the material of this book would probably be more attractive to women, since it deals very much with the domestic life, the author (as in her other well-known works) displays a wonderful knowledge of the workings of human nature. The ending of the book is especially powerful, particularly because of the link that Undset makes between the very end and the beginning of the work. Kalleman, or Carl, is seen to make progress in his growth to the maturity his father never achieved--which is due in great part to the sacrifices made by his mother in her efforts to live her life for her children.
December 29, 2020
As with Kristin Lavransdatter, this book, it’s characters, and their lives will continue to remain with me for a long while. The lives of the characters and their choices haunt and uplift. Sigrid Undset has added to my opinion that she is one of the best writers of all time; she’s incredible!
January 3, 2025
Started the year off with a book that’s going to be hard to top! I love everything I’ve read by Sigrid Undset, and this is no exception. While marriage is the obvious theme, my favorite thing about this book are the parts that focus on motherhood and what parents owe their children.
June 11, 2018
I loved Sigrid Undset’s Kristin Lavransdatter and I thought Master of Hestviken was good (but more of the same - a male version of the Kristin triology). This bookk, Ida Elilsabeth takes place in the 50s I believe, so it is Undset’s modern novel.
I liked it. Undset gets inside her character’s head and shows us the struggles, the intimate details of that struggle. In this book the struggle was the competent adult’s issues with other adults who are happy to be recipients - other adults who rarely give anything.
We are not talking welfare here, but marriages and family relationships where one or more persons basically have a free ride off the competent person who works and works and keeps providing for the infantile adults.
Ida Elisabeth is in such a relationship. Her husband cannot keep a job, cannot focus on anything, but he is happy to go drinking, he is happy to enjoy life, and he always has an explanation for why he is the way he is — always blaming someone or something exterior.
Ida Elisabeth begins to loathe him, and when he has an affair she divores him (this is the short version... many details left out) and she has several good years just being a mom to their two surviving children, raising them in a location away from their father.
Ida’s new struggles occur as she falls in love with a man who is more of an equal partner, emotionally, financially, and in terms of friendship and companionship.
She struggles with the jealousy of her children towards this new boyfriend who becomes a fiance, and (SPOILER here!!) eventually she breaks off the engagement for the sake of the children who seem happier without this man, who otherwise seems well suited in temperament, sense of goodness, and interests to Ida herself.
All that was fine with me. I thought Undset did a good job portraying the struggles and while my personal inclination was that Ida deserved this man and should have worked out the differences that arose due to the children, I applaud her sticking with her kids as of primary importance, since we all know how hard it is to blend families.
Where I seriously departed from Undset’s view of the world as it came through in this book was when Ida meets up with her own in-laws again by a chance meeting with a sister in law. Ida immediately feels bad because all the inlaws who have always taken advantage of her (as depicted in living color with Undset’s own pen) encroach on her life again in terms of needs, and the true reason for Ida’s breaking off the engagement is that her fiance Tryggve is opposed to her letting her inlaws, including her dying ex husband back into her life again. They move in with her and she nurses her ex husband to his dying day.
I do not object to the mercy that Ida shows, nor do I think that helping the dying is wrong. What I did find emotionally upsetting with the end of the book was Undset’s ephemeral/other-worldly thinking (as seen inside Ida’s mind) regarding these people and their needs. Ida transforms and sees these free-loafing people through her more spiritual eyes and then embraces her sacrifice to just live and give and not expect the free-loafers to contribute or give back to her in any reciprocal sense.
Now, granted the book portrays her inlaws as incapable, and perhaps the book is an image of a Christ figure (Ida) who is competent and the rest of us the human refuse/rif raf who cannot reciprocally give to Christ anywhere near what he gives to us. I can live with that... somewhat.
What I do struggle with is with the more immediate message, more on the surface of the book where a single mother of 2 children somehow finds it OK to support and hold up multiple adults, her age and older, without them needing to reciprocate or even just taking care of their own messes. The book spent such time in the middle dealing with Ida’s resentment over these inlaws and I guess the spiritual ending is that she learns to love and put up with them....
