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'The writing throughout is quietly beautiful, the story weaving elegantly between past and present, the characters drawn with skill and humour'. Irish Times
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For years, Disa has lived a quiet life, managing an English country-house hotel with her companion Anthony. However, upon learning that she is terminally ill, Disa decides it is time to travel back to the village in Iceland where she was born. Olaf Olafsson takes the reader with Disa on her quietly heroic journey as she heads north, seeking a resolution to painful matters she has spent most of her life trying to forget.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
In the tiniest of vignettes, most only a page or two long, Olafsson creates a pointillist portrait of Disa, a middle-aged Icelandic woman, and the people and events from her past over which she still feels guilt and distress. She is on her way back to Iceland from England, where she and her friend Anthony have run a country hotel for many years, and where she has acquired a reputation as a fine chef. Her trip "home" is an attempt to find peace and to achieve the satisfaction of knowing her life has had meaning. This is an urgent quest--Disa has only twelve to eighteen months to live, and her life is full of unresolved traumas.
Olafsson uses the diary Disa keeps on her journey to intersperse sensitive, often powerful, memories from the past with her recollections from her more recent life in England. She is an intense and independent woman who sometimes reacts more sensitively toward the natural world around her than to the people with whom she has had relationships. As we relive Disa's memories and the feelings they evoke in random order, we do not always know why they are important until later memories provide the keys to understanding. As her memories and nightmares intensify, the suspense grows. As Disa says, "The soul can take delight in small things if one's dreams only leave it in peace long enough."
Although Disa probably has enough traumas in her life for three novels, Olafsson avoids some of the usual pitfalls of romances by spacing out the details and requiring the reader to draw the conclusions. He tempers sensational revelations by including repeated images or symbols within them--apples, thrushes, storms, views from windows, music, the color red, the cold--to make us think. By the time the real reason for the trip to Iceland is revealed, most readers will have guessed it, but we sympathize with the unfortunate Disa and her journey, nevertheless. This is an emotion-packed rollercoaster of a novel, with a multitude of period details, sure to keep readers on edge. Mary Whipple
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Olaf Olafsson inhabits two seemingly disparate worlds - he is vice chairman of Time Warner Digital Media in New York, and Iceland's bestselling novelist. While I cannot confirm his business acumen, I can enthusiastically attest to his mastery of the literary arts. The Journey Home, Mr. Olafsson's second novel is a languid yet riveting distillation of a woman's life, an uncommonly beautiful diary of her physical and emotional quest. It is a very human story of one who possesses strengths and frailties, intuition and self-delusion. The author limns these traits sympathetically yet with unflinching candor. Disa Jonsdottir and her younger sister, Joka, enjoy a rather idyllic childhood with their doctor father and demanding mother in 1930s Iceland. As young women Disa and Joka are sent to the Commercial College in Iceland's capital, Reykjavik, which is where Disa becomes enthralled with cooking. Contrary to her mother's wishes she goes to England hoping to become a world class cook. However, the rift between Disa and her mother is an estrangement that will haunt. Once in England Disa relishes and is emboldened by her freedom. She falls in love with Jakob, a German Jew, who has just completed his doctoral thesis. The pair give free rein to their passions, escaping to a small cottage in the English countryside. But, despite their thrall, they cannot ignore the distant rumblings that will soon shatter all of Europe. Jakob fears for the safety of his parents, and returns to Germany in an effort to help them escape the Holocaust. But there is no deliverance; he, too, is consigned to Buchenwald. Bereft and alone, Disa returns to Iceland where she takes a position as cook in the home of the wealthy Haraldsson family. There she is challenged to prepare tempting meals for the reclusive mistress of the house and confronts a mysterious adult son, Atli, who has just returned from Germany. No one speaks of Atli's activities in Germany. When Disa uncovers his secret, she derides herself for having been blind. Later, some 20 years after the war she will again be in England where she will live with an old friend, Anthony, a gay squire. The two transform his family home into Ditton Hall, a respected country hotel, where Disa reigns supreme in the kitchen and oversees the hostelry's staff. Although she bridles at any criticism of her culinary art, she has indeed achieved her dream of becoming a first-rate cook. Nonetheless, her emotional life is barren, her relationships with others tenuous as she buries her past, confronting it only when an unforeseeable event compels her to do so. It is then that she embarks on a last journey home to Iceland. With The Journey Home Mr. Olafsson has created a work rich in imagery - the spare, unforgiving scenes of Iceland juxtaposed against the reassuring warmth of England's country summer. The inexorable march across Europe versus a kitchen fragranced by savory comestibles. With Disa he has created a memorable character - her story haunts, her voice echoes again and again.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Like most "great reads" this one was recommended by a friend, an Icelandic friend, who was curious to know what a British reader might make of Olafssons work.
The story follows Asdis, a strong, determined Icelandic woman, on her return to her homeland after being diagnosed as terminally ill. Olafsson pulls together Asdis' life story in a fragmented but captivating way.
It's the kind of book that carries you along at a great rate pulling at the emotions and then ends, leaving you wanting more.
For an Icelandic writer in his late 30's, living in America, I found the focus on cooking and domestic sevice in country homes and Hotels amazing, given that the setting is not only German Occupied Iceland, but war time Britain.
I was also impressed by the sensitivity with which he handled the joys and trials of family relationships, especially between women and the peace found in happy companionship.
All in all, a great read, leaving this British reader well impressed.
The story follows Asdis, a strong, determined Icelandic woman, on her return to her homeland after being diagnosed as terminally ill. Olafsson pulls together Asdis' life story in a fragmented but captivating way.
It's the kind of book that carries you along at a great rate pulling at the emotions and then ends, leaving you wanting more.
For an Icelandic writer in his late 30's, living in America, I found the focus on cooking and domestic sevice in country homes and Hotels amazing, given that the setting is not only German Occupied Iceland, but war time Britain.
I was also impressed by the sensitivity with which he handled the joys and trials of family relationships, especially between women and the peace found in happy companionship.
All in all, a great read, leaving this British reader well impressed.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Story elements slowly start to fall into place
A story told in a very restrained manner, factual, alternating between the current time and several points in the past. Read more
Published on 1 Aug 2009 by JudithAnn
A finely wrought novel
Asdis - "Disa" - Jonsdottir and her partner Anthony run a twenty-four room hotel, Ditton Hall, in the Lake District. Read more
Published on 23 April 2006 by HORAK
The Journey begins...
Olafsson pulls of the amazing feat of writing a narrative from a woman's perspective and is astoundingly convincing. Read more
Published on 7 Sep 2003 by jpksan
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