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Jump to navigationJump to searchThe Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce (view source)
Revision as of 14:40, 8 March 2012
, 14:40, 8 March 2012no edit summary
Harold and Maureen Fry were unremarkable: one long marriage, one adult offspring and a long retirement stretching out in front of them like a prison sentence. One morning everything changed. The catalyst was a letter from Queenie, an ex-colleague of Harold's. He knew he needed to respond and thought that posting a letter would suffice. However, a chat with a girl at the local petrol station made him realise that a letter couldn't be enough. He had to provide Queenie with hope... he had to walk.
This is ''the'' most gentle, delightful, amazingly heart-warming novel. In fact it made me do something no book has ever done before – half way in I actually found myself crying with happiness. (No, I wasn't hormonal.) This novel contains moments of hilarity, moments of deep sadness and every emotion in between. There is as good reason for this. I'm not familiar with any of Rachel Joyce's radio plays but this, her first novel, reveals her to be the [[:Category:Alan Bennett|Alan Bennett]] of her generation. Ms Joyce's powers of observation are finely honed. Every character in the novel, from Howard and Maureen to those deemed as' minor' in any other book have oceans of depth and interest due to the author's gift: the gift of being able to sum up worlds of hurt, fun and experience in one or two sentences.
As an example, take Harold and Maureen themselves. These are people we all know. (In fact the book blurb states that the author's children look for Harold along the street. He's ''that'' real.) They have the sort of marriage where, through the years, everything has been said. They now live in the same house but within individual, locked-in worlds excluding the other. They are both subsumed as their unspoken thoughts, desires, dreams and, indeed, love are lost in the banality of routine requirements. Their marriage is one of silent longing. Maureen longs to live through her son whilst Harold just longs to be visible again.