.... however, I find that a sick and dysfunctional conclusion. I do not see the beauty in a single mother who is struggling to provide for her own being taken advantage of by parasitic in-laws who latch onto her simply because she is good and giving and struggles to see people in need (given that their neediness is of their own making.). I would say that she becomes an enabler, a person who cannot say no, and that she is part in letting these people continue in their own sin and self-indulgence because she asks nothing of them.
The very notion of this kind of self-sacrifice (which I find dysfunctional and in a very real way abusive) would be the main theme in my short book of “why-I-am-not-a-Catholic”. Self-sacrifice sits ill with me, especially when it is connected with the recipients of this self-sacrifice simply being receivers who feel no compunction on their part to reciprocate and be part of a more symmetrical relationship with the giver.
While Ida Elisabeth broke off with a man who was able to reciprocate to be there for her children, in effect, instead of being there for her children, the energy she spent on her fiance she rechanneled towards her parasitic in-laws — what kind of model is that to show to her children? Instead of making strong healthy relationships she becomes a co-dependent who surrounds herself with dysfunctional people. Absurd!!
I liked it. Undset gets inside her character’s head and shows us the struggles, the intimate details of that struggle. In this book the struggle was the competent adult’s issues with other adults who are happy to be recipients - other adults who rarely give anything.
We are not talking welfare here, but marriages and family relationships where one or more persons basically have a free ride off the competent person who works and works and keeps providing for the infantile adults.
Ida Elisabeth is in such a relationship. Her husband cannot keep a job, cannot focus on anything, but he is happy to go drinking, he is happy to enjoy life, and he always has an explanation for why he is the way he is — always blaming someone or something exterior.
Ida Elisabeth begins to loathe him, and when he has an affair she divores him (this is the short version... many details left out) and she has several good years just being a mom to their two surviving children, raising them in a location away from their father.
Ida’s new struggles occur as she falls in love with a man who is more of an equal partner, emotionally, financially, and in terms of friendship and companionship.
She struggles with the jealousy of her children towards this new boyfriend who becomes a fiance, and (SPOILER here!!) eventually she breaks off the engagement for the sake of the children who seem happier without this man, who otherwise seems well suited in temperament, sense of goodness, and interests to Ida herself.
All that was fine with me. I thought Undset did a good job portraying the struggles and while my personal inclination was that Ida deserved this man and should have worked out the differences that arose due to the children, I applaud her sticking with her kids as of primary importance, since we all know how hard it is to blend families.
Where I seriously departed from Undset’s view of the world as it came through in this book was when Ida meets up with her own in-laws again by a chance meeting with a sister in law. Ida immediately feels bad because all the inlaws who have always taken advantage of her (as depicted in living color with Undset’s own pen) encroach on her life again in terms of needs, and the true reason for Ida’s breaking off the engagement is that her fiance Tryggve is opposed to her letting her inlaws, including her dying ex husband back into her life again. They move in with her and she nurses her ex husband to his dying day.
I do not object to the mercy that Ida shows, nor do I think that helping the dying is wrong. What I did find emotionally upsetting with the end of the book was Undset’s ephemeral/other-worldly thinking (as seen inside Ida’s mind) regarding these people and their needs. Ida transforms and sees these free-loafing people through her more spiritual eyes and then embraces her sacrifice to just live and give and not expect the free-loafers to contribute or give back to her in any reciprocal sense.
Now, granted the book portrays her inlaws as incapable, and perhaps the book is an image of a Christ figure (Ida) who is competent and the rest of us the human refuse/rif raf who cannot reciprocally give to Christ anywhere near what he gives to us. I can live with that... somewhat.
What I do struggle with is with the more immediate message, more on the surface of the book where a single mother of 2 children somehow finds it OK to support and hold up multiple adults, her age and older, without them needing to reciprocate or even just taking care of their own messes. The book spent such time in the middle dealing with Ida’s resentment over these inlaws and I guess the spiritual ending is that she learns to love and put up with them....
.... however, I find that a sick and dysfunctional conclusion. I do not see the beauty in a single mother who is struggling to provide for her own being taken advantage of by parasitic in-laws who latch onto her simply because she is good and giving and struggles to see people in need (given that their neediness is of their own making.). I would say that she becomes an enabler, a person who cannot say no, and that she is part in letting these people continue in their own sin and self-indulgence because she asks nothing of them.
