A Man Called Ove

Grumpy yet loveable man finds his solitary world turned on its head when a boisterous young family moves in next door.

Meet Ove. He’s a curmudgeon, the kind of man who points at people he dislikes as if they were burglars caught outside his bedroom window. He has staunch principles, strict routines, and a short fuse. People call him the bitter neighbor from hell, but must Ove be bitter just because he doesn’t walk around with a smile plastered to his face all the time?

Behind the cranky exterior there is a story and a sadness

What did they know about waking up on a Tuesday and no longer having a purpose?” is a question Ove asks himself, when after 40 years of marriage, he finds himself jobless and alone. It’s been his wife Sonja, who’s always been the buffer between himself and the world.

But can you blame him? Instead of the order and predictability he craves, what Ove is witnessing around him is: “A shed-load of men with elaborate beards, changing jobs and changing wives and changing their car makes. Just like that. Whenever they feel like it.”

Ove has very definite, perhaps rigid beliefs about right and wrong too whether it’s the proper way to make coffee or the brand of car to own (only a Saab). Ove sees the world in black or white while his wife was “colour.”

“He was a man of black and white. And she was color. All the color he had.”

The book deals with dark subject matter at times, when Ove can see only one way out of his loss and loneliness. Depression among the elderly or people dealing with the loss of a partner is a very real problem that too often goes undetected.

However, Ove’s repeated efforts to find a resolution to his situation lose their impact for me. I got it the first time. On the other hand I became so attached to Backman’s character that I broke a “rule” of mine and skipped to the end to make sure Ove was still there too.

Fredrick Backman is an Excellent author.

At end I want to be like Ove and at the same time I don’t want to be like him.