Absolution: A Novel

by Olaf Olafsson | Literature & Fiction |
ISBN: 1400030684 Global Overview for this book
Registered by hobbit of Poughkeepsie, New York USA on 7/20/2006
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1 journaler for this copy...
Journal Entry 1 by hobbit from Poughkeepsie, New York USA on Thursday, July 20, 2006
A popular writer in Iceland, Olafsson makes his English language debut in this sensitive, resonant, if imperfect, study of guilt, jealousy and betrayal. Peter Peterson, an Icelandic emigre and wealthy retired New York businessman, obsesses over a crime of passion he committed half a century before in Nazi-occupied Denmark. Spurned by a young Icelandic woman, he falsely accused her boyfriend of betraying the resistance movement to the Nazis. Now the aged Peterson is a cynical, fulminating recluse, his only companion a refugee Cambodian housemaid whom he clumsily attempts to seduce. Through flashbacks and reminiscences, we learn of his two failed marriages, his refusal to visit his ex-wife on her deathbed, his obsession with money and cruel contempt for his devoted son Helgi.

This is a trade paperback which I ordered online from a used book store.

Journal Entry 2 by hobbit from Poughkeepsie, New York USA on Monday, August 21, 2006
I did not find the main character sympathetic, but I did find him very interesting. The details of the event which shaped his whole life are revealed slowly throughout the story as he thinks back or tells people about bits of it. In the end, there's a surprise which contradicts his understanding of what happened and makes you wonder why he spent his whole life focussed on this event. It was a thought provoking and interesting story.

The narrative flowed smoothly and no translator is listed - I believe it was actually written in English.

I will be counting this toward the Olympic Challenge in which I'm reading works by authors from every country in the Olympics.

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