Margaret King's Reviews > Babette's Feast

Entertaining and absorbing story set in far (faaaaarrrr) northern Norway (unlike the movie, which was set in Jutland, Denmark). In a strange twist of fate, two humble sisters--daughters of a man who founded an austere Lutheran sect in a remote Arctic town--take in a refugee from the French civil war (Babette). Babette's quiet presence in the town is an understated and behind-the-scenes gift, and even more so when she chooses to lavish an extravagant feast upon the sisters and their brethren, which they have no idea how to appreciate or process. A lot of Christian symbolism exists in this story, which is by and large about small ripples of chance encounters throughout time, gifts, artistry, and grace.