“
The great thing about scrutinizing bureaucracy when you’re a journalist, you see, is that the first people to break the laws of bureaucracy are always the bureaucrats themselves.
”
”
Fredrik Backman (A Man Called Otto)
“
Every human being needs to know what she’s fighting for. That was what they said. And she fought for what was good. For the children she never had. And Ove fought for her.
”
”
Fredrik Backman (A Man Called Otto)
“
It’s been six months since she died. But Ove still inspects the whole house twice a day to feel the radiators and check that she hasn’t sneakily turned up the heating. 5 A MAN CALLED OVE Ove knew very well that her friends couldn’t understand why she married him.
”
”
Fredrik Backman (A Man Called Otto)
“
He raises his eyes and looks at her. “I suppose you’re annoyed I didn’t come yesterday like I promised,” he mumbles. She doesn’t say anything.
”
”
Fredrik Backman (A Man Called Otto)
“
You miss the strangest things when you lose someone. Little things. Smiles. The way she turned over in her sleep.
”
”
Fredrik Backman (A Man Called Otto)
“
Kitty!” “Kitty” did not look particularly impressed by this and tried to hide behind Ove’s legs.
”
”
Fredrik Backman (A Man Called Otto)
“
The three-year-old chased the cat around his feet.
”
”
Fredrik Backman (A Man Called Otto)
“
Added to this, Ove has the cat’s resentful stares to contend with. Something in its eyes reminds him of the way Sonja used to look at him.
”
”
Fredrik Backman (A Man Called Otto)
“
He’s a bloody vagrant, that’s what he is!” Ove corrects.
”
”
Fredrik Backman (A Man Called Otto)
“
The next morning they get up at quarter to six. Drink coffee and eat tuna fish respectively.
”
”
Fredrik Backman (A Man Called Otto)
“
And something is shining in her eyes. Something that Ove recognizes.
”
”
Fredrik Backman (A Man Called Otto)
“
It’s a sort of computer. There are special drawing programs for it. For children,” she whispers a little louder.
”
”
Fredrik Backman (A Man Called Otto)
“
She looks around to make sure no one can see; then she smiles and gives him a hug. “Thanks, Granddad,” she whispers and runs into her room.
”
”
Fredrik Backman (A Man Called Otto)
“
He doesn’t know how many seconds pass, but the pain in his head, like a long line of fluorescent tubes exploding, is unbearable.
”
”
Fredrik Backman (A Man Called Otto)
“
The last thing Ove has time to think before everything goes dark is that he has to make her promise that she won’t let the ambulance drive down between the houses. Because
”
”
Fredrik Backman (A Man Called Otto)
“
And it wasn’t as if Ove also died when Sonja left him. He just stopped living.
”
”
Fredrik Backman (A Man Called Otto)
“
You’re not dying on me, Ove,” she weeps. “Don’t even think about it.” Ove’s fingers move weakly; she grabs them with both hands and puts her forehead in the palm of his hand.
”
”
Fredrik Backman (A Man Called Otto)
“
Parvaneh gets herself into order enough to manage to say: “Ove’s heart is too big; I think I’m going to die.
”
”
Fredrik Backman (A Man Called Otto)
“
As if Ove knew she’ll only drench it in tears before she gets to the end.
”
”
Fredrik Backman (A Man Called Otto)
“
Everyone holds lit candles with “Sonja’s Fund” engraved on them. Because that is what Parvaneh has decided to use most of Ove’s money for: a charity fund for orphaned children.
”
”
Fredrik Backman (A Man Called Otto)
“
But you know…” “…once you start really digging into someone’s past…” “…you usually find something they’d rather keep to themselves,” says Lena.
”
”
Fredrik Backman (A Man Called Otto)
“
Among their own houses they put up speed bumps and damnable numbers of signs about “Children Playing,” but when driving past other people’s houses it was apparently less important.
”
”
Fredrik Backman (A Man Called Otto)
“
He might have to travel far, he imagined. Most likely a criminal record needed a reasonable geographical distance before it started to pale and become uninteresting.
”
”
Fredrik Backman (A Man Called Otto)
“
Men are what they are because of what they do. Not what they say.
”
”
Fredriik Backman
“
What sort of love is it if you hand someone over when it gets difficult?
”
”
Fredrik Backman (A Man Called Otto)
“
Many people find it difficult living with someone who likes to be alone. It grates on those who can’t handle it themselves.
”
”
Fredrik Backman (A Man Called Otto)
“
Ove observes him for half a minute or so. Takes another mouthful of his coffee. Nods irritably, like someone squeezing an avocado and finding it overly ripe.
