I find that many of the characters within Babette’s Feast have to grapple with regret, and have to make decisions that one way or the other, they would regret.

When Babette arrives at the home of spinsters, Martine and Philippa, in the small remote fishing village of Berlevaag in Norway, she hands them a letter of introduction, then collapses with exhaustion at their feet.

As an artist, Isak Dinisen struggled with seeing beauty as a sign of God and fearing that it was a distraction from God. This struggle led her into a crisis of faith that she resolved through writing her acclaimed novella...