Title: A Man Called Ove
Author: Fredrik Backman
Release Date: August 27, 2012
Length: 337 pages
Genre: General Fiction
****My Review****
Slowly Backman is becoming one of my favorite writers. His ability to create unforgettable, multi-layered, and complicated characters is unsurpassed. And stories that simply touch your heart is something that amazes me each time I read one of his books.
I read A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman as soon as it came out, but somehow in all that chaos called my life, at that moment I did not manage to write a review that befits such a work.
So, I read it again now. Just to see if anything has changed about my feelings. Maybe the second time the story won’t be so riveting and intricate. But no, this second time I enjoyed every page of this amazing story even more.
A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman is a story about a 59-year-old man named Ove. Ove is a principled, responsible, and curmudgeon person. Unacceptable to begin with. You would probably have the same feeling at the beginning of the book, but I assure you that you will not be able to put the book down because Ove is a rare example of a man with many qualities, hidden under a harsh exterior.
After all, his story conquers and inspires people around the world, even filmmakers. Maybe I loved the story because it reminds me of our grandparents. Or that this story is not just a story, but a harsh reality for many people. Harsh, yet beautiful at the same time.
Ove is the kindest man asleep under the frosts of rigidity. This apparent mental hypothermia is just his way of adaptation to the unjust society. Although his eyebrows are constantly receding, Ove has a laughing heart. So maybe from so many smiles hidden under his ribs, he has weakened and spent more than expected. He does not deviate from his habits because they give him comfort for his social anxiety.
His old-fashioned soul seeks the purity of life, that catharsis in whose name people bought indulgences. But his indulgence is Sonja. His Sonja. She is atonement for all his sins and bad choices. His compass takes direction and he wishes to experience the graces of this aimless wandering on earth. Just because Sonja is part of his life.
The heart wakes up and beats like a tuned bell, like a wound alarm clock when he is near her. He looks at her gestures, which lubricate that sleeping mechanism. In Sonja he finds the whole world, she is his medium with reality. She is the light of his life.
But his Sonja is gone now. What is the purpose of his existence without her? How to continue to live? When the pain is too great and the desire to live too little…
Ove considers kindness a disease, although deep down he is drawn into the urge towards it, so misanthropy can protect him. Above all, he is a naive man, afraid of a new injury, hidden behind the thick aseismic walls of rigidity, stoicism, rustic attitude that he considers to be acceptable.
When Backman sketched the character of Uwe, he constructed it so that readers will want to hate him, but at the end of the book they end up hating how much they loved him. And that everything must come to an end, The Man Called Ove is proof.
The way ordinary situations and everyday actions turn out to be so utterly humorous is something that will delight any reader. And Ove’s cynical approach managed to trick a bunch of smiles out of me. But there were also such moments when the tears came by themselves.
One more time I am amazed by Backman’s writing style. So clean and simple, at times even repetitive, yet so gentle and episodic. The story of Ove is laced with loneliness and grief. Life’s numerous disappointments are all portrayed through the pages. The chapters alternate between past tense and present tense perfectly, and the story consumes you from the very beginning.
If you are looking for a character-based story that will delight you with its unique mix of feelings and humor, don’t miss A Man Called Ove. This is a wonderful story that will warm your heart and bring a new perspective into your life.