”
”
Fredrik Backman (A Man Called Otto)
“
It was as if he didn’t want other people to talk to him, he was afraid that their chattering voices would drown out the memory of her voice.
”
”
Fredrik Backman (A Man Called Otto)
“
Better men than Tom could have ended up worse for it.
”
”
Fredrik Backman (A Man Called Otto)
“
If you can’t depend on someone being on time, you shouldn’t trust ’em with anything more important either,
”
”
Fredrik Backman (A Man Called Otto)
“
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.
”
”
Fredrik Backman (A Man Called Otto)
“
Ove suggested to Rune that he button up his shirt and go see a psychologist about his delusions of living on the French Riviera.
”
”
Fredrik Backman (A Man Called Otto)
“
It would pursue him every night for the rest of his life: his utter impotence in the situation.
”
”
Fredrik Backman (A Man Called Otto)
“
He was doubtful about whether he’d be any good at being someone’s dad. He didn’t like children an awful lot. He hadn’t even been very good at being a child.
”
”
Fredrik Backman (A Man Called Otto)
“
he never lived before he met her. And not after either.
”
”
Fredrik Backman (A Man Called Otto)
“
Stares down into the cat-shaped hole in the snowdrift. There’s a cat at the bottom of it. Might have bloody known.
”
”
Fredrik Backman (A Man Called Otto)
“
We can busy ourselves with living or with dying, Ove. We have to move on.” And that’s how it was. In the following months, back in Sweden, Ove met innumerable men in white shirts.
”
”
Fredrik Backman (A Man Called Otto)
“
The only home we’re going to is our own! Where we LIVE!” Ove roared at her, and in pure frustration and anger he threw one of Sonja’s shoes out of the room.
”
”
Fredrik Backman (A Man Called Otto)
“
Ove and Rune stood outside their houses, hands obstinately shoved into their trouser pockets, like ancient relics in a new age,
”
”
Fredrik Backman (A Man Called Otto)
“
Maybe Ove never forgave Rune for having a son who he could not even get along with.
”
”
Fredrik Backman (A Man Called Otto)
“
There are different versions with different amounts of memory,” Jimmy translates for Ove as if he were an interpreter for the Department of Immigration.
”
”
Fredrik Backman (A Man Called Otto)
“
The soot-eyed boy points at one of the shelves. Ove squints at him. “Is that makeup?” Parvaneh hushes him. Ove looks insulted. “What? What’s wrong with asking?
”
”
Fredrik Backman (A Man Called Otto)
“
Grief is a strange thing.
”
”
Fredrik Backman (A Man Called Otto)
“
I think you’d better calm yourself down, woman,” Ove whispers hoarsely.
”
”
Fredrik Backman (A Man Called Otto)
“
The kid may have bought a Toyota, but that doesn’t mean he’s entirely beyond help,
”
”
Fredrik Backman (A Man Called Otto)
“
That God and the universe and all the other things would not be allowed to win. That the swine could go to hell. So she stopped nagging.
”
”
Fredrik Backman (A Man Called Otto)
“
On Sundays they went to a café and drank coffee. Ove read the newspaper and Sonja talked. And then it was Monday. And one Monday she was no longer there.
”
”
Fredrik Backman (A Man Called Otto)
“
So, are you ready to give me an interview now?” she went on in a gung-ho tone. “No,” said Ove,
”
”
Fredrik Backman (A Man Called Otto)
“
avoids her eyes. “Pah! They won’t come to get him for years and years. This’ll go to appeal and then it’ll go through all the bureaucratic shit,” says Ove.
”
”
Fredrik Backman (A Man Called Otto)
“
With their clauses and documents. Men in white shirts always win. And men like Ove always lose people like Sonja. And nothing can bring her back
”
”
Fredrik Backman (A Man Called Otto)
“
To men like Ove and Rune dignity was simply that they’d had to manage on their own when they grew up, and therefore saw it as their right not to become reliant on others when they
”
”
Fredrik Backman (A Man Called Otto)
Fredrik Backman (A Man Called Otto)
“
Ove realize that the cat will probably wake at the sound of the shot. Will probably scare the living daylights out of the poor critter, Ove admits.
”
”
Fredrik Backman (A Man Called Otto)
“
Before then he has had time to wave his rifle at them, making Adrian scream like an air raid warning. “Shush! You’ll wake the bloody cat!
