AMan Called Ove by Fredrik Bachman is so optimistic and nice and full of heart that I imagine most readers either love it or throw it away. Ove “never talked excessively,” “saw the world in black and white,” and said, “Men are what they are because of what they do. Not what they say.” “He believed so strongly in things: justice and fair play and hard work and a world where right just had to be right.” His views meant he saw wrongs and injustice rampant everywhere. In another book, he might be tilting at windmills, but here he is heroic.
Ove is a blue-collar worker, who has been involuntarily retired. He struggles to understand his place in the world.
This book reminds me of the 1980s movie Revenge of the Nerds. Ove is well-intentioned, but out of step. He does not compromise. His wife called him, “the most inflexible man in the world.” In the end, he is on the winning side.
How does this happen? Incrementally. His wife again, “So while I was sleeping you sneaked out and helped people in need…and mended their fences? People can say whatever they like about you, Ove. But you’re the strangest superhero I ever heard about.”
“A job well done is a reward in its own right.”
What did Ove think of the younger generation? “No one could change tires. Install a dimmer switch. Lay some tile. Plaster a wall. File their own taxes.” Ove believed in self-sufficiency and routine. Ove “began more and more to differentiate between people who did what they should, and those who didn’t. People who did and people who just talked. Ove talked less and less and did more and more.”
Ove was judgmental, but what made Ove a hero is that he had a heart. Even after he passed judgment, he continued to care and continued to do his part. He never used his judgment to lower his standards for his own behavior.
If you want to see good people win…all the good people…all the time, this is your book. I loved it, with tears of happiness over and over again.
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