Journey Home

Journey Home

by Olaf Olafsson
Journey Home

Journey Home

by Olaf Olafsson

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Overview

A lyrical and arresting novel by acclaimed Icelandic writer Olaf Olafsson about one woman's redemptive journey home.

Disa Jonsdottir has managed an inn for years with her companion, Anthony, in the English countryside. Compelled by the demands of time to revisit the village of her childhood, she departs England for her native Iceland. Along the way memories surface-of the rift between her and her mother, of the fate of her German-Jewish lover, of the trauma she experienced while working as a cook in a wealthy household. Skillfully weaving past and present, Olafsson builds toward an emotional climax that renders The Journey Home moving, suspenseful, and unforgettable.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780307428783
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Publication date: 12/18/2007
Sold by: Random House
Format: eBook
Pages: 304
Sales rank: 297,000
File size: 319 KB

About the Author

About The Author
Olaf Olafsson lives in New York City.

Read an Excerpt

I'm getting ready to leave.

The fire is crackling with a familiar sound in the hearth and the aroma of last night's baked apples still lingers down here in the kitchen. The sky is awakening; I can just make out a pink glow in the east. It's as if my dog had sensed that I'm about to go. Instead of lying by the fire with eyes closed as she usually does early in the morning, she's trailing me around, rubbing herself against my legs. All is silent in the house; I'm the only one up, having slept badly as I've always done when I've been about to make a journey. But this time I am going to do it. Whatever happens, I am not going to let myself have a change of heart now.

I open the window to let in the morning breeze and take a deep breath. A bird perches on a branch outside the window, a blackbird, not unlike an Icelandic redwing, gazing at me with a slightly sad eye. A mist lies over the fields and the dew-laden grasses stir gently in the wind. It has been a hard winter but now spring has arrived and a pleasant sulfurous smell rises from the wood where the leaf mold has started to rot. The trees have turned green at last, their branches losing that gray look, and the breeze picks up the hesitant chuckling of the brook, carrying it over like a postman with good news in his bag.

When I awoke I saw two horses down by the brook. It was three o'clock in the morning. Without turning on the light, I wrapped myself in a warm blanket and watched them through the window. They moved slowly, blue in the bright moonlight. Suddenly one of them seemed to take fright. It bolted away over the field, disappearing from sight behind Old Marshall's cottage, as if into thin air. I glanced back toward the brook but the other horse had vanished as well. This filled me with misgiving, though there was really no reason why it should, and I went downstairs to the kitchen to be comforted by the lingering aroma of last night's supper. I knew no better way of clearing my mind.

I blow on the embers in the hearth, then put on two good-sized, dry logs. The fire soon warms the room, reviving the scent of last night's supper like an unexpected memory. I wait for my nose to wake up too, wanting to recapture the aroma of the trout which I'd fried with a sprinkling of ground almonds, and the rich, tender wild mushrooms. And the apples which I love to bake after they have soaked in port for a long, quiet afternoon. My dog rubs against me, whining unconvincingly in the hope that I'll scratch her behind her ears, and laying her head in my lap when I sit down in front of the fire. It is beginning to grow light outside, a pale blue-gray gleam illuminating the mist in the fields.

I sit a bit longer, tying to summon the remembered aroma of the mushrooms and trout, but can't, no matter how hard I try. The apples won't let them through. "Strange," I whisper to myself, but I know better. Lately they seem to have been haunting my memory, the bowl of apples which greeted me when I arrived for the first time at the house in Fjolugata. And to think I believed I had actively begun to forget those days.

I grind coffee beans in my old mill and turn on the ring under the kettle before going up to get dressed. My dog follows me upstairs. "Tina," I say, "dear old lady. You'll keep an eye on everything while I'm gone, won't you?"

Anthony is up and about. I can hear him in the shared bathroom which divides our bedrooms. I feel he has aged a bit this winter but his expression is still as open and candid as ever. I thank providence that our paths have crossed. I don't know what would have happened otherwise.

My mood lightens at the sound of his humming as he rinses out his shaving brush in the sink. "De-de-de-de-de-dum-dum."

I was awakened before dawn as so often before by the ringing of a telephone. I sat bolt upright in bed, waiting to hear the sound again but I was aware of nothing but the echo of the dream in my head. I have become used to this annoyance but it never fails to upset me.

The suitcases are waiting down in the entrance hall; I pause on my way upstairs as they catch my eye. Handsome, leather cases, given to Anthony by his father before the war. They must have been in the family for decades, accompanying them to Africa and America. And India too, of course. Strongly made, yet soft to the touch.

I glance out my bedroom window. The sun has risen and its rays are stroking the mist from the fields, gently as a mother caressing her child's cheek. This time I will do it. This time I won't have a change of heart.

What People are Saying About This

Margot Livesey

With masterful skill and elegant prose, Olaf Olafsson gradually reveals his fierce heroine and her complicated story. The Journey Home is an eerie, suspenseful novel, one that delivers surprises until the very last beautiful page and that happily remains with the reader long after that.
—(Margot Livesey, author of Criminals and The Missing World)

Reading Group Guide

1. In The Journey Home Disa travels back to Iceland and back into her own past. Why does she undertake these journeys? What is she trying to come to terms with? Does "home" have more than one meaning in this context?

