The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce

A Different Map.

This is a very charming book. Rachel Joyce starts her novel with Harold Fry figuring out how best to reply to Ms. Queenie’s letter.  When finally he was done scratching a draft after another, he found himself walking past postbox after postbox, undecided whether sending a letter is enough to make amends with a long lost friend. It wasn't until Harold had a sincere conversation with a young store clerk did he decided what to do best.

“I am on my way,” he writes. “All you have to do is wait. Because I am going to save you, you see. I will keep walking and you must keep living.”

When we first met Harold, he is leading a monotonous retirement with his wife Maureen. They hardly talk and tried to stay out of each other’s way in the same house for many years. When Maureen received the call from Harold, enthusiastically informing her of his decision to walk from Kingsbridge to Berwick Upon Tweed, she was more than astonished; angry at first, but eventually perturb.

“In walking, he unleashed the past that he had spent twenty years seeking to avoid, and now it chattered and played through his head with a wild energy that was its own.”

There is a certain amount of foolishness to Harold’s pilgrimage -having no change of clothes, enough cash to go on with, no mobile phone for easy access, and not wearing the proper shoes for the journey.  But as Harold trudges along, we discover more about his past. Being mostly alone with his thoughts, Harold was forced to dwell back in his memories: by his parents’ abandonment, the origin of his wife’s disdain, and his forlorn relationship with his son David.  Parallel to his emotional journey, Maureen confronts the reality of their present life. How her disappointments overshadowed the love she always has for her husband. She battled with the dilemma between wanting Harold back and urging him to finish his cause, eventually.

“You got up, and you did something. And if trying to find a way when you don't even know you can get there isn't a small miracle; then I don't know what is.”

It is the foolishness and impracticality of Harold’s pilgrimage that is worthy of applause because it’s their glaring truth that made him cling all the more to hope and learn to make do with things and situations. He walked miles and months, sometimes even in circles; nevertheless, exceeding any expectations we have for a dejected 65-year old. The triumph or collapse of this said pilgrimage cannot and will not credit, nor undermine the change and potential Harold acquired through the journey.

“But maybe it's what the world needs. A little less sense, and a little more faith.”

The likelihood of Ms. Queenie’s survival truly connected with Harold’s completion of his walk was questioned once or twice in the story. But Ms. Joyce subtly emphasized that the miracle doesn't lie on Ms. Queenie’s survival, but on a life re-examined and love rekindled.

THE UNLIKELY PILGRIMAGE OF HAROLD FRY is an uplifting story. It is delightful with its foolishness and heartwarming in its sincerity.

Book details:

Title:  The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

Author:  Rachel Joyce

Publication: Doubleday, 2012

Genre:  Contemporary Fiction

Rating:  ★★★★★

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SOUP REVIEWS | 4

Short Stories.

  

For days, I have been contemplating how to post these short stories I've read recently. Then, I remember that I have this feature. It had been idle for such a long time, more than a year in fact. So for Nochebuena, we will have some soup... Soup Reviews, that is.

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The Writer & the Witch by Robin Sloan

   There was this bridge, many tales have crossed it. A curse, a house, a library, a father, and a sacrifice were among them.

He had carved out a strange little kingdom,
there where the river met the road, just beyond the bridge.

When I was young, I enjoyed listening to my mom’s old aboriginal tales. When the night is due, she would stop and I would ask, “What happened next?” She would reply, “That’s for tomorrow night.” And so, it was.

This short story is something like that. A tale weaved intricately, best told before bedtime, or over a campfire. The storyteller will wait for the question, “What happened next?” before she/he will go on. The story deserves to be heard in full- in all its astonishing points, in its saddest moment, and in its fortitude.

Rating: ★★★★

The Door to Lost Pages by Claude Lalumière

   This is a collection of short stories loosely weaved together with one common factor, a bookshop named Lost Pages. Stepping through is like walking into a nightmare, and I meant that both in a good way and a bad way.

Clearly, this book is a spin-off of Paul Di Filippo’s Lost Pages, who also wrote the foreword. I enjoyed Lalumière’s prose and plot. He was able to create an atmosphere fully charged with phantasmagoria, but left enough room to squeeze in some tenderness in the midst of it. I was touched by Aydee’s plight

When the weather was like this,
she felt the world reflected hers sense of place in life:
neither this nor that; neither here nor there;
perpetually on the brink of transformation;
unwilling to settle for just one potentiality.

My biggest issue, I guess, is the sex scenes. I never mind sexual content for as long as they are exquisitely done. I've read American Gods by Neil Gaiman; I was never bothered by the Queen of Sheba’s man-eating vulva. But Lalumière’s sex scenes were tasteless, in my opinion. I know that it is unfair to make comparisons, and the scenes were necessary for the story to move forward, yes, but I cannot shake off the feeling that it was forcibly written in that manner for the sake of adding some spice.

Rating: ★★★½

The Strange Library by Haruki Murakami

   Fushigina Toshokan is the original title for this short story, first printed in 2005. As the title implies, the story is very strange indeed. Told in a dream-like fashion, the protagonist was able to relate his experiences from the bowels of an unidentified city library.

As far as the story goes, a boy had the most terrifying misadventure while borrowing books from a library. There is nothing far special other than how the strangeness was won by the boy with some help from newly earned friends. But like any Murakami books, nothing is as it would seem in his theme of surrealism and loneliness. The full impact of this strange tale comes at the ending. 

The tricky thing about mazes is that you don't know
if you've chosen the right path until the very end.

All of us, young and adults alike, have different ways of coping with loss. The process is sometimes nightmarish. And our boy protagonist is teaching us that no matter how deep and labyrinthine the bowels of loss is, with a bit of hope and bravery, there’s always a way to survive.

Rating: ★★★½

A Faraway Smell of Lemon by Rachel Joyce

   This is a short Christmas story and not a cheery read for the season, but in Joyce’s few words it conveyed a profound understanding of life’s ups and downs.

Everyone around Binny is on the rush, doing their best to finish their last Christmas shopping. Meanwhile, Binny’s feelings are debating whether to succumb to heartbreak or keep a strong front and celebrate Christmas with her children.

No matter how much she rails,
there are some things that are gone forever…
It is enough to have tiptoed to that space beyond the skin,
beyond our nerve endings,
and to have glimpsed things that beforehand we only half knew.

What started as an unpremeditated meeting with a shop girl, tending a small store for household products, turned out to be a compassionate encounter. As much as good things happen, we cannot simply shoo away the bad ones. Such is life. It is never easy, but sometimes it is the small menial things that may help us pull through by reminding us how something worn and dirty can still be revived. 

Rating: ★★★★★

The Museum of Literary Souls by John Connolly

   If only all book lovers may be granted such an opportunity, it is more than awesome.

Mr. Berger was leading a quiet life when he witnessed a woman commit suicide by the train tracks, in the small town of Glossom. No one believed him, especially the police. But a few days later, he saw the same woman again by the train tracks. This time, he was able to stop her and follow her back home… to the library.

It's a natural consequence of the capacity of a bookstore
or library to contain entire worlds, whole universes,
and all contained between the covers of books.
In that sense, every library or bookstore is practically infinite.

John Connolly magically stretched the mystery of bookshelves into doors and rooms of unimagined possibilities. His words are like a web of spells, spinning a tale I don’t want to end. The story was so beautiful and fulfilling, a true delight for a book lover like myself.

Rating: ★★★★★

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