”
”
Fredrik Backman (A Man Called Otto)
“
Here? This is not a damned hotel!” says Ove,
”
”
Fredrik Backman (A Man Called Otto)
“
So this should have been the day Ove finally died. Instead it became the evening before the morning when he woke with not only a cat but also a bent person living in his row house.
”
”
Fredrik Backman (A Man Called Otto)
“
Sonja would have liked it, most likely. She liked hotels.
”
”
Fredrik Backman (A Man Called Otto)
“
Do you usually get up at this time?” “Shit, no, man. I haven’t even gone to bed yet!” He laughs.
”
”
Fredrik Backman (A Man Called Otto)
“
The cat looks at Jimmy as if unimpressed by his fitness drive. Jimmy pouts and touches his stomach, in the apparent belief that he has already lost some weight.
”
”
Fredrik Backman (A Man Called Otto)
“
Jimmy goes silent and nods at Mirsad, in the hope of getting some kind of reaction. “Uncool…” Mirsad declares hesitantly. “BLOODY uncool!” Jimmy nods until his upper body shakes.
”
”
Fredrik Backman (A Man Called Otto)
“
If she’d known that her best friend had not asked for her help because Sonja had “enough problems.” She would have been heartbroken.
”
”
Fredrik Backman (A Man Called Otto)
“
In retrospect, Anita will tell the other neighbors that she had not seen Ove so angry since 1977, when there was talk of a merger between Saab and Volvo.
”
”
Fredrik Backman (A Man Called Otto)
“
and started telling him excitedly what each of the ones in her lap was about. And Ove realized that he wanted to hear her talking about the things she loved for the rest of his life.
”
”
Fredrik Backman (A Man Called Otto)
“
Ove’s wife often quarrels with Ove because he’s always arguing about everything. But Ove isn’t bloody arguing. He just thinks right is right. Is that such an unreasonable attitude to life?
”
”
Fredrik Backman (A Man Called Otto)
“
The cat lifts its head to find out what all the commotion is about, then concludes that all this is sensationally uninteresting and snuggles back into Parvaneh’s lap. Or rather, her belly.
”
”
Fredrik Backman (A Man Called Otto)
“
The young man straightens up for the first time, smiles an almost undetectable smile, and looks her right in the eye with the sort of indomitable pride that only one word can convey. “Saab.
”
”
Fredrik Backman (A Man Called Otto)
“
Considering how they are constantly preventing him from dying, these neighbors of his are certainly not shy when it comes to driving a man to the brink of madness and suicide. That’s for sure.
”
”
Fredrik Backman (A Man Called Otto)
“
He’s assuming that there’s a good deal of splattering when one shoots oneself in the head, and he’s loath to leave more of a mess behind than he has to. Sonja always hated it when he made a mess.
”
”
Fredrik Backman (A Man Called Otto)
“
The cat looks as if it would like to rub itself lovingly against Jimmy’s legs, but seems to change its mind, bearing in mind that the last time it did something similar Jimmy ended up in the hospital.
”
”
Fredrik Backman (A Man Called Otto)
“
She talked as if she were continuously on the verge of breaking into giggles. And when she giggled she sounded the way Ove imagined champagne bubbles would have sounded if they were capable of laughter.
”
”
Fredrik Backman (A Man Called Otto)
“
As he walks up between the houses, past the bicycle shed, and into the parking area, he reluctantly admits to himself that he’s walking around looking for the cat, but he can’t seem to find it anywhere.
”
”
Fredrik Backman (A Man Called Otto)
“
Other wives get annoyed because their husbands don’t notice when they have their hair cut. When I have a haircut my husband is annoyed with me for days because I don’t look the same,” Sonja used to say.
”
”
Fredrik Backman (A Man Called Otto)
“
there was a sort of silence in the room that can only arise between a man who does not want to lose his daughter and a man who has not yet completely understood that he has been chosen to take her away from there.
”
”
Fredrik Backman (A Man Called Otto)
“
Ove was never dour and awkward and sharp-edged. To her, he was the slightly disheveled pink flowers at their first dinner. He was his father’s slightly too tight-fitting brown suit across his broad, sad shoulders.
”
”
Fredrik Backman (A Man Called Otto)
“
Maybe their sorrow over children that never came should have 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.
”
”
Fredrik Backman (A Man Called Otto)
“
Had Ove been the sort of man who contemplated how and when one became the sort of man one was, he might have said this was the day he learned that right has to be right. But he wasn’t one to dwell on things like that.
”
”
Fredrik Backman (A Man Called Otto)
“
On the way home they’d stop for ice cream. Sonja would have one with chocolate and Ove one with nuts. Once a year the shop raised the price by one krona per ice cream and then, as Sonja put it, Ove would “have a tantrum.
