A Man Called Ove: Just Friggin' Delightful

A Man Called Ove, by Swedish novelist Fredrik Backman is one of those odd-but-awesome book stories where the book did okay when it was first published (in 2014), but has recently enjoyed a renaissance due to word-of-mouth recommendations, as well as the hit Swedish-language movie (oh, and probably the overwhelming need for a feel-good book in these rather trying times). So, for the sake of upping my cultural literacy I gave it a shot.

Often, as I was reading it while working at RoscoeBooks, someone would see the book on the counter and comment on how delightful it is or how much they loved it.

Even after I loved the first chapter (in which Ove squares off with a sales associate at an electronics store as he tries to buy an iPad), I tried really hard not to like it the rest of it. It's a little a cheesy at times, the grumpy-old-man trope is nothing even remotely new (for my money, Sully from Richard Russo's Nobody's Fool is still the paragon), and the translation is often a bit clunky. But, then, by the end....I loved it. It won me over. I couldn't help it.

It's a charming tale of a guy named Ove, confronting what he believes to be all the various violations of good sense and decency of everyday life in his little neighborhood in a small town in Sweden. We learn in the first few pages that Ove's wife has died, and he's been forced into early retirement. So with nothing else to live for, Ove decides to exit stage left. But then life keep interceding — he can't help himself from helping other people. (The one thing that kind of shocked me about this novel is its sort of cavalier attitude toward suicide. But not a big deal...)

Ove becomes more lovable the more you learn about his backstory — chapters alternate between his current life and his history, which includes more than his fair share of tragedy and sadness. In the present, he makes begrudging friends with new neighbors, a family four with a fifth on the way. We also learn about his long-running feud with his neighbor Rune, a grouchy guy just like him. But against all decency, in Ove's view, Rune has the gall to drive a Volvo instead of Ove's beloved Saabs. The final nail in the coffin in their tenuous relationship is when Rune buys a BMW. Then it's all-out war.

In the present, Rune has fallen on tough times, and the dreaded "white shirts," government bureaucrats who have been Ove's life-long nemeses, are threatening to remove Rune from his wife and his home and put him in state-sponsored care. Will Ove help Rune, or will their long-stand rivalry be too much to overcome?

If you're for something you can laugh with, that's heavy at times, but ultimately redemptive, this is your novel. You may not totally like Ove all the time, but it's hard not to enjoy his story.