Can "faith" accomplish the impossible? Pt 2

The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry 

by Rachel Joyce
Part 2: The Walk and...the end, the beginning, or both?
There was so much to discuss and I wanted to use so many direct quotes, I have split this review into two parts. I love Joyce's writing style.

Read Part 1 here...

          They believed in him. 
          They had looked at him in his yachting shoes, and listened to what he said,
     and they had made a decision in their hearts and minds to ignore the evidence 
     and to imagine something bigger and something infinitely more beautiful than 
     the obvious. Remembering his own doubt, Harold was humbled. 
          "That is so kind," he said softly. He shook their hands and thanked them. 
          The waitress nipped her face toward his and kissed the air above his ear. 
          (page 58)

Here was acceptance as poor Harold had never had before in his life. Good for him! Each of us should feel this, yet hopefully much earlier in life! And we learn that Harold is also capable of giving such acceptance...

At one of his stops early on, Harold meets a man who proceeds to confess to him that he travels to this town once a week to meet with a young male lover, something he claims no one else knows about him... He has noticed a hole in one of his young partner's trainers and is considering whether to buy a new pair for him or not...

          Harold sat in silence. The silver-haired gentleman was in truth nothing like the 
     man Harold had first imagined him to be. He was a chap like himself, with a     
     unique pain; and yet there would be no knowing that if you passed him in the   
     street, or sat opposite him in the cafe and did not share his teacake. Harold 
     pictured the gentleman on a station platform, smart in his suit, looking no 
     different from anyone else. It must be the same all over England. 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. Moved and humbled, he passed his 
     paper napkins. 
          "I think I would buy him new trainers," said Harold. He dared to lift his eyes to 
     meet those of the silver-haired gentleman. The irises were a watery blue; the whites
     so pink they appeared sore. It tore at Harold's heart, but he didn't look away. Briefly
     the two men sat, not speaking, until a lightness filled Harold and caused him to 
     offer a smile. He understood that in walking to atone for the mistakes he had made, 
     it was also his journey to accept the strangeness of others. As a passerby, he was in
     a place where everything, not only the land, was open. People would feel free to 
     talk, and he was free to listen. To carry a little of them as he went. He had 
     neglected so many things that he owed this small piece of generosity to Queenie 
     and the past. 
          The gentleman smiled too. "Thank you." He wiped his mouth and his fingers, 
     then the rim of his cup. As he stood he said, "I don't suppose our paths will cross 
     again but I am glad we met. I am glad we talked."
           They shook hands and parted, and left the remains of the teacake behind. 
               (page 89)

Beautifully expressed, poignant and so very true!! :) For me, this was a brilliant summary of Harold's trip. Reminiscent of the theme in Joyce's eshort-story, A Faraway Smell of Lemon; we never know what small bit of interaction will actually change someone's life for the better. So often it may well be just a few minutes spent listening to and accepting them, and truly hearing them. Though we learn that Harold has always had this skill to some degree.

When he catches Queenie in the supply cupboard at work, she is quite upset and depressed about her treatment at the hands of the other employees, and he listens and speaks with her briefly, then offers his hand to gently lead her out. Much to his surprise, she accepts, then signals the interaction is at an end:

     Then she smoothed her skirt, as if Harold were a crease and she needed to brush  
     him off. (page 67)

I just love this metaphor! All is back to reality with this one motion. Yet we also learn that with his own son he is not as compassionate as he might have been.

     Better still, in the absence of words, he might have taken David in his arms. But he 
     had not. He'd done none of those things. He felt the boy's fear so keenly, he could 
     see no way round it. The morning his son looked up at his father and asked for 
     help, Harold gave nothing. He fled to his car and went to work.
          Why must he remember? 
          He hunched his shoulders and drove his feet harder, as if he wasn't so much 
     walking to Queenie as away from himself. (page 70)

Aha! Yes, so true...I believe he was trying to escape...himself...Maureen...his life...as he saw it, his failures... This is evidenced by his walking harder and faster as memories flood his mind, trying to suppress them as he has done before. And how better to remember and think about the past than to completely isolate yourself as Harold did. I'm convinced individuals do not spend enough time alone in our "modern world" so that we can just think and consider. 

          He couldn't help feeling that, even though Maureen had not said it, what she was
    implying about his retirement fund was correct. He should not be spending it solely 
    on himself and without her approval.
         Though, God knows, it was a long time since he had done anything to impress 
     her. (page 78)

There was a part of me that disagreed with the idea of his retirement to only be spent upon consensual agreement. After all, it is his retirement... However, if their marriage was healthy at this point, I guess there would be discussion before money is spent, especially considering the fact that Maureen had not worked outside the home and was therefore reliant upon Harold's income. 

