A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman Book Review

A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman is about a quiet, fiercely honest and hardworking man called Ove. He is helpful by nature. However he is often extremely judgemental and grumpy. That’s why when Sonja, a gorgeous girl, fell in love with Ove, it surprised everyone. Sonja was sweet and amiable. What did a girl like her could possibly see anything good in someone as ‘bitter’ and ‘unfriendly as Ove? They had absolutely nothing in common – they thought.

Back then, Ove was working in railways as a night cleaner. That day after his shift he was about to take the train back home. Then she saw her on the platform with all her rich auburn hair and her blue eyes and all her effervescent laughter. He got back on the train.

Of course he didn’t quite know himself why he was doing it. He had never been spontaneous before in his life. But when he saw her it was as if something malfunctioned.

So when she turned to him and said ‘hello’, this lonely, taciturn young man said ‘hello’ back. Ove realised that he wanted to hear her talking and that he wanted it for the rest of his life. She came on the train every day. After ten or twenty kilometres she changed to another train, then a bus. For Ove it was a one and a half hour journey in the wrong direction. But he did it – did it every single day after his shift, and then came back home by the same route. He was too quiet to invite her to dinner, so Sonja invited herself.

May be he didn’t write her poems or serenade her with songs or come home with expensive gifts. But no other boy had gone the wrong way on the train for hours every day just because he liked sitting next to her while she spoke.

Few knew this side of Ove. They hardly understood that beneath the layers of ruggedness there was a warm and compassionate man. A man who lived only for Sonja. She was his whole world. She had a way of holding Ove’s hand. She folded her index finger into his palm, hiding it inside. Every time she did it, Ove felt that nothing in the world was impossible. She understood him. She loved the man – not just the ardent lover within him – but also all the layers of his imperfections. And that was just perfect for Ove. That was all he wished for.

People said Ove saw the world in black and white. But she was colour. All the colour he had.

But his happiness didn’t last. Something happened. It shouldn’t have happened. Even when you knew it had already happened, while reading this book, you’d desperately wish with all your heart that it shouldn’t happen. But it did happen. Sonja lost a long battle with Cancer. The world around Ove crumbled and fell apart. All his fights, his dreams – they lost meaning. After all those years of happiness and bliss, Ove was lonely once again. But this time it was too much to bear.

Within six months of the funeral, Ove had prepared everything. He paid for his place next to Sonja in the churchyard. He had called the lawyer and had made his will. He had paid all the bills, cancelled newspaper subscriptions. He had paid up his loans.

Now he was ready.

He misses her so much that sometimes he can’t bear existing in his own body.

But somehow his repeated attempts to end his life were all foiled. He tried to hang himself and the rope snapped. He tried to kill himself on a railway track, ended up saving another man’s life. He tried to shoot himself, and there walked in a boy seeking for shelter. Besides, there was constant interference from his neighbours. Sometimes it was his wife’s best friend and neighbour Anita. Sometimes it was the new neighbours Parvaneh, Patrick and their children. Sometimes it was the journalist who wanted to interview him, because Ove saved that man on the railway station. Even the Cat Annoyance wouldn’t let him die in peace. Every time he wanted to take his life, something happened and his plans kept getting postponed.

Slowly his life was beginning to take a new turn. He realises,

Before Parvaneh and that Patrick reversed into his post box he could barely remember saying a word to another human being since Sonja died.

Despite himself, he became more and more involved with those people around him. He helped them, thinking Sonja would have approved that. He nursed a homeless cat, because Sonja would have liked that. A process of transformation started inside him, without his knowing or acknowledging it. Eventually he would decide to live.

A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman is among some of the books you shouldn’t miss reading in your lifetime. The kind of book that you read, not once, but several times, to assure yourself that as long as humanity survives, there will be hope, there will be love. Once you start reading, you’re under total grip of the story. A Man Called Ove makes you smile, makes you cry and then smile again. There’s little you can do to prevent that. It’s one of the best books that I read this year, and I hope you’ll enjoy it as well.

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