A review by veronica87
The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce
4.0
People were buying milk, or filling their cars with petrol, or even posting letters. And what no one else knew was the appalling weight of the thing they were carrying inside. The superhuman effort it took sometimes to be normal, and a part of things that appeared both easy and everyday. The loneliness of that.
This was a lovely little story about Harold Fry, a man carrying the weight of his failures as a husband, father, and friend. Now retired, he lives out his days with a wife who barely seems to know he’s around. When a letter arrives one morning from Queenie Hennessey, an old co-worker with terminal cancer whom he hasn’t seen or heard from in twenty years, he sets out to mail his response. But then he keeps walking…and walking…and walking. And so begins Harold’s journey, one that ends up being far more than simply traversing the 600 miles from his home to the hospice where his friend is spending her last days.
The story meanders at time, much as Harold’s journey sometimes does in the narrative. It’s not in a hurry to get anywhere just as Harold is not in a hurry, buoyed by his belief that it is his act of walking that is giving Queenie the will to live. The journey is the thing, not the destination. It’s a story of a life examined, of the moments – big and small – that make up that life. It’s about love, loss, regrets, and forgiveness. And it demonstrates that sometimes simply placing one foot in front of the other, to keep moving forward, is the easiest and yet the hardest thing to do.
This was a lovely little story about Harold Fry, a man carrying the weight of his failures as a husband, father, and friend. Now retired, he lives out his days with a wife who barely seems to know he’s around. When a letter arrives one morning from Queenie Hennessey, an old co-worker with terminal cancer whom he hasn’t seen or heard from in twenty years, he sets out to mail his response. But then he keeps walking…and walking…and walking. And so begins Harold’s journey, one that ends up being far more than simply traversing the 600 miles from his home to the hospice where his friend is spending her last days.
The story meanders at time, much as Harold’s journey sometimes does in the narrative. It’s not in a hurry to get anywhere just as Harold is not in a hurry, buoyed by his belief that it is his act of walking that is giving Queenie the will to live. The journey is the thing, not the destination. It’s a story of a life examined, of the moments – big and small – that make up that life. It’s about love, loss, regrets, and forgiveness. And it demonstrates that sometimes simply placing one foot in front of the other, to keep moving forward, is the easiest and yet the hardest thing to do.