The Unlikely pilgrimage of Harold Fry.

Why did it take me so long to read The Unlikely pilgrimage of Harold Fry? I got through it in stops and starts, interrupted by the barge holiday, but on my return I found I couldn't put it down. Harold got so far along his incredible journey that it seemed to gather a momentum of its own.

 

This is a fantastic novel dissecting the marriage of Harold and Maureen, and how we move around each other in our domestic arrangements, being very British, yet never saying what needs to be said. It is about those grand themes of love and loss, but is never heavy-handed, and unveils where the relationship started to break down in a gradual, gentle fashion, even though we may hazard a guess at the reasons for this.

It takes the form of an unlikely road trip, and has echoes for me of The Hundred year old man who climbed out of the window and disappeared, and Forrest Gump  especially in the way that other hapless cases latch onto Harold's mission, searching for meaning in their own lives. Harold himself is an archetypal anti-hero, full of regret and pathos, and along the way, he meets other individuals who have sometimes been damaged by life themselves. He also experiences the kindness of strangers. 

He travels almost the length of England in an attempt to save an old friend's life, but in the process, he saves his own. Meanwhile, his wife Maureen, left behind in her pristine home behind the net curtains, undergoes her own voyage of discovery and redemption. 

Although it deals with heavy themes, this is nevertheless a book full of gentle humour and wry observations, told with a deftness of touch. It could be unrelentingly tragic, and yet it is an uplifting and enriching read, which I thoroughly recommend.