Joyce does intersperse some humor; I laughed out loud when Harold noticed vehicles as he walked alongside the road:   

          There were single drivers, and he supposed they must be office workers because 
     their faces appeared fixed as if the joy had been squeezed away... (page 17) 

Hah! There are many mornings when I'm sure my face reflects that same feeling as I commute to work! :)

It was David who reminded Maureen that she had indeed met Queenie who had arrived at their house one day with an "urgent" message for Harold...one which Maureen had failed to deliver to him. So much as Alice in Wife 22, Maureen had intimate knowledge about Harold's job, though in this case it was the fact that someone else took the fall for him and was fired because of his own actions, unlike Alice's husband William, who was himself fired as a direct result of his own behaviors. I keep wondering if, like Alice, Maureen will never reveal her knowledge, or if she will eventually disclose to  Harold what she knows. I believe this is why Maureen was able to accept Harold's rash decision to keep walking toward Queenie; otherwise, I doubt she would have been able to accept it at all. 

Harold's rather humorous memory of his mother's one and only letter to him: 

          Dear son,...New Zealand is a wonderful plase. I had to go. Muthering was not 
     me. Send my best regards to your dad. It wasn't her leaving that was the worst part. 
     It was the fact she couldn't even spell her explanation. (page 104)

It is more than obvious that David and Harold never truly communicated. At age 18, Harold tries to speak with him about his recent admission to Cambridge and David totally ignores him:

          Harold had wanted to take him in his arms and hold on tight. He wanted to say, 
     You beautiful boy of mine; how do you get to be so clever, when I am not? But he 
     had looked at David's impenetrable face and said, "Well, gosh. That's good. Golly."
          (page 106)

While most teens seem to be uncommunicative, we have hints throughout the book that David's personality was darker than most...even as a teen! 

There are clues throughout the book about the ways in which Harold and Maureen's relationship is changing, although they're apart, or perhaps due to their being apart from each other. Maureen seems to immediately feel relieved, but soon realizes even the TV and radio cannot "fill" the house. She moves back into the main bedroom and tells Harold, though he assumes she has then moved his belongings to the other bedroom where she's been sleeping alone all these years. It is the theme of their first meeting that is used to denote their burgeoning remembrance of life as a couple. 

Although well meaning, many strangers end up joining Harold and actually delaying and interrupting his progress to a great degree, even commercializing it. Though it is from one of these people that he learns that Queenie has actually perked up to a great degree since his initial message regarding his intention to see her. 

          Harold walked with these strangers and listened. He judged no one... He had 
     learned that it was the smallness of people that filled him with wonder and 
     tenderness, and the loneliness of that too. The world was made up of people   
     putting one foot in front of the other; and a life might appear ordinary simply 
     because the person living it had been doing so for a long time. Harold could no 
     longer pass a stranger without acknowledging the truth that everyone was the 
     same, and also unique; and that this was the dilemma of being human. 
          He walked so surely it was as if all his life he had been waiting to get up from 
     his chair. (page 158)

So we are left with many lessons about humanity and life; and we can only guess as to the impact this has made upon Maureen and Harold's future as a couple and as human beings. Though I feel hopeful that they have now truly reunited and will live together much more happily than they have done in the past. Although Harold does complete his "journey" in many ways, is he able to truly save Queenie? Or is he the one saved?

This book sparked much discussion amongst our book club members. While philosophical, it was easily read and understood. Obviously, I recommend it!    

Can "faith" accomplish the impossible? Pt 1

The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry 

by Rachel Joyce
Part 1: Committing to the Walk
There was so much to discuss and I wanted to use so many direct quotes, I have split this review into two parts. I love Joyce's writing style. (Part 2 is here.)

This cover picture should appear to be "bigger than life," as that is how I would term Harold's goal: to walk across England (600 or 700 miles, if I remember correctly) to visit a former coworker who is suffering from cancer and in hospice, thereby keeping her alive... He wants her to promise to "wait for him"; to stay alive until he arrives. Initially, he believes he can not only keep her alive, but he may be able to "cure" her through his pilgrimage of faith. It is obvious from the start of this book that Harold and Maureen's marriage is considerably less than happy. And as she did in the eshort-story A Faraway Smell of Lemon, Joyce slowly but surely reveals the historic details of this relationship, delineating the reasons for their discontent with each other. They were sleeping in separate beds, never speaking to one another except about the most mundane daily activities, most certainly never about their feelings, desires, regrets...nothing meaningful in an intimate long-term relationship. 

