A Grumpy Hero

A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


There is a sneaky charm to Fredrik Backman's 'A Man Called Ove'. You begin by thinking, oh yeah, I know what you are doing here - you have created a grumpy old character called Ove who is supposedly going to win me round by turning out to have a heart of gold (or something) and I have no intention of playing ball. And then, gradually, word by word, line by line, page by page, you do indeed get won round.

Fredrik Backman is Swedish, but the setting for his story could be anywhere. Ove is an elderly man living on a new estate. We learn quickly that he has lived there nearly all his life and that the new estate has been built up round him, drawing him into its comings and goings against his will. Ove prides himself on being a man of routine, who lives alone; a man who does not like change, a man who despises everybody he comes across for not thinking the same way he does, or not being as good as he is at fixing things or keeping his life in order. If he does possess a heart of gold, it is very deeply hidden. Even when neighbours, like the delightful, heavily pregnant, Parvanah, her husband Patrick and their dotty little family, start calling on him for assistance, he accedes without good grace, never once being pleasant, but merely doing the minimum because they give him no choice.

Indeed, Ove's sole preoccupation in life - without any fanfare of self-pity or self-examination - is to kill himself. He approaches this task as he does all his daily domestic duties, pragmatically and methodically, growing increasingly angry as each attempt is somehow thwarted, due to inadvertent interruptions from the outside world. There is real darkness here, but Backman is such a clever writer that he manages to infuse great humour too, by allowing us to see the tragi-comedy of Ove's failed efforts as well as giving wonderful set-piece descriptions of the merry chaos of the hapless, much younger, lives going on around him. Gradually we start to see, long before Ove does, how much he is needed; that he may be miserable and alone but he has so much still to offer the world, particularly with regard to his practical skills and his fearlessness in standing up to bullies.

Interwoven with this contemporary story are accounts of Ove's life before suicide became his main ambition. Backman does not resort to easy answers here - Ove was clearly always a difficult character - almost certainly on the spectrum, I would suggest - but he clearly once had the most loving of wives and the closest of friends, even if falling out with them was a regular past-time. We start to realise that it is because these pillars of his life have gone (no spoilers), that Ove is as he is. He is, in fact, a man free-fall, driven not by grumpiness, but by despair. His neighbours, perceiving this too, re-double their efforts to pursue him for assistance and attention. This is their only way of saving him, and as readers and witnesses it is impossible not to cheer them on. Only Ove resists.

In many ways 'A Man Called Ove' reads like a fairy story. It has that deceptive simplicity in its tone, the one that subtly belies the gravity of its subject matter. We may laugh at Ove, and roll our eyes in frustration at his idiosyncrasies and obstinacy, but we can all relate to him too. I loved this book. It shines a light on the irreparable damage that loss can do to the human heart, showing how sometimes only the stubborn love of others can help us mend.





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