”
”
Fredrik Backman (A Man Called Otto)
“
You think I’m going to stick around here just because that old sod went all helpless?” The cat didn’t answer. “You don’t understand! Understand?” Ove hissed and turned around. He felt the cat’s eyes on his back as he marched inside.
”
”
Fredrik Backman (A Man Called Otto)
“
Car running well?” asked Ove eventually. “Like a Swiss watch.” Rune smiled. They were on good terms for two months after that. Then, of course, they fell out again over the heating system. But it was nice while it lasted, as Anita said.
”
”
Fredrik Backman (A Man Called Otto)
“
He fought so doggedly for her against men in white shirts that in the end he began to hold them personally responsible for all that happened to her—and to the child. And then she left him alone in a world where he no longer understood the language.
”
”
Fredrik Backman (A Man Called Otto)
“
Ove spent most of yesterday shouting at Parvaneh that this damned cat would live in Ove’s house over his dead body. And now here he stands, looking at the cat. And the cat looks back. And Ove remains strikingly nondead. It’s all incredibly irritating.
”
”
Fredrik Backman (A Man Called Otto)
“
My dad hates gays. He always said he’d kill himself if he found out that any of his children were gay,” Mirsad goes on. After a moment’s silence he adds: “He didn’t take it so well. You might say.” “He throwed him out!” Adrian interjects. “Threw,” Ove corrects.
”
”
Fredrik Backman (A Man Called Otto)
“
Sonja would have liked it, Ove thinks to himself. She would have loved what was happening to the place with the arrival of this crazy, pregnant foreign woman and her utterly ungovernable family. She would have laughed a lot. And God, how much Ove misses that laugh.
”
”
Fredrik Backman (A Man Called Otto)
“
And when she took hold of his lower arm, thick as her thigh, and tickled him until that sulky boy’s face opened up in a smile, it was like a plaster cast cracking around a piece of jewelry, and when this happened it was as if something started singing inside Sonja.
”
”
Fredrik Backman (A Man Called Otto)
“
He misses her so much that sometimes he can’t bear existing in his own body. It would be the only rational thing, just sitting here until the fumes lull both him and the cat to sleep and bring this to an end. But then he looks at the cat. And he turns off the engine.
”
”
Fredrik Backman (A Man Called Otto)
“
People didn’t know how to do that anymore, brew some proper coffee. In the same way as nowadays nobody could write with a pen. Because now it was all computers and espresso machines. And where was the world going if people couldn’t even write or brew a pot of coffee?
”
”
Fredrik Backman (A Man Called Otto)
“
And when another doctor came out of a door with a clinically neutral expression and a curt way of expressing himself about “preparing yourselves for the worst,” she screamed out loud and collapsed on the floor like a shattered porcelain vase. Her face buried in her hands.
”
”
Fredrik Backman (A Man Called Otto)
“
Maybe Ove never forgave Rune for having a son who 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.
”
”
Fredrik Backman (A Man Called Otto)
“
to him. In the end, there is nothing left but a long series of weekdays with nothing more meaningful than oiling the kitchen counters. And Ove can’t cope with it anymore. He feels it in that moment more clearly than ever. He can’t fight anymore. Doesn’t want to fight anymore. Just wants it all to stop.
”
”
Fredrik Backman (A Man Called Otto)
“
They’ve bumped up the electricity prices again,” he informs her as he gets to his feet. He looks at her for a long time. Finally he puts his hand carefully on the big boulder and caresses it tenderly from side to side, as if touching her cheek. “I miss you,” he whispers. It’s been six months since she died.
”
”
Fredrik Backman (A Man Called Otto)
“
Ove threw away the letter along with the advertising, tied up the bag, put it by the front door, went back into the kitchen, got out a magnet from the bottom drawer, and put up the photo on the fridge. Right next to the riotous color drawing the three-year-old had made of him on the way back from the hospital.
”
”
Fredrik Backman (A Man Called Otto)
“
He sinks down on the stool in the hall and feels his hands trembling. His heart thumps so hard that it feels like his ears are about to explode. The pressure on his chest, as if an enormous darkness has put its boot over his throat, doesn’t begin to release till more than twenty minutes later. And then Ove starts to cry.
”
”
Fredrik Backman (A Man Called Otto)
“
It was signed by the man in the gray suit and black overcoat, the one Ove hoisted off the track after he passed out. Lena had told Ove that the swooning fit had been caused by some sort of complicated brain disease. If they hadn’t discovered it and started treating it when they did, it would have claimed his life within a few years.
