What do brilliant, prepossessing people and (their) literature have in common? Both are able to change the minds and hearts of people. The Sacrament by Olaf Olafsson did no less than that for me.
This is even more surprising as I generally have a hard time identifying myself with a protagonist whose orientation and character is virtually diametrically opposite to my own. Although Olaf Olafsson’s Sister Joanna is such a character, I find myself thoroughly intrigued, again. When in the sparse, unadorned prose of the author - Olafsson manages here the so sought-after but not often acquired casual effectiveness of a great literary writer - Sister Joanna opens to us her emotional life, her joys and preoccupations, I am hooked. ​​​​​​​​​​ Women, men, old, young or undead, straight or gay, this author manages to connect us, to understand each other through those poignant strands that weave together into that we call human condition. What is the definition of great literature? Exactly that – in my humble opinion.
Excerpt: “Batman would save him, just as he had so often in the past, and together they would set off on an adventure, down streets and alleyways, to the harbor and out over the city—ready to assist anyone who might be in distress. The boy held his breath as his friend took to the air. Bracing his elbows on the sill, he lifted himself up to watch the dark figure swoop down from the tower, wings flapping. For a moment, he felt a surge of hope, as well as the thrill of confirmation, for he had always feared that Batman existed only in his comic books and his imagination. But then, in the blink of an eye, his hopes were dashed, as his hero's wings appeared to falter, and he flipped over and plummeted, landing on the turf with a dull thud.”
In a perverse case of inverted dramatic irony, through the eyes of a young boy, we witness a priest tumbling to his death from a church tower but are not told by the narrator, Sister Joanna, as to the role she plays in the incident. Initiated by this terrible incident, we are treated to a solid yet imaginative plotline told from Sister Joanna’s perspective reminiscent of a duel between the past and present as she tells her story flailing and riposting back and forth through time. What makes it even more enticing is the boy’s suffering at the hands of an overzealous, self-righteous mother superior and the convent school’s headmaster remain shrouded and shadowy not only to the protagonist but also to the reader until the last chapter when said boy had grown to be a man.
In the meantime, Sister Joanna shares with the reader her first realizations of her “otherness” and the alienation this brought with it in a time when being “straight” was the only sexual orientation accepted. Growing up in the 1960s as Pauline, the young woman was barred from asking straightforward questions which were taboo in a typical family of the time when same-sex love was by law considered criminal. In an attempt to understand her own feelings, Pauline attempts to understand her “otherness” by reading all the books she can find on the then closeted subject. When she meets a young Islandic woman in Paris, a beautiful love story develops which Pauline eventually feels forced to sacrifice on the altar of social acceptability. Pressured into social conformity, she feels the only way out of “sin” is for her to isolate herself in a cloister, become Sister Joanna and have faith in God who will let her overcome her “sin against humanity and God”.
But the past leaves indelible marks on us, and it certainly does not remain at rest, so when 20 years later Sister Joanna reflects on “both the alleys of joy and the furrows of despair she was allowed to walk through the grace of God” an anonymous letter forces her to confront the past, once more. I will leave it at that as this ought to be a review not to be a spoiler masked as a summary.
This reader then brings to the point Olafsson assertion with the following aphorism: “The past never returns – it doesn’t have to for it never leaves.”
Literary devices such as flashbacks, memories and the steps we take to deal with them are the salt of any writer worth his craft but Olaf Olafsson shows us in his subtle yet so brilliant ways how subjective our memory really is. It is not the factual past that influences and affects our present condition, rather it is our take on it, which is in turn dictated to us by our memories – as faulty and incomplete as they often are. In the end, this reader is left to wonder: What is the true nature of my faith when I cannot even trust my own memory and by extension my own past. ( )

The first thing to know going into this is it moves very slowly, going back and forth in time without warning even mid paragraph. Knowing this now, I couldn’t put this down. The writing is incredible and the story will keep unfurling especially since you don’t always know who is speaking or what time we are in even with a single narrator. What I mean is the sister will often go back into her report and her thoughts remembering the dialog, but we are always with her.

It is a twisty story of love, priestly sexual assault, murder, and cover up. Not knowing which time sister is in keeps the reader on their toes.

I can’t say I loved it, but it is definitely worth reading. ( )

I enjoyed being in the protagonist's head, but the pacing was way too slow for such an obvious conclusion. ( )

This was so good. The author effectively portrays how the Catholic Church covered up sexual abuse and all the people and processes that were used to do that covering up: refusal to actually deal with the letter, passing the investigation on to someone who isn't really trained in that kind of work, the bullying of the perpetrator and his enablers, manipulation by the higher ups. Yes, it's fiction but still so accurate. Sister Johanna is victim as well but doesn't truly comprehend it due to the power of Raffin and his manipulation in the name of protecting the Church and himself. ( )

Búinn að uppgötva að ég hef ekki lesið nóg af bókum eftir Ólaf Jóhann. Hugljúfur söknuður hvílir yfir sögunni allri um leið og margþættur og flókinn söguþráðurinn heldur lesandanum föngnum. Ung frönsk kona glímir við hvatir sem samfélagið fyrirlítur og leitar á náðir trúarinnar. Síðar er hún send til Íslands til að rannsaka eða hylja hroðalegar ásakanir í garð kaþólska skólans. Ávallt flakkar sagan fram og aftur í tíma eftir því sem konan rifjar upp fortíðina. Ólafur Jóhann fjallar á ljúfan máta um sekt, sakleysi, ást, yfirhylmingu og síðast en ekki síst trú einstaklingsins í erfiðum tímum. ( )