Ólafur Jóhann Ólafsson (Olaf Olafsson): Slóð Fiðrildanna (The Journey Home)

journey

The latest addition to my website is Ólafur Jóhann Ólafsson (Olaf Olafsson)‘s Slóð Fiðrildanna (The Journey Home). This is a fairly gentle tale of Disa, an Icelandic woman, who has settled in Somerset, in England and runs a hotel with her gay companion. She is the cook as well as the organiser. At the beginning of the book, she is going back to Iceland after a long gap. Though we get a hint of the reason when the doctor tells her only eighteen months, at most, we do not learn the real reason till the end of the book. On her journey back, she reminisces about her early life. She was the oldest of four siblings, daughter of a doctor in rural Iceland, and resented that she had to spend much of her time bringing up her younger siblings. Indeed, one of her main issues is her poor relationship with her mother. The problems of her life – the loss of her German Jewish lover, being raped, the suicide of a family member – are counterbalanced by her essentially happy life with her gay companion, Anthony, and her joy in her cooking and the good reviews that the hotel gets.

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