As I walked through Marylebone tube station a large advertising poster caught my eye. A film starring Jim Broadbent and Penelope Wilton of The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry.
(Have you noticed the fashion over the last 10 years for long titles of novels? Some much longer than this one.) I sat on the tube and considered the casting for the film and decided I thought it was very good. The two actors match the pictures in my head of the long married couple and that doesn’t always happen. There have been many Jane Austen films where I have gasped at how wrong the casting is … according to me of course! And the detective hero in Susan Hill’s Simon Serrailler series is apparently very fair. In my head he is dark and moody. So, anyway, I look forward to seeing this new film.
That travelling encounter took me back to the book and I knew exactly where to find it, on about the 8th stair. My staircase has become an overflow bookcase and amazingly no one has yet complained. Looking things up, as I do, I found that since I had last read the novel, Rachel Joyce had made the adventures of Harold Fry into a trilogy. So, I then acquired The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessy and Maureen Fry and the Angel of the North. I love a trilogy.
This is a good, quite easy read but I don’t mean to make that sound simplistic. It is hugely emotional and very deep underneath a seemingly amusing story line. In a strained, stagnant marriage, and we don’t know the reason for that until nearly the end of the book, Harold receives a letter from an old friend who is terminally ill. He walks to visit her, no careful decisions made, no appropriate equipment, no plan, just a short walk to post a letter to her and then somehow the feet keep going (in yachting shoes!) all the way from Kingsbridge in Devon to Berwick- upon-Tweed.
Rachel Joyce is a highly skilled writer and it quickly becomes clear that this is a metaphorical walk as well as a physical one. Being alone (not necessarily lonely of course) inevitably encourages introspection and Harold finds himself working through situations early in his marriage and indeed before that, in his difficult and sad childhood. His view of the world and of other people changes markedly as he walks north. He changes his mind as to what is important and there are many highs and lows on his route. Highs and lows regarding his state of mind, his body’s ability to cope with what is being asked of it and his feelings about his wife Maureen, his son David and his friend Queenie.
Meanwhile, there is another story going on at home in Devon where Maureen has to work her way through what is happening and try to understand why Harold is walking the length of the country. Her emotions rage from fury to a deep under the duvet type of depression and a crazed cleaning and reordering of their home. Will Harold return? Does she want him to? Should she go and meet him? Her widower neighbour is willing to help her through this uncalled for predicament and the reader wonders if he is offering more than simply a listening ear and a cup of tea.
Pilgrimage is a much used word and has moved on from having purely religious associations, although there are still many well walked routes to this day: Santiago de Compostela, Walsingham and Assisi to name a few. Frequently the word ‘pilgrimage’ is used to describe the journey we all undertake through life. At other times people talk of a journey, often to an unknown place, as being a time of personal exploration when hope is expressed for an expanded understanding of themselves, of nature, of the purpose of life and sometimes for a grasp of something deeper and spiritual.
This feeling of transformation decidedly applies to Harold and his walk. Although he isn’t positively seeking any renewal or even peace of mind, transformation definitely takes place. He is not the same person at the end of his walk as at the beginning. Through his experiences and connections with a wide variety of people along the way Harold manages to unknot several personal problems and finds himself thinking differently about life in general and his own in particular. What will Maureen make of him? Harold is not seeking any spiritual absolution for his part in events that have gone before but he does find emotional redemption with a clarity that is almost painful.
So, funny and sad, bittersweet, well written with great characterisation. All this and more.
You may choose to walk a while with Harold on his unlikely pilgrimage.