A man called Ove - curtain raiser

I couldn’t resist posting about this novel. I had resisted the temptation for a few weeks now and even now without completing 25% of the book I have yielded to the temptation of sharing it as a blog post. In a way, I had been way to selfish and childish and lot many “ish” in not writing about this book for I wanted it to belong to me alone. Considering the fact that it was a loaned one shared by a fellow blogger friend, the idea sounds all the more ridiculous now. I owe a lot to Bragz, the blogger friend, for sharing with me this book – A man called Ove.

The first few chapters give the visualization of grumpy old Ove as the grandpa character from the animation “Up”. I could almost visualize him with his square thick black specs and blond white hair and him in his suspenders. For some reason, without a word being described about how he looked, this image crept in my mind. I never realized when it got changed to that of my dad. His meticulously pain staking effort for detail, perfection for doing everything by hand and not depending on any “handy men” for getting his job done, his penchant for all things old as classic, his criticism of how loud and unruly the new gen are, his rarely speaking yet being open and to the point in his conversations, everything just kept adding up to the image of my dad.

It’s difficult to like Ove right from page one, for he is not your candy floss Karan Johar movie hero. As he himself proclaims, he is more black and white and honesty is always monochrome in colour. As the character slowly grew on me, I began to read few chapters at a time, pulling myself away literally from the book each time, not wanting it to end soon. There is a small little twist ala Archer style in some chapters that make you smile unknowingly. You may even nod at a few places agreeing with Ove, without even realizing the lines you read actually have taken form of a familiar voice and you can actually hear them in your head.

I felt so happy reading the book that I wanted to break the monotony of sad posts in this space and share some points till whatever portions I’ve read. Will write more in detail once I am done, which I want to prolong for as long.