From youth to old age, as this narrative portrays it, the whole of life is bitter and sweet. Mainly, it is bitter, but filled with sweet moments, which you begin to appreciate more and more with age. You put your life in the memory box. You get it in moments of leisure and recollect everything sweet. In the book “A Man Called Ove” by Fredrik Backman, the main character Ove also recollects his life. Although for the most part he grumbles and gets mad at half-wits, who completely ignore the set rules and signs.
In the novel, tragic and funny moments are skillfully intertwined in such a way that it is not a simple a light snack of a story, but a very delicious dish. Here there is laughter through tears and sorrow because of the social insecurity of the old people, grief that happened to Sonja and pain that cringes Ove’s big heart. The heart of this man is kind. The fact that Ove treats people with contempt is just an attempt to defend himself. Well, if something bad happens to the characters, Ove is the first man, who comes to save and help. Yes, maybe he mutters to himself, but for the sake of understanding what happens.
The book turns out to wonderful, soulful, touching, simple, sincere, funny and sad at the same time. You will want to read this novel little by little, only 2-3 chapters a day. You will not desire to read the novel quickly. In addition, it seems that the book can be read at any mood, in any state and at any time of the year. There is everything – humor and sadness, injustice and mutual aid, life and death, love and sorrow, indifference, friendship, children, old people, snow, sun, cats... Backman’s novel is like an elixir, but not for a good mood. It is for vitality or something.
The book is both simple and profound. The characters speak in such a way that you just can imagine how they revive. Life of one, perhaps unremarkable, but real man is increasingly revealing before us with each chapter in alternation of the past and the present. It is impossible not to become attached to the novel. It is also impossible to convey the inner sensation. The book needs to be simply opened and read.
This is a wonderful, kind, open and sincere book. It is cannot be read without tears. This is a story about a man with a big heart and a sensitive soul. It is about a grumbler, who talks to his dead wife and behaves as if she is alive, constantly being afraid of her disapproval and mentally consulting. Ove becomes a beloved grandfather for other people’s children and a caring friend for his cat. How unobtrusively he reveals himself to the reader! Gradually, as if removing layers, the author shows the old man Ove as a true, honest and uncompromising person. Every person needs to know what he is fighting for. It is true. However, Ove does not fight. He simply lives as his heart orders; he is just a ray of light for others.