”
”
Fredrik Backman (A Man Called Otto)
“
He nods and kicks the ground again. He can’t understand people who long to retire. How can anyone spend their whole life longing for the day when they become superfluous? Wandering about, a burden on society, what sort of man would ever wish for that? Staying at home, waiting to die. Or even worse: waiting for them to come and fetch you and put you in a home.
”
”
Fredrik Backman (A Man Called Otto)
“
Can’t one say ‘bent’? What are you supposed to say nowadays?” “You say homosexual. Or an LGBT person,” Parvaneh interrupts before she can stop herself. “Ah, you can say what you want, it’s cool.” The boy smiles as he walks around the counter and puts on an apron. “Right, good. Good to be clear. One of those gays, then,” mumbles Ove. Parvaneh shakes her head apologetically;
”
”
Fredrik Backman (A Man Called Otto)
“
It wasn’t supposed to be like this. You work and pay off the mortgage and pay taxes and do what you should. You marry. For better or for worse until death do us part, wasn’t that what they agreed? Ove remembers quite clearly that it was. And she wasn’t supposed to be the first one to die. Wasn’t it bloody well understood that it was his death they were talking about? Well, wasn’t
”
”
Fredrik Backman (A Man Called Otto)
“
Maslow used an apt term for this evasion of growth, this fear of realizing one's own fullest powers. He called it the "Jonah Syndrome." He understood the syndrome as the evasion of the full intensity of life:
We are just not strong enough to endure more! It is just too shaking and wearing. So often people in...ecstatic moments say, "It's too much," or "I can't stand it," or "I could die"....Delirious happiness cannot be borne for long. Our organisms are just too weak for any large doses of greatness....
The Jonah Syndrome, then, seen from this basic point of view, is "partly a justified fear of being torn apart, of losing control, of being shattered and disintegrated, eve of being killed by the experience." And the result of this syndrome is what we would expect a weak organism to do: to cut back the full intensity of life:
For some people this evasion of one's own growth, setting low levels of aspiration, the fear of doing what one is capable of doing, voluntary self-crippling, pseudo-stupidity, mock-humility are in fact defenses against grandiosity...
It all boils down to a simple lack of strength to bear the superlative, to open oneself to the totality of experience-an idea that was well appreciated by William James and more recently was developed in phenomenological terms in the classic work of Rudolf Otto. Otto talked about the terror of the world, the feeling of overwhelming awe, wonder, and fear in the face of creation-the miracle of it, the mysterium tremendum et fascinosum of each single thing, of the fact that there are things at all. What Otto did was to get descriptively at man's natural feeling of inferiority in the face of the massive transcendence of creation; his real creature feeling before the crushing negating miracle of Being.
”
”
Ernest Becker (The Denial of Death)
“
They sit together on the bedside and Parvaneh caresses the thin locks of hair on Ove’s head until the ambulance crew gets there and, with tender and gentle words and movements, explains that they have to take the body away. Then she leans forward and whispers, “Give my love to Sonja and thank her for the loan,” into his ear. Then she takes the big envelope from the bedside table on which is written, in longhand, “To Parvaneh,” and goes back down the stairs.
”
”
Fredrik Backman (A Man Called Otto)
“
Loving someone is like moving into a house,” Sonja used to say. “At first you fall in love with all the new things, amazed every morning that all this belongs to you, as if fearing that someone would suddenly come rushing in through the door to explain that a terrible mistake had been made, you weren’t actually supposed to live in a wonderful place like this. Then over the years the walls become weathered, the wood splinters here and there, and you start to love that house not so much because of all its perfection, but rather for its imperfections. You get to know all the nooks and crannies. How to avoid getting the key caught in the lock when it’s cold outside.
”
”
Fredrik Backman (A Man Called Otto)
“
Adrian gets the Saab. Everything else is for you to take care of. You’ve got the house keys. The cat eats tuna fish twice per day and doesn’t like shitting in other people’s houses. Please respect that. There is a lawyer in town who has all the bank papers and so on. There is an account with 11,563,013 kronor and 67 öre. From Sonja’s dad. The old man had shares. He was mean as hell. Me and Sonja never knew what to do with it. Your kids should get a million each when they turn eighteen, and Jimmy’s girl should get the same. The rest is yours. But please don’t let Patrick bloody take care of it. Sonja would have liked you. Don’t let the new neighbors drive in the residential area. Ove At the bottom of the sheet he’s written in capitals “YOU ARE NOT A COMPLETE IDIOT!
”
”
Fredrik Backman (A Man Called Otto)