“He was a man of black and white. And she was color.
All the color he had.”
This one line sums up the entire premise of Fredrik Backman’s A Man Called Ove. Everything about it screams sentimentality, and to an extent, it even delivers on its promise. In Ove, we can find every grumpy old traditionalist we have ever come across, and in Sonja, the personification of life itself, and everything it has to offer. It is the relationship that they share or rather a lack of it, that not only helps Ove on his journey of realizing that there is more to life than just living it but also makes the reader shed a tear and laugh out loud at the same time.
This sentimentality, however, also brings out one of the major flaws of the novel, that it is a clichéd trope milked to its very last drop. A few chapters in, and we found ourselves tiring of the older man and his rigid attitudes, perhaps that being the intention of the author, to help contrast his former self to the newly transformed Ove at the end of the novel. This begs the question, how does a person, especially someone like Ove have a complete shift in personality in just a few months? Furthermore, can such a significant change actually be brought about only by a new family with a sunny disposition towards life? And perhaps most importantly, is it right in praising or rewarding someone for his newfound civil behaviour towards others, when that is actually what is expected of him, and everyone else in fact, in society. Ove’s behaviour towards the cat, for us as animal lovers, was particularly distressing.
While not liking the cat is a matter of preference, showing cruelty towards was just inhumane. The writing is the saving grace of the novel. Backman has drawn and defined all the characters to the T, thus enabling the narrative to flow seamlessly. It is almost as if you’re watching the story unfold on film, instead of reading off a page. This helps in understanding the characters a little better. A Man Called Ove, though enjoyable to many readers, somehow fell flat for us.