An Old Man's Heart
In a previous post I reviewed one of Fredrik Backman's novels, My Grandmother Asked me To Tell You She's Sorry. I had no intention of reading another one of Backman's novel so soon, but a trip to my library resulted in this exact outcome. Ironically I tried to read A Man Called Ove several months before, but was unable to read more than a few pages before I gave up - funny how picking up a novel for the second time has a way of making you enjoy it two folds.
The title gives away the most important detail of this book: it follows a man called Ove who is in his late fifties. Most readers probably have encountered a man similar to that of Ove: solitary, stubborn, resistant to change, and confused by new technology (the novel opens with a humorous seen of Ove in an Apple store trying to purchase a computer). While you may dislike Ove in the beginning of the novel for his absurdities and rude way of communicating with his neighbors and people in general, by the end of the novel you cannot help but love him.
As the book enfolds the reader learns more and more about Ove's past - the chapters often switch between present and past narratives. We find out that Ove has lost both of his parents, worked tirelessly for a railway company in his youth, that he saved a young boy from a fire knowing that his own house would burn down, and that he his a passion for mathematics and building houses. We read that the first time Ove laid eyes on Sonja, his future wife, on the train one day he sat down next to her and rode with her to her stop and back for several months even though it was in the opposite direction of where he was going. We learn that Ove's wife has passed away from cancer, that she was in a horrific bus accident that left her paralyzed and resulted in the loss of her and Ove's unborn child. We discover that Ove continuously fought for Sonja refusing to let the "white shirts," as he calls them, change Sonja's way of life before the accident. Ultimately, we learn that Ove is in fact no Grinch, but his heart is too big - which is by no means a metaphor here for he literally suffers from a heart condition in which his heart is too large. However, it becomes clear that this fatal disease gives Ove his most defining characteristic.
Throughout the novel Ove tries to take his life in various ways in order to be with his wife. However, his various attempts are interrupted in various ways, most often by his new neighbors - Parvaneh, Patrick, and their two girls. Soon Ove becomes part of their family taking the role of Granddad, a role which he lost early in his life, but which he has found in the end.
The book ends with Ove's death, but in my mind it is unclear whether or not it is natural or if Ove took his own life. Parvaneh wakes up to find that the snow between their two houses has not yet been cleared that morning - a task which Ove always completes every day. She rushes into his house and finds the old man sleeping peacefully in his bed with the cat, another friend that is thrusted into Ove's life without his consent, but ends up becoming another dear friend. One could say that Ove died in his sleep and that he simply kept a letter filled with paperwork, his will, etc. on his table just in case this exact scenario ever did happen. Or perhaps he took his life, content with a job well done.
We do not know. But we do know how loved Ove is by the end of the novel. Despite his clear wishes that there be no lavish funeral, three-hundred people come to say their goodbyes to a man who took time out of his day to complete various tasks, large and small, to improve the lives of others. After all no one, human or animal, truly wants to be alone.
The title gives away the most important detail of this book: it follows a man called Ove who is in his late fifties. Most readers probably have encountered a man similar to that of Ove: solitary, stubborn, resistant to change, and confused by new technology (the novel opens with a humorous seen of Ove in an Apple store trying to purchase a computer). While you may dislike Ove in the beginning of the novel for his absurdities and rude way of communicating with his neighbors and people in general, by the end of the novel you cannot help but love him.
As the book enfolds the reader learns more and more about Ove's past - the chapters often switch between present and past narratives. We find out that Ove has lost both of his parents, worked tirelessly for a railway company in his youth, that he saved a young boy from a fire knowing that his own house would burn down, and that he his a passion for mathematics and building houses. We read that the first time Ove laid eyes on Sonja, his future wife, on the train one day he sat down next to her and rode with her to her stop and back for several months even though it was in the opposite direction of where he was going. We learn that Ove's wife has passed away from cancer, that she was in a horrific bus accident that left her paralyzed and resulted in the loss of her and Ove's unborn child. We discover that Ove continuously fought for Sonja refusing to let the "white shirts," as he calls them, change Sonja's way of life before the accident. Ultimately, we learn that Ove is in fact no Grinch, but his heart is too big - which is by no means a metaphor here for he literally suffers from a heart condition in which his heart is too large. However, it becomes clear that this fatal disease gives Ove his most defining characteristic.
Throughout the novel Ove tries to take his life in various ways in order to be with his wife. However, his various attempts are interrupted in various ways, most often by his new neighbors - Parvaneh, Patrick, and their two girls. Soon Ove becomes part of their family taking the role of Granddad, a role which he lost early in his life, but which he has found in the end.
The book ends with Ove's death, but in my mind it is unclear whether or not it is natural or if Ove took his own life. Parvaneh wakes up to find that the snow between their two houses has not yet been cleared that morning - a task which Ove always completes every day. She rushes into his house and finds the old man sleeping peacefully in his bed with the cat, another friend that is thrusted into Ove's life without his consent, but ends up becoming another dear friend. One could say that Ove died in his sleep and that he simply kept a letter filled with paperwork, his will, etc. on his table just in case this exact scenario ever did happen. Or perhaps he took his life, content with a job well done.
We do not know. But we do know how loved Ove is by the end of the novel. Despite his clear wishes that there be no lavish funeral, three-hundred people come to say their goodbyes to a man who took time out of his day to complete various tasks, large and small, to improve the lives of others. After all no one, human or animal, truly wants to be alone.
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