Sweden: A Man Called Ove

A Man Called Ove

by Fredrik Backman

 

Sweden

This novel gets the prize for the most charming, engaging, heart-tugging book I've read in a really long time.  Ove is a 60-year old curmudgeon, whose external demeanor is rigid, direct, intolerant, grumpy, and off-putting.  But as the narrative moves along, we quickly see that underneath his gruff exterior, Ove has a heart of gold; he just doesn't want anyone to know it.  As we get to know Ove through stories of his childhood and his relationships with others, we come to know him as a man who is honorable, loyal, kind, and deeply committed to doing the right thing.  Each chapter shows us these traits through stories about Ove's beloved wife Sonja, the start of his career with the railroads, the elderly couple down the street with whom he has a love-hate relationship, new neighbors (a clumsy man, feisty Iranian wife, and two precocious little girls), a couple of adolescent boys in need to support, and the stubborn street cat who adopts Ove as his own.  With each vignette, we see Ove's journey from hopelessness (can't say why ... have to read it yourself) to learning how to live again.

This is probably my favorite book of all that I've read this year.  From my Goodreads page:

This book has it all ... humor, wisdom, charm, poignancy, incredible character development, interesting structure, serious themes about aging and community and friendship and love, and pretty much anything else you'd want a novel to be. I laughed out loud in several places, fell completely in love with curmudgeonly Ove, came to know the characters as if they were personal friends (including Ove's deceased wife and stubborn cat), and felt heartbroken when I reached the last page.

Booklist had this to say about "A Man Called Ove" ... Readers seeking feel-good tales with a message will rave about the rantings of this solitary old man with a singular outlook. If there was an award for ''Most Charming Book of the Year,'' this first novel by a Swedish blogger-turned-overnight-sensation would win hands down.

I could not agree more.

 

 

England: Everyone Brave is Forgiven AND Little Bee

Everyone Brave is Forgiven

by Chris Cleave

 

England

 

 

 

Set in World War II London, this love story tells the tale of three young people trying to make their mark in a world that is dark and full of pain.  Mary is naïve and idealistic, but good-hearted and determined to shun her wealthy upbringing in favor of finding a way to make a difference in the world.  She volunteers to help in the war effort, but her dreams of playing a dramatic role as a spy or something similar are dashed when she is assigned to teach at a local school in place of a young male teacher who is now a soldier.  She travels with her young charges to the English countryside, part of the British elite's effort to protect their children from the risk of bombing in London, but she soon returns after witnessing the discrimination and abuse of children of color.  Fiercely determined to make her mark, Mary creates her own school in London and begins to teach the children who were left behind or treated so poorly that their parents brought them home.

 

There, she meets Tom, a school administrator, and they fall in love ... sort of.  Mary seems to be going through the motions, as if she believes she ought to be in love with Tom but isn't quite sure she really is.  Tom is a good man who had intentionally avoided enlisting in the military, and he is very distraught about his best friend Alistair's choice to volunteer as a soldier.  When Mary and Alistair meet, they are inexplicably drawn to each other and resist their feelings frantically ... to no avail.  The love triangle ends tragically, as one would expect in a story about love during wartime.

I enjoyed Everyone Brave is Forgiven, but not nearly as much as the author's other book ...

Little Bee

by Chris Cleave

 

Nigeria and England

Little Bee is the name of a young Nigerian girl who flees the violence in her country and arrives as a refugee in England, where she seeks and finds the young British couple with whom she had a chance and tragic encounter on the shore of her country a few years before.  The novel is told in Little Bee's strong and inspirational voice.  She tells us of her childhood and the constant fear that she and her sister lived with while growing up in a remote village, always under threat of an impending attack.  She tells us of the wealthy, somewhat self-absorbed journalists who come to Nigeria for a vacation, find themselves confronted with a violent example of Little Bee's daily life, and arrogantly believe they can influence the outcome, with horrific, life-altering consequences for all of them.