The very notion of this kind of self-sacrifice (which I find dysfunctional and in a very real way abusive) would be the main theme in my short book of “why-I-am-not-a-Catholic”. Self-sacrifice sits ill with me, especially when it is connected with the recipients of this self-sacrifice simply being receivers who feel no compunction on their part to reciprocate and be part of a more symmetrical relationship with the giver.
While Ida Elisabeth broke off with a man who was able to reciprocate to be there for her children, in effect, instead of being there for her children, the energy she spent on her fiance she rechanneled towards her parasitic in-laws — what kind of model is that to show to her children? Instead of making strong healthy relationships she becomes a co-dependent who surrounds herself with dysfunctional people. Absurd!!
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 23, 2013
I would not recommend this book. I thought the translation was poor as was the copy editing. It was a long read and at times it was interesting, but it really dragged in some spots.
November 29, 2025
This book is a reflection on the generational necessity of maternal self-giving. I felt the loneliness of it and the piercing beauty. Undset's characters are always real-blooded, their motivations are so believable and human. She is able to name human flaws and yet still make you care for them despite it. The decisions of the characters are inevitable.
January 15, 2024
You can't go wrong with Sigrid Undset. Truly. She has a gift for articulating our hidden motives, actions, and thoughts. Her insights into motherhood are so spot-on that I had to stop and google if she was a mother (she was).
Like Kristin Lavransdatter, Ida Elisabeth is in a terrible marriage. Except in this case, it is Ida who chooses to leave her husband. One of the themes in Kristin is the importance of staying true to your marriage vows, even if she made those vows when she was too young and in love to see the true character of her husband. In Ida Elisabeth, Sigrid focuses more on the harm that a remarriage after divorce will do to your children. I feel like these two books have made a permanent mark on my heart since their message has become, unfortunately, so personal.
Before and after leaving her husband, Ida's entire focus is on providing for her small children. She works from home after leaving her husband so that she is able to be present and available for her boys whenever they may need her throughout the day. But after meeting a man with whom she falls in love, her attention becomes split. Although she notices this and the tension it creates in her relationship with her children, she moves ahead with engagement and planning a wedding. It is not until she is close to her second wedding that she realizes that she cannot do that to her children. She believes strongly that once you have brought children into the world you must sacrifice to give them all that they have a right to: in this case, their mother and her love and attention. Ultimately, she decides to take the selfless route of staying single (her husband has since died) so that her boys can thrive in the attention and love of their mother. Ida Elisabeth is the example of strong, loving motherhood that our selfish world needs. Children's right to their parents over adults' desires, always. Divorce is evil.
Since its 2024 and we have to caveat everything now, if you are in an abusive marriage, separation is best for you and your children.
Like Kristin Lavransdatter, Ida Elisabeth is in a terrible marriage. Except in this case, it is Ida who chooses to leave her husband. One of the themes in Kristin is the importance of staying true to your marriage vows, even if she made those vows when she was too young and in love to see the true character of her husband. In Ida Elisabeth, Sigrid focuses more on the harm that a remarriage after divorce will do to your children. I feel like these two books have made a permanent mark on my heart since their message has become, unfortunately, so personal.
Before and after leaving her husband, Ida's entire focus is on providing for her small children. She works from home after leaving her husband so that she is able to be present and available for her boys whenever they may need her throughout the day. But after meeting a man with whom she falls in love, her attention becomes split. Although she notices this and the tension it creates in her relationship with her children, she moves ahead with engagement and planning a wedding. It is not until she is close to her second wedding that she realizes that she cannot do that to her children. She believes strongly that once you have brought children into the world you must sacrifice to give them all that they have a right to: in this case, their mother and her love and attention. Ultimately, she decides to take the selfless route of staying single (her husband has since died) so that her boys can thrive in the attention and love of their mother. Ida Elisabeth is the example of strong, loving motherhood that our selfish world needs. Children's right to their parents over adults' desires, always. Divorce is evil.
Since its 2024 and we have to caveat everything now, if you are in an abusive marriage, separation is best for you and your children.
