A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman: book review

A Man Called Ove (2014) began as a blog and developed into a novel. It is about 59-year-old Swedish Ove, a grumpy Saab owner.

He likes things “the same as usual.” He is a man of rules, regulations, and routines. Why don’t other people follow the rules? Why don’t people know how to brew proper coffee any more? Why does The Pregnant One, his neighbour Parvaneh, who’s learning to drive, try to park her Japanese car where she’s not allowed? There’s a sign!

Ove has been a grumpy old man since he started junior school. He never gives anyone a compliment. He doesn’t like anything or anyone and finds it easy to comment about everything – always in the negative. He fights the whole world. He fights with hospital personnel and he fights with specialists and chief physicians. He fights with men in white shirts.

It’s hard to like someone like Ove. Or is it?

No-one can understand why Sonja married him. But Ove is never grumpy when he mentions his wife. Readers know where and how they met, and how he lied so that he could meet her. She is beautiful and she smiles all the time. And Ove had “never heard anything quite as amazing” as her voice. She liked talking and Ove liked listening – and that was Ove’s definition of compatible. He had “never lived before he met her.” He was smitten, yet he was inactive. Sonja told him when it was time to go on their first date, and she told him when to propose to her. And so they married. They love each other, and there’s a lot for the reader to like about that.

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