En man som heter Ove

En man som heter Ove

”En man som heter Ove” is a swedish book that I started reading this summer. It was written in 2012 by Fredrik Backman. If you translate the title to swedish it is called ”A man called Ove”.

The book is about a man called Ove. Ove is around 60 years old and is depressed after his wife died a few months ago and in the beginning of the book he lost the thing he loves the second most in life, his job. Ove is a man that likes order. When he’s unemployed he becomes restless and starts to think a lot about his wife. He can’t stand the pain of not having her around and decides to kill himself but fails several times. Since he likes order he patrols the neighborhood in the mornings and makes sure everything is as it should be. Throughout the book he starts to come close to some of his neighbors than before, since Ove is a very grumpy old man and can still be very rude to people. Every second chapter or so of the book is about Oves life at the moment and the other chapters tell the very sad and depressing story of Oves childhood. How his parents died, when he left school and got a job, when he built his own home that later burned down and when he had to rebuild it. But the most important happening was when he met his wife, Sonja, and not even that story ends happy. 

The book is very well written with funny dialogues between Ove and his obnoxious neighbors and with touching storytelling of Oves former life.

When I read the book I get happy and sad, depending on which chapter I am reading. You can be laughing out loud one moment and the next be really down. You really understand Oves pain the further you come in the book, which, when you start reading it, doesn’t feel like a sad book.

I don’t have many memories from reading the book since I’m not even done with it yet. But one memory that I have is when I were on the beach in Spain this summer and I was reading the book. It was a warm day and I was laying on the towel in the sand under the parasol and reading the book and I remember that I was really into the book. I also have memories from the rest of my family telling me that it is a good book.

”En man som heter Ove” is a really great book and is definitely worth the read.