2. Olaf Olafsson assumes a female voice to narrate The Journey Home. How well does he succeed in seeing the world through a woman's eyes and in representing a woman's inner life? Are there problems inherent in speaking in a voice of another gender?

3. The Journey Home is in part an exploration of time and memory; its chapters alternate between Disa's present, her recent past, and the distant past of her life as a child in the 1930s and as a young woman during World War II. Why has Olafsson structured his novel in this way? What effects does he achieve with this layering of time frames that would be lost in a more conventional and straightforwardly chronological narrative?

4. Before she begins her journey, Disa looks out her bedroom window: "The sun has risen and its rays are stroking the mist from the fields, gently as a mother caressing her child's cheek. This time I will do it. This time I won't have a change of heart" [p. 5]. Why does she describe the sunrise in this particular way? What does it reveal about her motives for taking this trip? Where else in the novel do descriptions of nature and weather serve as metaphors for Disa's emotional state?

5. At the outset of her journey, Disa thinks to herself, "The truth is often better left alone; there's no need to turn over every stone in your path, no point wasting your time in endlessly regretting something that could have turned out differently.No, it doesn't do anyone any good. Sometimes you have to get a grip on yourself to keep your thoughts under control, but it's worth it" [p. 43]. Why would Disa feel that the truth is "often better left alone"? What regrets of her own is she trying to contain here? Why would she feel that controlling rather than expressing one's emotions is a good thing?

6. In thinking about death, Disa writes that she doesn't expect to find anything on the other side: "Of course, no one would be more delighted than me if the Almighty were to send me a brochure from heaven . . . illustrated with beautiful pictures and detailed descriptions of the delights in store for us, the Chosen Ones. But as I've never re-ceived any such message, either by post or in a dream, I suppose I'll have to resign myself to the idea that death will be followed by Nothing" [p. 58]. Why does Disa feel this way? Where else in the novel does she express this kind of ironic disbelief or bitterness toward God? How does Disa's own impending death affect her views?

7. Disa meets Jakob at the circus freak show when, in the panic caused by the "monster" dwarf leaping into the audience, the future lovers are both knocked to the ground. In light of what is to follow for them, how can this entire scene [pp. 104-11] be read as an ominous sign for their future? In what ways does it prefigure what happens to Disa and Jakob?

8. What causes the breach between Disa and her mother? Is Disa right in not forgiving her? What unconscious motives, given Disa's own situation as a parent, might have colored her feelings toward her mother?

9. The horrors of the Holocaust have been written about eloquently and often in the past fifty years. How does The Journey Home offer a fresh perspective on the suffering caused by the Nazis? In what ways is Disa's life forever altered not only by Jakob's death but by her mother's reactions and Atli's behavior when he returns from Germany? What cruel ironies are involved in Disa giving birth to Atli's child? What relationship does this event have to her journey home?

10. When Disa draws a shotgun on the drunken workers who claim to have won her hotel in a game of cards, she reveals the toughness and forcefulness of her character. Where else in the novel does she exhibit this kind of spirit? What other essential traits does she possess? What kind of woman is she?

11. The Journey Home abounds in sensual descriptions of food and cooking. Disa writes, "Some-times I'm moved to cook snails in honey for the simple reason that I've seen bees buzzing in the sunshine; sometimes a bird singing on a branch will give me the idea of putting blackberries or currants in the sauce I'm preparing" [p. 66]. What do food and cooking mean to Disa? In what ways is her approach to cooking extraordinary?

12. What kind of relationship does Disa have with Anthony? What do they offer each other? What makes Disa say of him: "I thank providence that our paths should have crossed. I don't know what would have happened otherwise" [p. 5]?

13. In looking back at her relationship with Jakob, Disa writes, "Of course, I loved Jakob more than words can tell, but what is love but a quest for disappointment? I was blind when I took leave of Mrs. Brown with a long embrace. Blind when I lied to my mother that I was going to Somerset for Boulestin. Blind" [pp. 117-18]. Why would Disa take this view? Is she right in her assessment of what love is? Could or should she have foreseen the consequences of her love for Jakob?

14. At the very end of the novel, after Disa has seen her son graduate, she goes back to get one last look and literally runs into him: " . . . He turns round and walks straight into me. I jump and drop my bag on the floor. It opens and a couple of things spill out of it: my lipstick and the photo of him in my arms. 'Sorry, ' he says. 'I'm terribly sorry'" [p. 293]. What is the significance of this encounter? Of his handing the picture back to Disa? Of his saying "I'm terribly sorry"? Why does Disa now feel that he will always be with her? In what ways does this scene provide her with the closure she needs?

15. In what ways can The Journey Home be applied beyond the story of one woman to a more general meditation of the relationship of past to present, or of the need to come to terms with the past?

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