A Man Called Ove

— Fredrik Backman

Passages that stayed with me.

Ove puts his snow shovel to work. It takes him fifteen minutes to free up the paving between the house and the shed. He works with care. Straight lines, even edges. People don’t shovel snow that way any more. Nowadays they just clear a way, they use snow blowers and all sorts of things. Any old method will do, scattering snow all over the place. As if that was the only thing that mattered in life: pushing one’s way forward.
It’s often said that ‘all roads lead to something you were always predestined to do. And for her, perhaps, it was something. But for Ove it was someone.
‘Men are what they are because of what they do. Not what they say,’ said Ove.
“You only need one ray of light to chase all the shadows away she said to him once, when he asked her why she had to be so upbeat the whole time.
‘You don’t fool me, darling,’ she said with a playful little smile and crept into his big arms. ‘You’re dancing on the inside, Ove, when no one’s watching. And I’ll always love you for that. Whether you like it or not.’
But to Sonja, Ove was never dour and awkward and star edged. To her, he was the slightly dishevelled pink flowers a their first dinner. He was his father’s slightly too tight-fitting brown suit across his broad, sad shoulders. He believed so strongly in things: justice and fair play and hard work and a world where right just had to be right. Not so one could get a medal or a diploma or a slap on the back for it, but just because that was how it was supposed to be. Not many men of his kind were made any more, Sonja had understood. So she was holding on to this one. Maybe he didn’t write her poems or serenade her with songs
Sorrow brought the two men closer. But sorrow is unreliable in that way. When people don’t share it there’s a good chance that it will drive them apart instead. Maybe Ove never forgave Rune for having a son that he could not even get along with. Maybe Rune never forgave Ove for not being able to forgive him for it. Maybe neither of them forgave themselves for not being able to give the women they loved more than anything what they wanted more than anything. Rune and Anita’s lad grew up and cleared out of home as soon as he got the chance. And Rune went and bought a sporty BMW, one of those cars that only has space for two people and a handbag. Because now it was only him and Anita, as he told Sonja when they met in the parking area. ‘And one can’t drive a Volvo all of one’s life,’ he said with an attempt at a half-hearted smile. She could hear that he was trying to swallow his tears. And that was the moment when Ove realised that a part of Rune had given up for ever. And for that maybe neither Ove nor Rune forgave him. So there were certainly people who thought that feelings could not be judged by looking at cars. But they were wrong.
It is difficult to admit when one is wrong. Especially when one has been wrong for a long time.
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 constant 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. People had always said that Ove was ‘bitter’. But he wasn’t bloody bitter. He just didn’t go round grinning the whole time. Did that mean one had to be treated like a criminal? Ove hardly thought so. Something inside a man goes to pieces when he has to bury the only person who ever understood him. There is no time to heal that sort of wound. And time is a curious thing. Most of us only live for the time that lies right ahead of us. A few days, weeks, years. One of the most painful moments in a person’s life probably comes with the insight that an age has been reached when there is more to look back on than ahead. And when time no longer lies ahead of one, other things have to be lived for. Memories, perhaps. Afternoons in the sun with someone’s hand clutched in one’s own. The fragrance of flowerbeds in fresh bloom. Sundays in a café. Grandchildren, perhaps. One finds a way of living for the sake of someone else’s future. And it wasn’t as if Ove also died when Sonja left him. He just stopped living. Grief is a strange thing.