I imagine that readers of this blog will have already heard the news: Bishop Fredrik Hansen, the bishop of the Diocese of Oslo, recently announced his intention to formally open the cause for Sigrid Undset's sainthood. I wonder how this is being and will be received in secular Norway, which already has a somewhat ambivalent view of the soon to be Servant of God! Here follows the press release from the diocese: Bishop to Open Canonisation Cause for Sigrid Undset From Selje Isl

In Undset's foreword to her own translation of Chesterton's Everlasting Man, she wrote of the challenge of rendering the master of paradox into Norwegian: " What some Frenchman said about translation particularly applies to translations of Chesterton: namely that they are like women - if they are beautiful, they are not faithful, but if they are faithful, they are not beautiful. I myself have time and again been at a loss as to how faithfully I should follow Chesterton's text

It's extraordinary, really. Very occasionally I look at the email of analytics I get sent that shows me there are a relatively high number of readers that come to this page - I presume in the hope of some profound insights into Undset. What is even more extraordinary is that despite no posts in such a long time, the visits are fairly stable. Hello to anyone who has stopped by over the last twelve months. Apologies if you dropped by twice, hoping for new content. The truth is

An excerpt from Undset's 1941 article "Kristen Kultur". We know that states built on democratic foundations are far from perfect – they...