November 8, 2015
A previous reviewer mentioned that there was not a single likable character in this book. It is true--each one is deeply flawed and intensely, well, human. "Ida Elisabeth" IS a difficult (i.e. depressing) read. Undset unflinchingly examines some timeless moral questions that today's culture prefers to gloss over, specifically the intrinsic conflict between the pursuit of personal desires and obligations to one's offspring.
Does youthful folly or the failings of one's partner release us from any of the responsibilities hoisted upon us by our children? Is there such a thing as second chances? Or will the consequences of a moment's reckless decision and unthinking passion doggedly follow us throughout our lives?
The author does not shy away from the painful aspects of this struggle, but provides a brutally honest--yet powerfully hopeful--commentary on the choices each one of us must face.
Does youthful folly or the failings of one's partner release us from any of the responsibilities hoisted upon us by our children? Is there such a thing as second chances? Or will the consequences of a moment's reckless decision and unthinking passion doggedly follow us throughout our lives?
The author does not shy away from the painful aspects of this struggle, but provides a brutally honest--yet powerfully hopeful--commentary on the choices each one of us must face.
May 12, 2024
It took me a long time to get through this one — although I loved Gunnar’s Daughter and Kristin Lavransdatter, I couldn’t seem to buy in to Ida Elisabeth. At the same time, whenever I did come back to read it, I desperately wished I had someone else to discuss it with. The plot of Ida Elisabeth is similar to Undset’s other works; it focuses on the struggles of a mother to care for her children despite their father’s uselessness. I loved so much about this book, but for some reason it all fell a bit flat, and I wonder if it was due to the translation. I get the feeling that this may have become my favorite Undset book if I were able to read it in the original language.
June 18, 2024
Compliqué de rentrer dans l'écriture (traduction?) au début, ça me rappelle mes premières lectures de Proust où je me perds et ne comprends pas le sens des phrases. Mais en s'accrochant on trouve le fil et le récit nous guide lentement et sûrement.
Quel récit de vie, une vie simple, d'une femme norvégienne fin 19e. Une femme qui se marie jeune après une erreur de jeunesse, une femme qui n'aime pas son mari-enfant, une femme qui rêve d'ailleurs. Et même quand elle arrive à trouver cette ailleurs, elle ne peut se le permettre rattrapé par ses enfants et son passé, par la maladie et le deuil de son défunt mari.
Très beau et très sympa de découvrir une autrice norvégienne !
Quel récit de vie, une vie simple, d'une femme norvégienne fin 19e. Une femme qui se marie jeune après une erreur de jeunesse, une femme qui n'aime pas son mari-enfant, une femme qui rêve d'ailleurs. Et même quand elle arrive à trouver cette ailleurs, elle ne peut se le permettre rattrapé par ses enfants et son passé, par la maladie et le deuil de son défunt mari.
Très beau et très sympa de découvrir une autrice norvégienne !
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 15, 2012
From the author of the fabulous "Kristin Lavransdatter". A bit long winded in parts but makes a beautiful case for putting the emotional needs of your children ahead of your own romantic fulfillment. I totally related and found affirmation for my own choices in life.
January 24, 2016
A long, and not always terribly interesting, book. It took me a while to get through, but there are interesting themes and topics for discussion.
July 16, 2024
Discovered this audiobook on Formed and downloaded it on the strength of Kristin Lavransdatter. Wow! Sigrid Undset is an amazing writer - interesting and insightful of the human condition. Where has she been all my life?!
I listened to the audiobook over the last few months during long walks and when I couldn't sleep at night.
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My thoughts 1 hour into the book:
Oh - Sigrid Undset! I really like her style of writing. Rich literature. So captivating and honest about the human experience.
This book is profoundly depressing and tragic. That husband! Feminist could have a field day with this story. Using it to justify all sorts of things. Another thought - is it wisdom to recognize/accept the shortcomings in people around us and act accordingly (ie the husband). So we can't be freshly disappointed and hurt. But we are hurt anyway. And there is a risk of de-humanizing them, if we don't hope in the ones we love.
