The Wreath by Sigrid Undset, winner of The Nobel Prize for Literature in 1928, albeit I have only heard of her a few days ago, when I have started this, The Wreath is just the first part of the trilogy Kristin Lavransdatter, for which the novelist has been awarded the Nobel, you find it on the 298th spot among The Greatest Books of All Time site, hence the effort to try and read it, and now the plug: hundreds of books from that list, also The Norwegian Book Club Top 100, Le Monde, Modern Library’s Best 100, are reviewed on my blog, where the best beano is https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/02/is-this-unique-could-it-make-money.html

 

The Wreath by Sigrid Undset, winner of The Nobel Prize for Literature in 1928, albeit I have only heard of her a few days ago, when I have started this, The Wreath is just the first part of the trilogy Kristin Lavransdatter, for which the novelist has been awarded the Nobel, you find it on the 298^th spot among The Greatest Books of All Time site, hence the effort to try and read it, and now the plug: hundreds of books from that list, also The Norwegian Book Club Top 100, Le Monde, Modern Library’s Best 100, are reviewed on my blog, where the best beano is https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/02/is-this-unique-could-it-make-money.html

 

 

7 out of 10

 

This reader may have a soft spot – as in he does not get it – for the Scandinavian literature, perhaps Norwegian in particular, given that The Wreath has failed to enchant him, and it was the same for Hunger

 

-          By celebrated Knut Hamsun https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/04/hunger-by-knut-hamsun.html

Hunger by Knut Hamsun is supposed to be one of The Best 100 Books Ever, as compiled by The Bokklubben World Library, The Norwegian Book Clubs – they have asked prominent writers from scores of countries to list them

 

With another Scandinavian Nobel Prize for Literature Winner, Selma Ottilia Lovisa Lagerlöf https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/04/christ-legends-by-selma-lagerlof-nine.html I have had better luck, if that is the word

I have liked her short stories, perhaps because she was Swedish (?), I would be tempted to say, except here is Pippi Longstocking by yet another Swedish female writer, Astrid Lindgren, which failed the litmus test

 

-          https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/04/pippi-longstocking-by-astrid-lindgren.html

 

and to think that Pippi (a funny name indeed, which means urine in our language, and I guess a few more) is also among The Top 100 as selected by those luminaries, from Umberto Eco to Salman Rushdie and Nadine Gordimer, among others

The was a passage that has attracted my attention, although the narrative is not bad, it is still less thrilling than the 1144 pages would require, I mean, to contemplate staying on for so long in the company of those personages does not entice me

 

Flow https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/01/flow-by-mihaly-csikszentmihalyi.html is a classic of psychology, its author, Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi, was the co-founder of positive psychology and here are the conditions

 

-          For flow, you need to be in control, nothing else matters, time becomes fluid

-          It is an autotelic experience, there are clear goals, feedback is constant and immediate

 

Perhaps most important, crucial in reading I would say, you have to be challenged, to be in the Zone between burnout and boredom, only with more than one thousand one hundred and forty pages to contemplate –

 

-          Kristin Lavransdatter appears as a daunting task,

 

Mea culpa – it is not the book, after all, ‘beauty is in the eye of the beholder’, and this is 298^th among the crème de la crème, it is just a personal opinion, it does not work for the lazy reader, but it surely offers delights for the sturdy, resilient erudite

 

Now for my standard closing of the note with a question, and invitation – maybe you have a good idea on how we could make more than a million dollars with this https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/02/is-this-unique-could-it-make-money.html  – as it is, this is a unique technique, which we could promote, sell, open the Oscars show with or something and then make lots of money together, if you have the how, I have the product, I just do not know how to get the befits from it, other than the exercise per se

 

 There is also the small matter of working for AT&T – this huge company asked me to be its Representative for Romania and Bulgaria, on the Calling Card side, which meant sailing into the Black Sea wo meet the US Navy ships, travelling to Sofia, a lot of activity, using my mother’s two bedrooms flat as office and warehouse, all for the grand total of $250, raised after a lot of persuasion to the staggering $400…with retirement ahead, there are no benefits, nothing…it is a longer story, but if you can help get the mastodont to pay some dues, or have an idea how it can happen, let me know

 

As for my role in the Revolution that killed Ceausescu, a smaller Mao, there it is http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/03/realini-in-newsweek-participant-in.html

 

Some favorite quotes from To The Hermitage and other works

 

‘Fiction is infinitely preferable to real life...As long as you avoid the books of Kafka or Beckett, the everlasting plot of fiction has fewer futile experiences than the careless plot of reality...Fiction's people are fuller, deeper, cleverer, more moving than those in real life…Its actions are more intricate, illuminating, noble, profound…There are many more dramas, climaxes, romantic fulfillment, twists, turns, gratified resolutions…Unlike reality, all of this you can experience without leaving the house or even getting out of bed…What's more, books are a form of intelligent human greatness, as stories are a higher order of sense…As random life is to destiny, so stories are to great authors, who provided us with some of the highest pleasures and the most wonderful mystifications we can find…Few stories are greater than Anna Karenina, that wise epic by an often foolish author…’