I liked it. It's a bizarre story, here and there very touching indeed. It's not funny but it's profound and at times heartbreaking, and also written very well, which is its best part. It's never boring. It gets you, and you just can't stop reading. It's not enough to jump pages to see how it ends, here what matters is the journey, not the arrival. I wanted to read and feel every second, every word.
Warning to future me: it is a very good book, but be careful because it's second half will make you cry, so be warned if you want to re-read it.
The story in general: Harold Fry is an old man, retired, living alone with his wife Maureen. One day he receives a letter from an old friend. He hasn't seen Queenie in twenty years, and now she's writing to say goodbye to him: she's got cancer and there's nothing more anyone can do. He thinks of writing her a reply, but words seem so hollow. He writes a little note and goes to post it, but he just can't do it. She was a friend, she did something for him all that time ago and somehow he let her down, and two words on a card don't seem enough. He meets a girl who tells him her aunt had cancer too, but 'you have to keep positive, though', and she got to him. 'And she got better? Because you believe she could?' - 'She said it gave her hope when everything else had gone..' then she's called back to work so she didn't know the effect her words had on him. He decides that this time he won't let her down, he phones the hospice and tells a woman to tell Queenie that he'll walk (yes, walk) all the way to Berwick-upon-tweed from Kingsbridge and for those like me who have no idea how distant that is there is a comment on that that gives a pretty good idea: 'he pictured Queenie dozing at one end of England and himself in a phone box at the other' ... pretty far indeed. So, this is the story, he's gonna walk through all England to save her life, because she will wait for him and she'll live, that's his idea.
He phones Maureen and writes letters and postcards: to her , to Queenie and even to that girl who gave him the idea in the first place.
During his walk he meets lots of people: someone helps him with food or medication (like Martina, the Slovakian doctor who can only find cleaning work now) and with others he exchanges stories. When a man takes his pictures the madness starts because he goes on the news and suddenly everybody talks about his journey, and some people join him, almost ruining the whole thing because people are like that. A group of people wants to follow him but in fact they slow him down and he feels he can't leave them since they decided to join his cause. They bring only trouble in fact, until one of them acts like the boss and convinces the others to leave Harold behind because he's too slow and old! They go ahead without him, with all the cameras on them, and when they arrive they have their pictures taken and their faces all other the news as if they did something heroic when they did nothing, but that's tv for you.
Harold will finish his walk alone, but he'll get there.
The story in detail , with SPOILERS all round. Be warned in case you've forgotten how it ends. I'm going into details here.
Maureen is home with no idea about his project. They've lived almost as strangers for many years now, barely talking to each other. Their neighbor Rex is a good man who lost his wife; she had a brain tumour and he can't let go of the fact that when they found out there was nothing they could do and she was dying they both gave up, and he didn't rage. Maybe it's because of this that he sort of understands how important what Harold is doing is for him. He helps Maureen get through it.
Harold's story: 'his father had returned from the war an alcoholic prone to depression', and his mother was not the motherly type. They had never wanted kids and didn't know what to do with him. One day she packed a bag and left and he started seeing other women. When Harold was 16 his father kicked him out. He didn't have an education but he worked hard, fell madly in love with Maureen and they had a son and they loved David very much but Harold didn't know what to do, how to be a good parent, he was always afraid. He feels he let him down, let everybody down.
Thing is, David died twenty years ago, suicide. Maureen couldn't cope with it and started blaming Harold. They fought at first and then they barely talked to each other, living together but not really together. This finally explained it to me. I couldn't understand what happened to them. When she lost her parents and desperately missed them she found comfort in him, they loved each other so much, that I couldn't see what set them so far apart. Finally I could see it. It can happen sometimes that when someone can't cope with a pain too great, they take it out on someone else. It may not be right but it's very human, and also destructive.
When David died Harold started drinking, until it was too much. One night he was completely drunk and he broke into his company and broke a collection of things his boss was so fond of because they were his mother's. He was a thug and who knows what he would have done to him had he known the truth, but Queenie took the blame. She said she did it by mistake while cleaning. She worked in finances though, she wasn't a cleaning lady, yet she said it herself and was fired on the spot. After that she disappeared and Harold never saw her again. Still he thinks she saved her life because he stopped drinking after that, and he never got to say thank you.
During his walk Harold has lots of time to think about his parents, his wife, his son; Maureen has also lots of time to think about it, how she said to him bad things that he didn't deserve, how she misses him, how she loved him and wanted to be everything for him against her parents ideas.
At the end Harold gets there and can see Queenie. One visit, and then she'll die. The cancer was really terrible and she couldn't speak. The girl who gave him the idea goes to see Maureen after a letter from him. She says she's sorry she gave him the wrong idea, because her aunt died. She did not save her, how could she? They talk and Maureen goes to Harold. They attend together Queenie's funeral and they finally talk and they find each other again.
I thought it was just right that the writer didn't tell us what it was that she told him the first time they met, because to us it would have meant nothing, but as Harold put it, they laughed so much because they were young and happy, and no other reason. Now they think about it together and they hold hands and go back home together.
A thing I liked about this book was also that the main characters were all good in their own way. I mean, Rex helped her as an understanding friend, with no second motive. Harold wanted to save Queenie because she had been a good person and a good friend, with no second motive.
The pilgrims were all about second motives, of course, they didn't care about Harold and Queenie, not really, but that's 'people' for you.
A beautiful book, I'm so glad I read it. Can you believe it that I found it, in English, in a small town library in Italy? Amazing. When I have the chance I think I will buy it and keep it.
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