The thousand pains of marrying a low quality man. Loving someone and being bound to them, but not being able to trust them. Seeing their faults and public humiliations when they did not. Having no intellectual connection/ intimacy with your spouse. Loneliness with in marriage. Unequal yoking. Realizing how your life would turn out and the limits of your particular situation, after the unbounded imaginings of innocent maidenhood. I get this in my soul. Everyone must, in a way.
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1 month into the book:
Wow - striking assault on feminist ideas of working women while the heroine is forced to work by lazy husband. Reinforces natural law and importance of men providing for family. Heroine’s situation prompts discussion and illustrates problems with ‘modern’ worldviews.
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2 months into book:
Might be better reading vs audiobook. Frequently felt lost and had to relisten to sections to understand what was happening and what period it was. Story jumps back and forth in her life and sometimes changes with a few words, or none at all (maybe book paragraphs/ spacing/ formatting would help, if seen visually). The audiobook version also seemed to skip/repeat in one section and restart at non-obvious section marks (vs where I stopped) adding complications. I heard some passages multiple times!
Story thought… trouble with moms working! Trouble with men who don’t/won’t work! True but not PC! Thinking of specific individuals who would object...
Written during pre-Catholic life of author but some truths exposed through natural life experiences. (Like roles in marriage and the trouble with stay-at-home dads)
Not as much as Kristin, but connected with some human insights like the desire to be apart from society and take care of self. Along with the difficulties that can create - gossip about you, being the last to know important things like husband cheating.
Depressing story while with husband. Put me in bad mood first 5 hours and put off listening. Shocked and relieved (not great result) when she left husband 5 hours in. Touched on own deep wounds from unequal spiritual yoking.
Writing overbearingly moody. Avoided/resistant. Not addictive like Kristin.
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After finishing book:
This book is life - unpleasant bits and all. Parts come back randomly to strike me - the sign of excellent literature.
I listened to the audiobook over the last few months during long walks and when I couldn't sleep at night.
-
My thoughts 1 hour into the book:
Oh - Sigrid Undset! I really like her style of writing. Rich literature. So captivating and honest about the human experience.
This book is profoundly depressing and tragic. That husband! Feminist could have a field day with this story. Using it to justify all sorts of things. Another thought - is it wisdom to recognize/accept the shortcomings in people around us and act accordingly (ie the husband). So we can't be freshly disappointed and hurt. But we are hurt anyway. And there is a risk of de-humanizing them, if we don't hope in the ones we love.
The thousand pains of marrying a low quality man. Loving someone and being bound to them, but not being able to trust them. Seeing their faults and public humiliations when they did not. Having no intellectual connection/ intimacy with your spouse. Loneliness with in marriage. Unequal yoking. Realizing how your life would turn out and the limits of your particular situation, after the unbounded imaginings of innocent maidenhood. I get this in my soul. Everyone must, in a way.
-
1 month into the book:
Wow - striking assault on feminist ideas of working women while the heroine is forced to work by lazy husband. Reinforces natural law and importance of men providing for family. Heroine’s situation prompts discussion and illustrates problems with ‘modern’ worldviews.
-
2 months into book:
Might be better reading vs audiobook. Frequently felt lost and had to relisten to sections to understand what was happening and what period it was. Story jumps back and forth in her life and sometimes changes with a few words, or none at all (maybe book paragraphs/ spacing/ formatting would help, if seen visually). The audiobook version also seemed to skip/repeat in one section and restart at non-obvious section marks (vs where I stopped) adding complications. I heard some passages multiple times!
Story thought… trouble with moms working! Trouble with men who don’t/won’t work! True but not PC! Thinking of specific individuals who would object...
Written during pre-Catholic life of author but some truths exposed through natural life experiences. (Like roles in marriage and the trouble with stay-at-home dads)
Not as much as Kristin, but connected with some human insights like the desire to be apart from society and take care of self. Along with the difficulties that can create - gossip about you, being the last to know important things like husband cheating.
Depressing story while with husband. Put me in bad mood first 5 hours and put off listening. Shocked and relieved (not great result) when she left husband 5 hours in. Touched on own deep wounds from unequal spiritual yoking.
Writing overbearingly moody. Avoided/resistant. Not addictive like Kristin.
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After finishing book:
This book is life - unpleasant bits and all. Parts come back randomly to strike me - the sign of excellent literature.
