The setting is Rome, around 1905-1910, Jenny Winge is a beautiful, blonde, twenty-something painter. The reserved Jenny hangs out with a lively, bohemian crowd of fellow artists, including her special friend and roommate, Fransiska (Cesca) Jahrmann. Enter Helge Gram, a somewhat dorky fellow Norwegian, who latches onto Jenny. Her friends protest, but eventually come to accept him because of Jenny's love-me-love-my-dog attitude. Jenny and Cesca have many discussions about their choices in life. (Amazon)
Sigrid Undset (20 May 1882 – 10 June 1949) was a Norwegian novelist who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1928. Undset was born in Kalundborg, Denmark, but her family moved to Norway when she was two years old. In 1924, she converted to Catholicism. She fled Norway for the United States in 1940 because of her opposition to Nazi Germany and the German invasion and occupation of Norway, but returned after World War II ended in 1945.