I wonder if readers who have not experienced a failed or failing long-term relationship would resonate as well with this particular book. (Our book club's youngest member did not...) I certainly could and did, but I have similar situations in my own past which made it rather easy to connect with these two characters. Though initially I felt Maureen acted quite bitchy (I even noted "henpecked Harold" on page 4), I eventually realized that each of these characters had simply coped in the best way they knew how with their own life experiences. I will say I believe alcoholism is somewhat an inherited behavioral tendency, though that doesn't deny the fact that individuals can and do choose their own path, avoiding it entirely. I have witnessed two people from my past who wasted themselves away much as David did, though unlike him, they died of "natural causes" in the end. I cannot imagine discovering your child in the situation that Harold had...there are no words for me to adequately express what I believe that may feel like, not for either parent. I believe that to be the most grievous situation any parent could endure.  

          The day he was born his mother had looked at the bundle in her arms, and felt 
     appalled. She was young, with a peony-bud mouth and a husband who had seemed 
     a good idea before the war and a bad one after it. A Child was the last thing she 
     wanted or needed. The boy learned quickly that the best way to get along in life 
     was to keep a low profile; to appear absent even when present. (page 25)

This was the Borders Book Club read for January 2015, and we all agreed that Harold really had no way of developing interpersonal skills given his childhood: his mother literally packed a suitcase, left it by the door, and then walked out with it when he was a very young child, never to be seen or heard from again. Thereafter, his father had a succession of "aunts" living with them until Harold turned 16, when his father placed an overcoat on him, and sent him out the door. (I actually have known someone who was similarly left to his own devices at the age of 16 by his own parents. Sad...) I believe this accounted for his stoic personality and disconnectedness as an adult, especially with his own wife and son. 

          Mothering had come so naturally to Maureen. It was as if another woman had 
     been waiting inside her all along, ready to slip out. She knew how to swing her body 
     so that a baby slept; how to soften her voice; how to curl her hand to support his 
     head. She knew what temperature the water should be in his bath, and when he 
     needed to nap, and how to knit him blue wool socks. He had no idea she knew these 
     things and he had watched with awe, like a spectator from the shadows. It both 
     deepened his love for her and lifted her apart, so that just at the moment when he 
     thought their marriage would intensify, it seemed to lose its way, or at least set 
     them in different places. He peered at his baby son, with his solemn eyes, and felt 
     consumed with fear. What if he was hungry? What if he was unhappy? What if other 
     boys hit him when he went to school? There was so much to protect him from, He 
     wondered if other men found the new responsibility of parenting as terrifying, or 
     whether it had been a a fault that was only in himself. It was different these days. 
     You saw men pushing buggies and feeding babies with no worries at all. 
          "I hope I haven't upset you?" said the woman beside him.
          "No, no." He stood and shook her hand.
          "I'm glad you stopped," she said. "I'm glad you asked for water." He returned to 
     the road before she could see that he was crying. (page 51)

I can see how the "other partner" may feel "left out" when the more innately nurturing of the two parents perfectly cares for a child, and given Harold's own life experience, he immediately retreated from the situation and was only a peripheral part of their relationship through the years. And that didn't appear to improve over time--Harold shares the story of Queenie being the first female hired at the brewery with Maureen and David:

          "Is that supposed to be interesting?" David had said. ...
          Maureen smiled. Harold didn't expect her to stand up for him because she loved 
     her son, and that was right, of course. He only wished that sometimes he didn't feel 
     so outside, as if what bonded them was their disassociation from him. (page 54)

Awww...poor Harold!! :(

It appears that his frustration with life culminates in his continuing to walk further and further when he ostensibly left his home to simply post a reply to Queenie's letter from the nearest postbox. I felt very sorry for Harold when he called the hospice and left the following message for Queenie:

          Tell her Harold Fry is on his way. All she has to do is wait. Because I am going to 
     save her, you see. I will keep walking and she must keep living. Will you say that?
          I'm setting off right now. As long as I walk, she must live. Please tell her this 
     time I won't let her down.
          Harold stared at the ribbon of road that lay ahead, and the glowering wall that 
     was Dartmoor, and then the yachting shoes that were his feet. He asked himself 
     what in heaven's name he'd just done. Overhead a seagull cracked its wings and 
     laughed. (page 19)

We learn that he had totally misinterpreted his brief conversation with the "Girl in the Garage," having not heard the ending. I did feel some pity for Harold at this point, yet somehow, I also admired his strength of belief and hope/faith in his own ability to make amends for all the years he had ignored Queenie, and in such a dramatic fashion. 

          He was already different from the man who had set foot from Kingsbridge, and 
     even from the small hotel. He was not someone off to the postbox. He was walking 
     to Queenie Hennessy. He was beginning again. (page 53)

Ah...and will this journey provide a new beginning...for whom? for him? for Queenie? for Maureen? for David? for everyone?