January 24, 2022
Briefly, Ida Elisabeth is about a woman whose husband is a good-for-nothing so that she has to support her family. I am not much of a feminist, but reading this book filled me with feminist rage that there are not more good books like it. The other book I am reading right now, The Brothers Karamazov, is widely regarded as one of the best novels ever written, but next to Ida Elisabeth it reads like it should be a play. People don't really speak the way they do in the Brothers K, but in Ida Elisabeth the dialogue and inner dialogue are so life-like that I felt like I was living another life. Then I think of other female authors I have enjoyed, besides Undset, and I can't really think of any who really capture what it is to be a woman or who even try.
So, I am a little angry that Sigrid Undset is so unique in my literary life. If I were a good writer, I could easily write a book about falling in love, with a few misperceptions highlighted in the plot, and the characters tied neatly together at the end, and it would be a good book like there are a million good books about "women". But being a woman is so much more than that. It's having and miscarrying and losing children, disappointment and joy in marriage. It's friendship and a truly insane amount of work and moments of really profound meaning in the little things. It's a little boring sometimes, and Ida Elisabeth was a little boring sometimes. Like Kristin Lavransdatter though, it made me feel like I was truly pulled into someone else's life in a very intimate way.
I also want to say something about Frithjof, her husband. So far, I feel like every book I've read by Undset has the same character for leading man, but in Gunnar's daughter, circa 1000 AD, he's a rapist who is able to go onto a respectable life, in Kristin Lavransdatter, around 1300 AD, he is merely a bit of a rogue who marries the woman lest she lose her honor, and in Ida Elisabeth, modern times, he's a perpetual adolescent and a leech. Because of this, her male characters have also given me a lot to think of as far as how our world shapes men.
So, I am a little angry that Sigrid Undset is so unique in my literary life. If I were a good writer, I could easily write a book about falling in love, with a few misperceptions highlighted in the plot, and the characters tied neatly together at the end, and it would be a good book like there are a million good books about "women". But being a woman is so much more than that. It's having and miscarrying and losing children, disappointment and joy in marriage. It's friendship and a truly insane amount of work and moments of really profound meaning in the little things. It's a little boring sometimes, and Ida Elisabeth was a little boring sometimes. Like Kristin Lavransdatter though, it made me feel like I was truly pulled into someone else's life in a very intimate way.
I also want to say something about Frithjof, her husband. So far, I feel like every book I've read by Undset has the same character for leading man, but in Gunnar's daughter, circa 1000 AD, he's a rapist who is able to go onto a respectable life, in Kristin Lavransdatter, around 1300 AD, he is merely a bit of a rogue who marries the woman lest she lose her honor, and in Ida Elisabeth, modern times, he's a perpetual adolescent and a leech. Because of this, her male characters have also given me a lot to think of as far as how our world shapes men.
Read
April 19, 2024It was the book by Undset that I had the most difficulty reading, not because of the writing, but rather because of my own preconceptions about duty, marriage, feminism, in which two years ago I was not yet prepared for the theme of this book: moral constancy and spiritual, something difficult to find in this current, chaotic world of vanity and individuality.
Some claim that it is an anti-feminist book, with religious tones, something that had little effect on Undset's fame, after her conversion to Catholicism, something I don't agree with. Because her life is a great example of what Virgínia Woolf wrote in her book"A Room of One's Own", she was a pioneer writer in financial independence, with the fame and awards of
her books, the breadwinner of her family, relatives, social causes, a divorced woman and practically a single mother. That still made the strongest opposition to the Nazi regime in Norway.
I finally had the maturity to see beyond these things and reflect a good deal about the life and decisions that the woman Ida Elizabeth have to do for the peace of her mind and spirit.
Some claim that it is an anti-feminist book, with religious tones, something that had little effect on Undset's fame, after her conversion to Catholicism, something I don't agree with. Because her life is a great example of what Virgínia Woolf wrote in her book"A Room of One's Own", she was a pioneer writer in financial independence, with the fame and awards of
her books, the breadwinner of her family, relatives, social causes, a divorced woman and practically a single mother. That still made the strongest opposition to the Nazi regime in Norway.
