Two stories about faith and devotion of different kinds. These were packed together in a short audiobook that I had access to (and you might also, actually) via my libary’s subscription to Hoopla.
The first of the stories is “Babette’s Feast”, certainly the more famous of the two and probably the most famous piece of fiction that Isak Dinesen (Karen Blixen) wrote and published. It was made into a movie some time ago too. In the story, Babette is a French refugee in World War II who finds refuge with two eccentric Danish sisters, and when the war ends, instead of returning home to France she stays with them and works in their house as a friend and caretaker. She wins a small lottery and uses the money to provide for them a feast reminiscent of her homeland.
In the second story, “Sorrow-Acre” from the collection Winters Tales, a young Danish man named Adam spends time in England and begins to question his religion and loyalty to his national origin.
Like I said, both stories about loyalty, devotion, and faith, but also about the kinds of statelessness that became prevalent in (well all of human history) but in particular ways in the 20th century. There’s something that takes the short century and turns it into something that doesn’t feel over any now. So two stories about emigres or refugees choosing among many different considerations, and presented in a kind of 19th century European realism is fitting format for exploring those themes.
(Photo: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00005473N/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i20)