The Ritual Master Once upon a time, I used to know a man who was obsessed by how thick the orange peel had recently become. He came home one day with a bag of oranges from the market, he weighed one orange, then peeled it and weighed the peel. The conclusion was baffling : we were all being cheated by the fruit producers who decided to charge us on peels, and give us less pulp than before.
That was my real life Ove, though I have to admit Fredrick Backman’s Ove is far more endearing… even if he cannot stand the phrase “batteries not included”.
A man called Ove is a global phenomenon, published in Sweden in 2012 and with over 3 million copies sold worldwide, it is one of the great success stories of Swedish literature. And for cause.
The story is straightforward : Ove is a grumpy old man, who doesn’t seem to find any more reasons to live since becoming a widower. His decision to end his life coincides with some new arrivals in his existence : a new family moving in next door, a stray cat that simply won’t go away, a clumsy teenager in need of mechanical advice. They all connect the dots of Ove’s past, and bring a new light to his present.
I have to admit that I fell into the category of readers that found the grouchy character of Ove far too irritating at first. I knew that it was supposed to be funny, yet I only got annoyed. But, I kept going. And something clicked when I… oh no, I’m not going to spoil it for you. But I’m glad I kept on reading (thanks Dad !)
Every character was perfectly in place, it was like planets aligning in order to create an auspicious moment in time and place. A testimony to how incredibly natural and genuinely surprising Fredrick Backman’s writing really is.
What makes Ove so special ? He teaches us that we can judge people too harshly without understanding their side of the story, he’s proof that “Us against the World” doesn’t work. And when he lets the light come in through the cracks, he’s deeply surprised about the good that still survives in our sometimes hard and dark world. And no, he doesn’t really change his way of being or thinking, he is still as grumpy in the end as we have met him on page 1. What changes is his ability to trust that not everyone is a dangerous maniac, the hope we are left with is that even if we cannot be friends with the entire world, we should at least aim to not be enemies. There is hope and light in a story that makes us laugh, sometimes even cry a little, and that succeeds the ultimate miracle : to make us love the unlovable Ove.
I chose to keep this quote with me, it is in my opinion, the essence of what keeps our world still stand up straight :
“Ove was, well, Ove was Ove. Something the people around her also kept telling Sonja.
He’d been a grumpy old man since he started elementary school, they insisted. And she could have someone so much better.
Maybe he didn’t write her poems or serenade her with songs or come home with expensive gifts. But 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 anymore, Sonja had understood. So she was holding on to this one.”
– Fredrik Backman, A man called Ove
Until tomorrow, enjoy your oranges !
If you would like to support The Ritual of Reading, please consider purchasing your books from the Bookshop.org dedicated site by clicking the link below. You get to support local bookstores and I make a small commission with every purchase. Thank you !
