A Man Called "Ove" . Fredrik Backman

A Man Called Ove.  Fredrik Backman

Ove (Golf Lassgård) is the quintessential angry old man next door. An isolated retiree with strict principles and a short fuse, who spends his days enforcing rules that only he cares about, and visiting his wife's grave, Ove has given up on life.

“Unless you are simply opposed on principle to feeling uplifted by a mordantly humorous melodrama, you will dab your sad old eyes at "A Man...”
You’d be impressed with me if you realized how hard it is for me to read for more than 5 minutes at a time and crank out a book like in days gone by, quickly consumed. So I fidget and stir and hop round to stick together creating continuity, of a type. But I flew thru Ove.

Even though it made me cry at the end – I enjoyed it, recommend it, and say let’s discuss when you are done.

The novel definitely has insight into relationships and finding a match – catch this quote:

“She liked talking and Ove liked keeping quiet; retrospectively Ove assumed that was what people meant when they said that people were compatible.”

Or who can’t love this kind of writing

 “Ove stares back at it with a suspicion normally reserved for a cat that has rung his doorbell with a Bible in its paws like a Jehovah Witness”

“Death is a strange thing… Some need it’s constant presence to even be aware of its antithesis. Others become so preoccupied with it but they go into the waiting room long before it has announced its arrival. We fear it yet most of us fear more than anything that it may take someone other than ourselves. For the greatest fear of death is always that it will pass us by. And leave us there alone.”

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

“Acknowledgment – my father. Because I hope I am unlike you in the smallest possible number of ways. “(that’s also me speaking of my dad)

It is a bizarre odd book – very Scandinavian, very adapting to the changes that come with aging and death, very learning to embrace a wide array of “who is my neighbor” - Just what I like to read.