Book review: A man Called Ove

Title: A Man called Ove

Author: Fredrik Backman 

Meet OVE, a kvetch, recently unemployed and not so recently widowed. He believes everything should be run in an orderly manner. For him, A real man wakes up at 6, brews his coffee himself (without machine, ofcourse), and then goes out for morning rituals. 

Ove is a grumpy old sod, who is for the most part of novel; a bitter neighbour & an old-fashioned man. The author has done a fantabulous job in building his character; From a grumpy old man who is disciplined, devoid of emotions to the Lovely Ove, who still curses everything that happens around him but carries on with it. 

Ove's wife Sonja, who according to him was the only person who understood him, was a beautiful, stunning & compassionate lady. As Ove puts it, 

" He was a man of black & white. She was the colour. All the colour he had." 

Sonja left Ove in this disorderly life alone. Ove gives up on life and starts making plans to reach her.

BUT, plot twist....

It all happens when an Iranian lady, Parvaneh comes in the neighbourhood. One day, her husband Patrick reverses the trailer in front of Ove's house resulting in flattening the mailbox of Ove. This kickstarted the transformation of Ove. She disturbed Ove resolutely and in the end changed the bitter Ove, who didn't want to live anymore to, Ove who lived for four years after the death of beloved Sonja. 

As Frederik wrote,

“Death is a strange thing. People live their whole lives as if it does not exist, and yet it’s often one of the greatest motivations for living. Some of us, in time, become so conscious of it that we live harder, more obstinately, with more fury. Some need its constant presence to even be aware of its antithesis. Others become so preoccupied with it that they go into the waiting room long before it has announced its arrival. We fear it, yet most of us fear more than anything that it may take someone other than ourselves”

The end of this novel is befitting, justifying every emotion involved. The lovely Ove, who hated modernism to its core, end up giving up to it. This book is more than Ove's transformation, it defies the notion of giving up when everything seems gloomy.  It tells you to get up and look around for the million other reasons, begging you to live. Life is more is than just giving up, it’s about being there for the people even when you don’t care, for getting along with the tides so to ride the wave. It’s all about small sacrifices needed to make it beautiful, lively & liveable. 

In this book, Fredrik has written some little segments of pure wisdom, class & quality. Here is one for you to decide,

“Loving someone is like moving into a house. At first, you fall in love with all the new things, amazed every morning that all this belongs to you, as if fearing that someone would suddenly come rushing in through the door to explain that a terrible mistake had been made, you weren’t actually supposed to live in a wonderful place like this. Then over the years the walls becomes weathered, the wood splinters here and there, and you start to love that house not so much because of all its perfections but rather for its imperfections. You get to know all the nooks and crannies. How to avoid getting the key caught in the lock when it’s cold outside. Which of the floorboards flex slightly when one steps on them or exactly how to open the wardrobe without them creaking. These are the little secrets that make it your home.”

“We always think there’s enough time to do things with other people. Time to say things to them. And then something happens and then we stand there holding on to words like ‘if’.”

-Fredrik Backmann

I give 'A Man Called Ove' an A. Recommended!

If you have reached this point than, thanks a ton.