A man called Ove: Love, Life & Hope!

“But if anyone had asked, he would have told them that he never lived before he met her. And not after either.”
Fredrik Backman

Once in a while you come across a book that just puts you through so much emotional turmoil, that you can’t stop feeling for the characters and the ordeals they face.

‘A man called Ove’ by Fredrik Backman is a wonderful book that is emotional, witty and heartwarming at the same time. The way this book evokes emotions and tugs at your hearts strings, all the while keeping you hooked with its air-tight narrative and plot is worth giving credit for.

The Storyline

Ove is a widowed sixty something old man living alone in a community of Row-houses. Life has not been kind to Ove. Lost his mother at a very young age, started working by the age of 12, and very soon lost his dad as well.

Having lost his mother at such a tender age, Ove was exposed to the strict principles and discipline of his dad and that had a very long-lasting and deep impact on the psyche of Ove.

“It’s a strange thing, becoming an orphan at sixteen. To lose your family long before you’ve had time to create your own to replace it. It’s a very specific sort of loneliness.”

The only high in his life was when he met his wife Sonja. His rough demeanour was softened by her grace and poise. She added the colours to his dull and colourless life.

“He went through life with his hands firmly shoved into his pockets. She danced.”

But, life has its own ways of interrupting these short swathes of happiness with hard hitting tragedies. Ove was also struck with something similar during one of his tours with Sonja, where the bus they were travelling in met with an accident and Sonja is severely injured and gets wheel chair-ridden for the rest of her life.

“He was a man of black and white. And she was color. All the color he had.”

Ove is not the kind of person to give up. He fought with the entire world to make way for Sonja and to make her life feel as normal as possible.

Disaster strikes again and Ove loses Sonja too. Ove’s whole reason for existence was Sonja, and with her gone Ove was devastated and had no will to live. The love of Sonja and the comfort of routine was gone from Ove’s life. He felt like an untethered kite, and that bugged the life out him.

He decides to die.

“One finds a way of living for the sake of someone else’s future. And it wasn’t as if Ove also died when Sonja left him. He just stopped living.”

Just around that time a family with a Pregnant lady and two giggly kids move into the neighbourhood.

Ove’s and the Neighbours lives are inexplicably intertwined in ways unimaginable. Ove’s spirits are slightly lifted, but is it enough to prevent him from killing himself? Read the book to find out!

Closing thoughts!

The book is about Love, Death and Hope!

The Death of Ove’s parents and Sonja, the love and affection of Sonja and Ove’s neighbours, the isolation and loneliness of childless old people, and most importantly HOPE! The hope to live a fulfilling life despite all odds. The hope to find a reason to not end one’s life.

The book is also about discipline and values. Ove led his entire life following the footsteps of his dad.

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

Lastly, this book is a celebration of Life in general. Despite being an obstacle course of unknown disasters, Life is still enduring and we must constantly pursue the reasons and significance of our own existence.

Some quotes from the book

“You miss the strangest things when you lose someone. Little things. Smiles. The way she turned over in her sleep. Even repainting a room for her.”

“All people at root are time optimists. We always think there’s enough time to do things with other people. Time to say things to them. And then something happens and then we stand there holding on to words like ‘if.‘”

“One of the most painful moments in a person’s life probably comes with the insight that an age has been reached when there is more to look back on than ahead.”