I finally had the maturity to see beyond these things and reflect a good deal about the life and decisions that the woman Ida Elizabeth have to do for the peace of her mind and spirit.
October 10, 2020
I am partially giving a 5 star rating because of who Sigrid Undset was. She won the Nobel Prize for literature and donated all of the money for charity, as she had a child with severe problems and she wanted to help other parents in her situation . As she said, she had the luxury to stay home with her child and write for a living. She had her medallion melted down for Finnish orphans in WWII. This book is very different from her 14th century epic Kristin Lavransdatter, but with many common themes. It is basically a story of Norway in the 1920s, where a lady makes a choice of a husband in her teen years and lives with the poor choice she made for the rest of her life. The book is as relevant today as it was in the 1930s when it was written.
November 19, 2024
Similar to Kristin lavransdatter in the format and themes, but a little more blatantly religious than I remember that book being. Reminded me of a lot of the novels we read in French catholic writers, from dead children to family troubles, and did a pretty good job of not falling into sentimentality (v hard!). The setting was fun in its ordinariness-only heroine I remember making beds. The most striking thing was the very real way Ida thought-it was very cool to be in her head as she matured and see how she grew in unselfishness, especially as a mother, but still had blind spots. A great book for cold winter nights!
January 11, 2019
I love her style of writing. Such wonderful and visual descriptions of the surroundings. She also has a gift for expressing thoughts and impressions and emotions of her characters, whether the complex Ida Elisabeth or one of her children. At first, Ida’s character put me off. She wouldn’t speak up! But as it turns out, I could learn a lot from her, how potent silence can be. How it gives one the space to think the wrong things but not be committed to them because they’re kept within. She was also so wise to put her children first.
March 2, 2023
4 Stars
Found myself very impressed with this (to my knowledge>) lesser known work of hers. Sometimes there's lines that blow me away. Multiple times I highlighted a line and I had to stop and just take in every word.
The weakest part in my opinion is the part in the middle. I would have wanted more of Ida's thoughts on life and events during that part. But the parts with her husband and his family were brilliant and the ending was heartbreaking in many ways and left me feeling all sorts of things.
Found myself very impressed with this (to my knowledge>) lesser known work of hers. Sometimes there's lines that blow me away. Multiple times I highlighted a line and I had to stop and just take in every word.
The weakest part in my opinion is the part in the middle. I would have wanted more of Ida's thoughts on life and events during that part. But the parts with her husband and his family were brilliant and the ending was heartbreaking in many ways and left me feeling all sorts of things.
April 4, 2023
I really liked Undset's book, Kristin Lavransdatter, and it drew me to read another book by her. Unfortunately, this story was not that engaging, and I think that the translation did not help. The reading felt awkward, and I am used to reading translations. I was angry with the character Ida Elizabeth, as I felt she was being used all the time. She is a resourceful woman, taking the world upon her shoulders, and not finding happiness for herself. Some of the characters are so annoying that I was losing patience as I was reading. A dense read, and I can't say I would recommend it.
July 10, 2019
I was disappointed by this book. At the beginning, it was hard for me to understand Ida's character and motivation and to feel sympathy with her. That got a little better, but I still did not feel moved by the book. I could take it or leave it. This is the first title I have read by Sigrid Undset and I was expecting more, especially since it is part of The Well-Read Mom library.
August 29, 2017
Slow going but true to life novel of the strong woman Ida Elizabeth who survives an unworthy husband and his family set as it is in 1930 rural Denmark it still portrays the sacrificial love of the heroine.
March 3, 2023
I became discouraged by the novel's slow start and the seemingly unending frustration and drudgery Ida endured chapter after chapter. The end of the story rewards with deep insight about both sacrificial motherhood, how to view and bear with human weakness, and the ultimate source of happiness.
February 22, 2024
Upeasti kirjoitettu kirja, josta jäi kuitenkin todella surullinen olo - päällimmäiseksi jäi mieleen se, miten valtavan kauaskantoisia väärät päätökset elämässä voivat olla ja miten paljosta päähenkilö Ida Elisabet joutui luopumaan kantaakseen vastuun tekemistään valinnoista.
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