First impressions review: A Man Called Ove, by Fredrik Backman
I did not expect to love this book about a curmudgeonly old Swede so much! Specifically, I had heard good reviews, but I did not expect it to be so funny – often darkly funny. Basically, this book is what you would get if Terry Pratchett had decided to write a spin-off book about R.P. Tyler - the older gentleman in Good Omens who is the self-appointed neighborhood watch, the one always criticizing Adam and the Them and giving people convoluted driving directions – and made you sympathize with him.
Ove is not a people person, and he has very definite ideas of the proper way to do things. Every morning at 6 am he does a circuit of the neighborhood checking for burglars – there haven’t been any burglaries in years, but you never know – noting down car license plates to make sure no one is exceeding the 24 hour parking limit, and even checking that the trash is being separated properly. However, we also quickly start to get clues about why he is like this. For one thing, he is clearly feeling like the world doesn’t need him and seems to be talking to a wife who isn’t there. So you REALLY hope that he isn’t going on about the proper way to install a heavy-duty hook in the ceiling for the reason you suspect! Readers sensitive to that sort of thing should note that Ove concocts several different suicide plans over the course of this book. But don’t worry: He keeps getting interrupted by people who are either doing something annoying that needs to be stopped, clearly need his help, or would just be traumatized by seeing someone die. Those latter two are important, because contrary to appearances Ove actually has a pretty big heart – he just sucks at expressing that in a conventional way. He will grumble and complain and criticize, but he will always help.
A good example of this is his interaction with a young barrista named Mirsad (referred to as “sooty boy” here because he is wearing smudged eye makeup):
“And do you also have problems with bicycles and love and girls?” he asks absentmindedly. “No, no, not with bicycles anyway. And not with love either, I suppose. Well, not with girls, anyway.” He chuckles… “Bent, are you?” “OVE!” says Parvaneh and slaps him on the arm… “What?!” “You don’t say…you don’t call it that,” Parvaneh says, clearly unwilling to pronounce the word again. “Queer?” Ove offers. Parvaneh tries to hit his arm again but Ove is too quick…Ove turns to the sooty boy, genuinely puzzled. “Can’t one say ‘bent’? What are you supposed to say nowadays?”
Mirsad clearly just thinks this exchange is funny, but shortly thereafter we see his father – another grump Parvaneh thinks is like Ove – attempting to fix a fan:
“What’s he saying?” asks Adrian. The sooty boy twists uncomfortably. “Ah…he…something about the fan heater being a bit of a fairy…” He looks over at Adrian, then quickly turns his face down. “What’s that?” asks Ove, wandering over to him. “He means it’s worthless, like a homo,” he says in such a low voice that only Ove catches his words.
Mirsad can tell the difference between someone trying, VERY awkwardly, to be descriptive, and someone who actual disapproves! The difference is confirmed when he shows up on Ove’s doorstep in the middle of the night with his buddy Adrian (the one with bike and girl trouble). They’re a bit freaked out when Ove busts through the door in his underpants waving a shotgun – he’d been planning to shoot himself, but then thought he heard burglars. But it gets sorted out, as Ove concludes that his wife would never forgive him if his last act on earth was to leave a kid standing in the snow without a home to go back to. By the next morning Mirsad is joining Ove – and a stray cat who has also adopted him – on the morning patrol. Ove even manages to have a chat with Mirsad’s dad that changes his mind about some things.
The way Ove thinks about his late wife Sonja is beautiful. No one could understand why they were together, because they were so different. But Sonja’s dad was a bit of a curmudgeon too; she knew how to read Ove and could tell he was a good man under the grumbling. As for Ove: “People said Ove saw the world in black and white. But she was color. All the color he had.” Auugh, my heart! The bane of Ove’s existence are “white shirts” – bureaucrats that act like “robots sent out by the mother ship” who don’t seem to understand people’s desire to do things for themselves and for the people they care about. For instance, not long into their marriage, Sonja was in an accident:
“A woman was dispatched to the hospital from one of the municipal authorities, where she bullishly explained that Sonja could be placed in ‘a service home for other people in her situation’…She did not believe that Ove could see himself staying with his wife now…Admittedly Ove opened the door this time, but she was ejected all the same. ‘The only home we’re going to is our own! Where we LIVE!’ Ove roared at her, and in pure frustration and anger he threw one of Sonja’s shoes out of the room. Afterwards he had to go and ask the nurses, who’d almost been hit by it, if they knew where it had gone…It was the first time since the accident that he heard Sonja laughing.”
This habit of going up against authority is turned to the advantage of an old frenemy and his wife near the end of the book.
Parvaneh, AKA “pregnant foreign woman” is the main catalyst for change in Ove’s life. Her family just moved into the neighborhood and are introduced to Ove when her husband (AKA “the lanky one”) backs the trailer into Ove’s house. Parvaneh is pretty quick on the uptake; it is strongly implied that she knows something is up with Ove and has resolved to keep an eye on him. If Ove and Sonja had ever had a daughter, one can imagine she would have been like Parvaneh: a ray of sunshine but incredibly stubborn! By the end, Ove has a whole extended found family. While there is some ambiguity about the way Ove does eventually die, I don’t think we are meant to believe he harmed himself…merely that he left a letter to Parvaneh where she would find it, just in case. Because it is important to do things properly, damn it!
Overall recommendation: Highly recommended for those who like “realistic absurdity”, dark humor, and/or a little spice in their heart-warming fluff.
