A MAN CALLED OVE

Author: Fredrik Backman
Year: 2012
Publisher: Månpocket
Language: Swedish

In 2012, Fredrik Backman entered the Swedish literary scene with a bang. His novel “En man som heter Ove” (“A Man Called Ove”) was an instant success and he soon followed up with titles such as “Mormor hälsar och säger förlåt” (“My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry”), “Britt-Marie var här” (“Britt-Marie was here”), and “Björnstad” (“Beartown”) just to mention a few.

Fredrik Backman had dabbled in writing before. Besides his daily job as a forklift operator, he had sold some freelance journalistic work to one or two newspapers and created a moderately successful blog in cooperation with the gentlemen’s gazette Café. The blog gave him the opportunity to experiment with observations and characters, take in the reactions from the readers to expand on what seemed to hit a nerve and remodel traits and characteristics that did not work. Little by little the protagonist of his debut novel come to life.

I early on decided that I was not going to bother with his books as I am not a great fan of up-lit and I figured that there must be more rewarding literature out there than maudlin Scandinavian kitchen-sink-realism. But as time went by and I could observe Backman’s success around the world, not the least through recurring stellar reviews in English- and German-language book groups on social media, it became increasingly clear to me that as a Swede, I needed to at least have a smattering of what the rage was all about. No sooner said than done, I read “En man som heter Ove”.

I am happy to say that I have no reason to regret it. The book is a highly entertaining and engaging read which both cracked me up and squeezed an occasional tear from the corner of my eye. It is narrated in the present tense by mixing scenes from the present with flashes from the past across 39 short chapters depicting a changing Swedish society on the back of the transition from an industrial wonder to a high-tech powerhouse as well as the continuous strife between the overbearing welfare state and the individual it steamrolls.  

Ove himself is the quintessential stubborn 60-something-year-old, Swedish working-class man stuck in a mindset that has long ceased to exist. Born of a different era for a different world. He has no sympathy for people who drive a different brand of car than he does or who have names that were unknown when he was young, who cannot bleed their own radiators. And certainly none for hospital clowns who borrow a coin for a magic trick and then fail to return it.

By Ove’s never-ending clashes with the relentlessly changing Swedish society, Backman puts his finger on the rift between old and new Sweden. Immigration, feminism, technology, and globalisation have changed the face of the nation to a point where individuals who are unable to keep up, will inevitably feel left out. The boomers and the millennials seem to live in different realities. Although Backman doesn’t say anything about Ove’s political views, it seems to me that this is precisely the kind of voter who might hesitate between his loyalty to a labour party like the Swedish Social Democrats and the delusive allure of the crypto-fascistic Sweden Democrats to bring back some unspecified iteration of a mythical Sweden of the past.

This could easily have become a story where the younger generation makes fun of the older but in a warm and reconciliatory tone, Backman gently brings them together and allows them to build bridges of mutual understanding, respect, and friendship. 

Objectively, “En man som heter Ove” is not a great work of art. The storyline is simple bordering on primitive and the characters are essentially caricatures or types, rather than complex representations of human beings, engaged in dialogues that feel a bit forced here and there. I also found the theme of Ove’s suicidal attempts overly melodramatic and even though it all sort of comes together in the end, I maintain that the book would have done just as well without that subplot. This notwithstanding, it most certainly deserves its audience and its success. It is sentimental, mushy, and corny but it works very, very well.