Without giving too much away, Ove has had a rough life. Think of Charlie in Marriage Story, who apparently has no idea how divorces work, or Denny in The Art of Racing in the Rain, who has never had a negative thought about his in-laws. By Naïve Job, I mean a male character that has a series of increasingly melodramatic bad things befall him, like Job from the bible, but never once doubts that everyone around him is acting in good faith. My one concern about the novel was that Ove would be “Naïve Job” (biblical Job, not a job you work at) a character archetype that has been popping up in recent works. It's even been made into two movies - see the videos below to watch the trailer for the original Swedish film and the upcoming American version (titled A Man Called Otto). The book has become a smash hit, selling over two million copies according to my paperback copy. Despite the somewhat morbid beginning, A Man Called Ove is an optimistic tale about community, family, and loss. Unfortunately (or fortunately), a series of misadventures befall him and derails him from his attempts at ending his own life. His wife of many years has recently passed away, and he decides it's time he joins her in the afterlife. Ove is fifty-nine years old, lives in Sweden, and is an unrepentant curmudgeon. For an English reader, that's probably the most difficult part of the book, because once you see the name you immediately put an incorrect pronunciation in your head.Ī Man Called Ove focuses, on, unsurprisingly, a man named Ove. To answer everyone’s first question, it’s pronounced oo-vuh. Instead of just giving my personal review, I’ll also be evaluating how good a book would be for a traditional book club. This post is the first in what I hope will be a series of book reviews.
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