A Man Called Ove

by Fredrik Backman

“Men are what they are because of what they do. Not what they say,” said Ove.

She often said that “all roads lead to something you were always predestined to do.” And for her, perhaps, it was something. But for Ove it was someone.

He’d discovered that he liked houses. Maybe mostly because they were understandable. They could be calculated and drawn on paper. They did not leak if they were made watertight; they did not collapse if they were properly supported. Houses were fair, they gave you what you deserved. Which, unfortunately, was more than one could say about people.

But Sonja would not have been Sonja if she had let the darkness win.

“We can busy ourselves with living or with dying, Ove. We have to move on.”

Every human being needs to know what she’s fighting for. That was what they said. And she fought for what was good. For the children she never had. And Ove fought for her.

It is difficult to admit that one is wrong. Particularly when one has been wrong for a very long time.