The Journey Home

Disa Jonsdottir is looking back on her life as she prepares to return home to Iceland for the first time in many years. The story unfolds in a series of vignettes that jump around chronologically, which took some getting used to, but, with its first-person narrative and sometimes dreamlike, sometimes discursive style, felt very much like an intimate conversation. Disa is a wonderfully drawn, authentic character, with a short temper, an impetuous nature, and deep wounds from the past. Her flashes of pique are interspersed with kindnesses and quiet reflections of the unique, meditative, and even stark beauty of the English countryside, where she runs a summer inn with her companion Anthony, and Kopasker, Iceland, the wild, remote village show more of her childhood. I was so moved by Olafsson’s descriptions of Kopasker that I looked it up -- it is a sheepherding and fishing village of about 130 residents located just about as far north as can be in Iceland, with rivers, lava fields, and dramatic fjords, and in my imagination it is little changed from Disa’s youth in the 1930s. I ached for Disa when she remembers her fiancé, and when she revisits issues unresolved with her mother and sister. I was touched by the tender relationship Disa has with her companion Anthony, and even the quiet conversations with her dog Tina. There’s no epiphany; no redemptive reconciliation, but though the reader takes this journey with Disa near the end of her life, regret does yield to hope. Highly recommended. show less

This is not a gut wrenching, page turner. This is not a fast paced emotional story.

This is a poetic, marvelous tale of Disa who recently received word that she has a year to live thus prompting her to travel back home to Iceland.

Living in the English countryside, managing a lovely bed and breakfast, Disa is content with her life. The author paints a calm, aesthetic portrait of flowers and rolling hills, of food prepared well, of clean, quiet restful rooms and a tranquil lifestyle.

Leaving her well-defined comfortable environment, traveling by ship affords Disa time to reflect on her life as she slowly approaches her destination.

Her memories flicker and, even though some events experienced were painful, we observe her life as through a show more panoply of color where patterns change and shift and the kaledscope turns prismatic with each tiny nudge.

We are taken back to WWII and Nazi occupation of Europe, of Disa's Jewish lover, of her mother's disapproval of her career and choice of partner, of friendships made and friendship lost, of events out of her control and then, of choices intentionally made.

Highly recommended. show less

An Icelandic chef travels from London to Reykjavik in The Journey Home - she travels in a literal sense, and as in quality fiction, her journey takes on a metaphoric dimension as well. Her journey’s meaning is revealed to us in the course of her first-person narrative, and along the way the author treats us to some remarkable effects. This is a bewitching book, with its low-key diction and its high-strung, independent heroine.

Her name is Asdis, and is called Disa for short. In her life she goes her own way, to the chagrin and frustration of her family, her mother in particular. After “an expensive” course of training in clerical work, she opts for a career in cooking. She falls in love with and agrees to marry a German Jewish man show more just as World War II is starting, and this too, irks her family. In fact she and her mother become estranged. The present-day part of her story occurs long after these events, however, and although she has spells where she strongly doubts the success of her mission, she pushes on in spite of herself.

Olaf Olafsson manages this portrait with a very different but highly affecting scheme. Disa’s telling of her story has the feel of a long, one-sided conversation, drawn out through a single, talk-filled night. She bounces around in time as she weaves her tale, but don’t be fooled: none of this ever approaches aimlessness. Mr. Olafsson has a very distinct, very touching story to relate, and he bends his heroine and his style to its ends very surely. I found the whole very effective and very memorable.

Disa has her dark moments and her author deepens them with perfectly striking imagery and blunt-spoken philosophy. About 80% through the book our narrator avers: “You grow up, people say, as if they have attained some higher wisdom, and will even put on a solemn face if they are sufficiently dishonest with themselves, or else mutter the assertion in low tones, avoiding looking in the mirror.” And a few sentences later: “Hope is the sister of self-deception and I have learned to avoid those sisters as far as I can. Their smile is fawning and their manner false … The truth demands accuracy and concentration which sometimes makes it hard to handle.”

The accuracy and concentration here are undeniable. Mr. Olafsson gives us an unblinkingly honest heroine, one who savages herself when she feels she deserves it – you will not always agree that she does deserve it. She can be prickly at times, and a hard partner to live with; this is a complete portrait: intricate, nuanced, realistic.

I recommend this book highly to the readers who happily lose themselves in intimate psychological dramas. The author approaches his subject in a unique way, and we the readers benefit: Disa’s emotional journey deserves a wide circulation. Take this up!

http://bassoprofundo1.blogspot.com/2015/05/the-journey-home-by-olaf-olafsson.htm... show less

In this sparse, slightly mysterious novel, the narrator, Disa, decides to return to Iceland at the end of her life. She has been living in England, running a bed and breakfast with her companion, Anthony. Leading up to and during the journey back, she reflects on the major events of her life. These include her troubled relationship with her mother and sister and the disappearance, presumed death, of her first love who was a German Jew during WWII.

At first I couldn't get into this. Disa isn't particularly likeable. Also, the timeline shifts all over the place as her memories come up. It sometimes took me a couple sentences to figure out which life event she was talking about after a shift. But her story grew on me and I ended up really show more liking this. show less

[The Journey Home] by Olaf Olafsson

I recently finished this excellent, soulful book about a woman, Disa, who is told she has about a year left of her life and decides to return to her homeland and deal with her psychological baggage, so to speak. I have been lately addicted to Olafsson’s compassionate writing and ordered a used copy of this book not realizing I already had a paperback copy on my shelves. Had I read it before? I wasn’t sure, and as I read it again, some of it did seem familiar.

This morning, as I prepared to write a review, I went to the book’s page and noticed there was already a short review there that I had written in 2008! I agree with everything I said back then, but the difference between then and now is me. show more I am twelve years older and like the book’s heroine, Disa, I have more years behind me than ahead of me. Disa is a wonderfully imperfect woman working through her history. The story, written in Disa’s voice in a journaling style, is still an engrossing read. NOTE: terrible cover art for this book show less

A very good book, but not a great book and I guess I was hoping for great. The story of a dying woman in Scotland who decides to journey home to the village in Iceland where she grew up. In the process she faces many demons from her past. My main problem was that the character wasn't entirely likable, which I suppose made her more human, but I was thinking that with all she had been through she would have been more humane.

Disa has been running a small hotel in the English countryside for decades but time constraints prompt her to make a long-overdue trip back to her native Iceland. The whole process unleashes a whirlwind of memories she has long kept behind her. Disa has made her mistakes in life and suffered losses like all of us have; and she seems determined to work through it all now. I found the story compelling, some of the writing beautifully done (Olafsson translated his own book apparently or rewrote it in English) and the glimpses into life in Iceland before and during WWII is fascinating (generally, I thought the novel excellent). Disa is not always a sympathetic character but one comes to know and respect her over the course of the novel. show more Borrowing an adjective from one of the book blurbs, the book is 'soulful' without being depressing. show less