The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I enjoyed this story as Harold and Maureen grow individually and as a couple.  It made me sad in the beginning to see their lives so empty, to see the apathy that had taken over their marriage.  I think that would be a scary and hopeless place to be.  It was interesting to see their reflections on how they had lived their lives, both in their individual choices and their marital choices.  I think we can learn so much about ourselves by examining others, whether in real life or in fiction.

As I've talked with good friends before, we don't want to live a life that we look back upon with regret--especially regret for opportunities not taken.

--"Harold thought of all the things in life he'd let go.  The small smiles.  The offers of a drink.  The people he had passed over and over again, at work or on the street, without lifting his head" (17).
--"The regrets about all she had let go flooded her.  Where had all that enterprise gone?  All that energy?  Why had she never traveled?  Or had more sex when she could?  She had bleached and annihilated every waking moment of the last twenty years.  Anything, rather than feel.  Anything, rather than meet Harold's eye and say the unspeakable.  It was not a life, if lived without love" (147).

Their marriage was so saddening.  If I remember right, they had been married 47 years, but they hadn't been intentional with their marriage and it had withered up and died through the stresses of life and tragedy.  I was especially convicted by the first quote below.  Can Alan always expect my help or encouragement when he shares something with me?  Sometimes I can be too much of a "realist"--a dream killer.

--"Maureen would only give voice to the truth he was doing his best to avoid.  The days when he might expect her help or her encouragement, or whatever it was he still wanted, were long since gone" (29).
--"The reason she had stayed with Harold all these years was not David.  It wasn't even because she felt sorry for her husband.  She had stayed because, however lonely she was with Harold, the world without him would be even more desolate" (115).
--"He wanted to stay, talking to Maureen, but the silence and the distance, which they had nursed for twenty years, had grown to such a point that even cliches were empty, and they hurt" (121).
--"In that one glance they had made a pact that would oblige them for the rest of their lives to say only what they did not mean, and to wrench apart what they most loved" (304).

I was intrigued by Harold's observations as he learned more about people.  He had always felt like he was different from everyone else, but his pilgrimage taught him how very alike we all are.  This is one of the reasons I read, and one of the reasons I liked this book--learning about people.  People are so INTERESTING!
--"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 inhuman effort it took sometimes to be normal, and a part of things that appeared both easy and everyday.  The loneliness of that" (89).

I think the following quotes is the key theme of this novel.  Neither Harold nor Maureen had any hope.  As a Christian myself, I of course noticed their lack of faith in the Lord and the hope that brings.  How different their lives could have been!
--"He felt such hope, he was giddy with it.  If he kept looking at the things that were bigger than himself, he knew he would make it" (108).

Finally, I was intrigued by the following quote.  How often do we think we are doing something different, making a change, but we are still just the same, not growing, doing the same things, but calling it something different.  Hmmmm. . .
--"Beginnings could happen more than once, or in different ways.  You could think you were starting something afresh, when actually what you were doing was carrying on as before" (156).