After the first night Harold briefly considered returning home and properly planning for this sojourn,

          But planning his route would involve both serious consideration and waiting, and 
     there was no time for either of those things. Besides, 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.
          If he went home now, if he even consulted a map, he knew he would never go 
     to Berwick. (page 26)

It's true, isn't it? Sometimes we just have to take a leap of faith and go for it, no matter how crazy it may seem to others...or even to ourselves, we just have to know...can we do it? 

Maureen's first night alone she is pondering: 

          Queenie Hennessy. After all these years. The memory of something long buried 
     shivered deep inside her. (page 24)

And her thoughts later:

          So when Harold said he was walking to Berwick, did he mean that once he got 
     there, he was staying?
          Well, he could go if he wanted. She should have seen it coming. Like mother, 
     like son; although she had not met Joan, and Harold never spoke of her. What kind 
     of woman packs a suitcase and leaves, without even a note? Yes, Harold could go. 
     There were times when she herself had been tempted to call it a day. It was David 
     who kept her at home, not marital love. She could no longer recall the details of 
     how she had first met Harold, or what she had seen in him; only that he had 
     picked her up at some municipal dance, and that on meeting him, her mother had 
     found him common. 
          "Your father and I had better things in mind," she had said, in that clipped way 
     of hers.
          In those days Maureen had not been one to listen to other people. So what if he 
     had no education. So what if he had no class. So what if he rented a basement room 
     and did so many jobs he barely slept. She looked at him and her heart tipped 
     sideways. She would be the love he'd never had. Wife, mother, friend. She would 
     be everything. (page 58)

Aha! So she was going to save and nurture him...bad bad start to a relationship! Why do we women tend to do that? :( An effective long-term relationship is a partnership, not a parenting relationship with one person managing/caring for the other all the time. 

          Sometimes she looked back to the past and wondered where the reckless young 
     woman was that she had been.
          Maureen went through his papers, but there was nothing to explain why he was 
     walking to Queenie. There were no letters. No photographs. No half-scribbled 
     directions. All she discovered in his bedside drawer was a picture of herself just 
     after they were married, and another crumpled black-and-white one of David that 
     Harold must have hidden there, because she clearly remembered sticking it in an 
     album. The silence reminded her of the months after David had left, when the 
     house itself seemed to hold its breath. She put on the television in the sitting 
     room, and the radio in the kitchen, but still it was too empty and quiet.
          Had he been waiting for Queenie for twenty years? Had Queenie Hennessy been 
     waiting for him? (page 58)

By now I was really wondering...exactly what had transpired with Queenie over 20 years ago? 

An e-short story by Rachel Joyce

A Faraway Smell of Lemon

by Rachel Joyce

In actuality, I only read this e-short story because I received an email about another author's e-short story having been released this morning. Once I entered my Kobo account (Yes, there is a source for even e-books other than Amazon...), I realized that I had already purchased and downloaded that e-short story, but decided to purchase and read this one, realizing this author had also written The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry which our book club will be reading and discussing in January of 2015. I really wanted to acquaint myself with Joyce's writing style... (And I do have a confession regarding e-publications...unless it's a short story that I can only procure in electronic format, I don't. I read one e-book and I prefer the heft of the physical book in my hands. Though I do get the convenience factor of e-books...) 

I found Joyce's writing style to be very straightforward, yet revealing the "full story" gradually through the protagonist's interactions with and thoughts about others. Binny was a sympathetic character to whom I could relate, especially her aversion to cleaning house! ;) You can assume Binny has probably experienced a tough time developing romantic/interpersonal relationships since she is a self-described "giant" who must duck to clear doorways and is "big-boned" as her mother told her throughout her childhood. Typically, in our society/culture, larger women are not viewed as "attractive" or physically acceptable to others as partners.

I believe Binny's aversion to housekeeping was one symptom of her depression, resulting from repressing her own emotions, which becomes clear as the story unfolds. Her parents had died not so long ago, but she refused to cry or show her emotions at that time, then Oliver, her current "partner," ups and leaves her, confessing his affair with another woman who is now pregnant. Although Binny is beside herself, true to form, she is still willing herself to remain stoic, refusing to deal with the emotional turmoil.

Rather than dealing with her emotions by expressing them verbally, instead she chooses to throw plates, covering her kitchen floor with the "thousand blue ceramic pins" that were formed, then she "swept the splinters of china into her hands and squeezed until she felt them spike the skin." (This process reminded me a bit of "cutting" behaviors that some people do to "relieve" themselves of emotional overload/misery.)  

It was amazing to see how Binny reacted to the cleaning shop worker...and finally obtained some relief. Proof that none of us ever knows when we might have significant impact upon someone else's life in the seemingly most insignificant interactions.

I highly recommend this story. Have you read it? Or have you read anything else she has written? What was your reaction?