Good news - I hope!

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 it has been a tough tast getting my thesis written. As a Catholic priest engaged in a parish, priestly duties seem to "get in the way" - not in a bad way! It's just the reality of pastoral life. Coupling that with my having to take on extra duties to cover for an assistant priest who was moved and then the pastor who was incapacitated for a couple of months, time became rather straitened.

The good old theologians say that perseverance is a virtue and I managed to submit the thesis on New Year's Eve at about 4.30 pm, seven and a half hours before it was due. Now it feels quite strange to not have the proverbial albatross around my proverbial neck.

That's some good news. The other thing is that - all things being equal - I will try to flip the thesis about Undset's apologetics into a book if there is any appetite for it. During the course of the last years, I have translated some forty of Undset's articles, rendered into English for the first time. With a bit of proofing and polishing, they might make a useful volume to those interested in Undset's religion and world view.

Now that I am (or at least feel like) a man of leisure, I will attempt to put up some excerpts from my translations. Speaking of which, I just thought of one to put up right now...