When they go their separate ways, they leave the Nigerian beach with the assumption they will never see each other again.  But Little Bee finds herself in a refugee holding cell in England and after escaping, makes her way to their home to ask for help.  The implications are enormous and powerful. 

This is a novel that you just have to read for yourself.  Even the Amazon description says, "We don't want to tell you too much about this book. It is a truly special story and we don't want to spoil it. ... The story starts [on an Africa beach], but the book doesn't. And it's what happens afterward that is most important. Once you have read it, you'll want to tell everyone about it. When you do, please don't tell them what happens either. The magic is in how it unfolds."

Ethiopia: Sweetness in the Belly

Sweetness in the Belly

by Camilla Gibb

Ethiopia

It's been a really long time since I've imposed my thoughts on whomever is actually reading this blog.  That does not mean, of course, that I haven't been reading though I admit my pace has slowed considerably in the past few months.  I've been distracted by life.  Our household is about to undergo a major transition as we send our youngest off to college.  I've been on quite a roller coaster ride about this, some days feeling sad and mopey, other days read for the next phase of my life's adventure, and still others just stunned that we've arrived here so quickly.  My girl is so ready for this, and honestly, I've been parenting now for more than 24 years.  And I'm tired.  And ready to focus on myself a little bit.  So while I will miss her, just as I missed my sons when they left home, I'm also looking forward to sitting back a little to watch her fly and to think about what's next for my life.  You can count on more books, and hopefully more blogging, being part of that equation.

I've heard from a few people that my posts have been missed.  I've always said that I write this for myself, but it's been nice to know that others may be deriving some enjoyment out of following along.  So let's get caught up.  I've read 16 books since I last wrote.  Five of the 16 were set in countries outside the United States.  You can follow all of my reading on Goodreads, if that interests you.  I think I actually miss reading the world in alphabetical order, and I may return to that.  If only I could find a good novel set in Bhutan.  I'm really stuck with that one.  Anyone have recommendations?

I read Sweetness in the Belly for my book club and found it to be incredibly timely.  With all that is going on in the world, and in our country, with respect to how we view and treat immigrants, especially those who are of the Islamic faith, this story of an orphaned British girl who grows up in a Muslim shrine in Morocco is very compelling for our time.  We meet Lilly at the end of her adolescence, as she is on a pilgrimage from Morocco to Ethiopia, a predominantly Christian country where tensions with the Muslim community are brewing and bubbling over.  In Ethiopia, Lilly immerses herself in the religion and culture of her faith, but she is white in a country of dark-skinned people, Muslim in a country of Christians, and orphaned in a country that prizes family above all else.  She cannot escape her personal story and is thus caught between cultures and identities, not sure where she fits in, if anywhere at all.

The novel is told in Lilly's own voice from a retrospective vantage point, many years after she left Ethiopia in 1974 to escape Haile Selassi's reign.  Dipping back in time, we experience Lilly's immersion into the holy city of Harar, the way of life of the women who cobble together their livelihood with whatever is available to them, her exposure to those rebelling against the political tides, and her all-encompassing, passionate affair with one of those rebels, a well-educated doctor with whom she knows she can never make a life.  After leaving Ethiopia, she returns to her "home" of England and again faces the dilemma of not feeling that she truly belongs. 

In London, she looks the part but does not feel connected to the world that threatens to subsume her.  In an effort to preserve her religion and the culture to which she feels she belongs, she befriends an Ethiopian immigrant, Amina, and together, they raise Amina's children and search exhaustively for the men they left behind in Ethiopia when they came to England as refugees.  Ultimately, Lilly recognizes that she must decide whether and how to let go of her assumptions and expectations for her life without abandoning the parts of herself most important to her identity.  Lilly's story is an incredible depiction of what it must be like to be a stranger in a strange land, to believe you know who you are but not to be accepted on your own terms, and to face the unimaginable choice of what parts of yourself to compromise.

This was a beautiful, poignant, and thought-provoking novel.