Book Review: A Man Called Ove

 

I'm grateful to the friend who recommended this book to me. She warned me at first that at the start you do wonder why you're going to spend time reading a book about a "grumpy old man" but you quickly fall for this grump and realise there are a whole lot of layers to him. It's a brilliant story and so well written (apart from the bad language). Ove is very much stuck in his ways, wants everything done in a certain way and so when some rather boisterous neighbours arrive one day there are going to be some clashes. It is a very funny, moving, uplifting book and you really get to like the characters and miss them when you've finished.

Here are some extracts:

Death is a strange thing. People live their whole lives as if it does not exist, and yet it's often one of the great motivations for living. Some of us, in time, become so conscious of it that we live harder, more obstinately with more fury. Some need its contstant presence to even be aware of its antithesis. Others become so preoccupied with it that 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.

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"Loving someone is like moving into a house," Sonja used to say. "At first you fall in love with all the new things, amazed every morning that all this belongs to you, as if fearing that someone would suddenly come rushing  in through the door to explain that a terrible mistake has been made, you weren't actually supposed to live in a wonderful place like this. Then over the years the walls become weathered, the wood splinters here and there, and you start to love that house not so much because of its perfection, but rather for its imperfections. You get to know all the nooks and crannies. How to get the key caught in the lock when it's cold outside. Which of the floorboards flex slightly when one steps on them or exactly how to open the wardrobe doors without them creaking. These are the little secrets that make it your home."