A Man Called Ove (2014) by Fredrik Backman

Ove, our narrator, is a grouchy old man, overly obsessed with following the rules. He's curmudgeonly and close-minded. However, he represents something all people should aspire to: He knows exactly who he is and what he wants.

He’s never understood young people who natter on about “finding themselves.” He used to hear that nonstop from all those thirty-year-olds at work. All they ever talked about was how they wanted more “leisure time,” as if that was the only point of working: to get to the point when one didn’t have to do it.

In this fashion he's somewhat of a mythical creature. Since a very early age Ove has consciously recognized his strengths: He's a handyman; good with machines and desiring of work that allows him to use his hands to fix a problem. So Ove needs very little to be happy; a job that allows him to diagnose problems, tinker, and arrive at solutions.

Ove is fallible in that he is a wholly concrete thinker. There is no room for the abstract in Ove's world. Everything he does makes sense on paper. The problem with this, of course, is that human beings often don't. So Ove finds himself struggling, particularly when dealing with people. I enjoyed this aspect of the book and, indeed, found its narrator to be compelling for this purpose. Backman continues to throw colorful characters at Ove, and it's enjoyable watching him respond. Ove could easily have fallen prey to cliché, but his touching moments when dealing with people who are worlds different from him made for some nice twists in Ove's story:

He’s silent. And then they both stand there, the fifty-nine-year-old and the teenager, a few yards apart, kicking at the snow. As if they were kicking a memory back and forth, a memory of a woman who insisted on seeing more potential in certain men than they saw in themselves. Neither of them knows what to do with their shared experience.

A Man Called Ove is cloying at times, and obviously shoots for for sentimentality, but the character of Ove's back is strong enough to bear the brunt of it, and Backman—earnest in what he's set out to do—is a skilled enough writer in his tuned-down, low-key way that it all somehow works without feeling like it's trying too hard:

“I feel so much loss, Ove. Loss, as if my heart was beating outside my body.” They stood in silence for a long time, with their arms around each other. And at long last she lifted her face towards his, and looked into his eyes with great seriousness. “You have to love me twice as much now,” she said. And then Ove lied to her for the second—and last—time: he said that he would. Even though he knew it wasn’t possible for him to love her any more than he already did.

A Man Called Ove is ultimately a very light read, but it's earnest and it's happy, and we could all use a bit of that these days. It doesn't quite reach the happy-go-lucky heights of something like Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables, but it strives for it, and it doesn't strive poorly, and sometimes that's enough. Highly recommendable to pretty much everyone, easy to read, and competently crafted.

⭐⭐⭐

The Little Mermaid (1836) by Hans Christian Andersen

During certain difficult periods of my youth I've fallen prey to cursing myself and wishing to be anyone other than who I am. I'd guess that these sorts of moments of self-doubt and alienation are rather common among young adults. It wasn't until my late twenties that I began to set aside this brand of deep, subtle, festering self-hatred and instead choose to focus first on learning who exactly it is that I'm hating, then working to accept the person I am, and finally striving to improve the qualities I've already unknowingly developed, and then to correct some of my most unfortunate deficiencies. I think it's an important part of adulthood to finally come to terms with who you are and begin, from there, to learn and work to become who you really want to be.

The Little Mermaid's tragic fable touches on the theme of identity and desire, centered around a young girl who's given the opportunity to become somebody she is not in order to please what she believes are the desires of another. She realizes the heartbreaking gravity of such a tragic error, along with the fickle nature of desire.

Andersen's evocative scene-setting is perhaps what he does best, and it remains strong throughout this short story. Colorful descriptions of seashell-speckled aquatic palaces, the wriggling dark tentacles littering the walls of the sea witch's abode. Even the settings on dry land are especially spellbinding: limestone castles and fantastical beaches. These kinds of establishing shots read through in casual exposition are what I loved so much about Thumbelina, and it remains strong throughout The Little Mermaid.

The book is permeated with some Christian subtext that feels a bit jarring and out of place in the story, and I think it would have worked better had the titular mermaid been focused not on being granted an immortal soul, but simply the prince's love. I found the conclusion to be wanting as well, as we see Andersen devolve into a rather... psychedelic experience in the closing pages. It might have been compelling had it not been so abruptly and carelessly introduced, but I felt that it shifted the somber tone of the conclusion too quickly. I'd have much preferred for Andersen to instead have ended things on a simpler, more tragic note.

⭐⭐⭐

The Traveling Companion (1835) by Hans Christian Andersen

The Traveling Companion features the same charm that makes other Andersen stories so celebrated, but he dips too frequently into cloying irritation and I didn't find this story to be up to par with some of the others I've read from him recently. It lacks the sheer beauty of something like Thumbelina and the surprising dark humor of Big Claus and Little Claus, but I did find the resolution to be satisfying.

Worth reading, but a lesser entry in Andersen's celebrated canon than some of its contemporary counterparts.

⭐⭐

Thumbelina (1846) by Hans Christian Andersen

A spritelike young girl adrift in a stream, on a lilypad with a leashed butterfly as a sail. A narrow shaft of light shining down upon a dead swallow in an underground mole's tunnel. A white-winged fairy floating to and fro amidst white flowers peppering marble ruins twined with grapevines, all glittering in the sunlight.

Thumbelina is full of wondrous, fantastical imagery. It's a heartwarming, touching and transcendental story. The creatures Thumbelina meets along her journey feel genuine and almost human, and she's confronted with their selfishness, jealousy, and bitterness. They provide a foil to her childlike innocence and kindness, and remind us that while such virtues often render you vulnerable, they can also be a powerful way of affecting the world and the people around you.

Thumbelina is an eessential fairy tale packed full of Andersen's endless creativity, and a must-read for adults and children alike.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Little Claus and Big Claus (1835) by Hans Christian Andersen

There's something innately calming about Andersen's style that heightens his stories beyond just his impressive creativity. His storytelling is so casual, even when violence or evil occurs (which it does, often) within them. This unpretentiousness imparts a sense of sitting around the fire and listening to your grandmother speak the words rather than—in my specific case—reading one every so often in my office as I take a break from working. It reminds me of filmmaker Wes Anderson's work; timeless, whimsical, colorful.

While the stories themselves are not universally appealing to my tastes, I almost always find myself immediately enraptured whenever I do open one of his tales. This is telling of his quality, considering I typically prefer overly serious and more subtle stories and Andersen's work is most certainly not that. I believe their appeal should be nearly universal; to children and adults regardless of personal preference. Indeed history has shown it so, as these stories have been read and enjoyed for nearly two centuries and adapted (even aped) into countless other forms of media.

Little Claus and Big Claus is one of his less well-known stories, but one I enjoyed more than some of his other stuff I've read. Little Claus is an unabashed con-man who regularly outwits Big Claus, and I was also pleasantly surprised to see the dark humor the story features, as my own sense of humor is like a strong cup of black coffee.

I read a Tiina Nunnally translation of the original Danish, whom I believe has also done a well-regarded translation of the Scandinavian classic Kristin Lavransdatter. I found her work adequate. There are times which I could tell I was reading a translation, but such is to be expected if you want something reasonably accurate to the source material. I imagine it would be difficult to do a better job and thus I'd recommend her.

My recommendation: Read Hans Christian Andersen. Read him if you like Pixar. Read him if you like Harry Potter. Read him if you like Wes Anderson. And read him if you don't like these things anyway, because he'll probably still appeal to you on one level or another.

⭐⭐⭐⭐

The Tinderbox (1835) by Hans Christian Andersen

Andersen certainly doesn't lack for imagination, but I was hoping for a bit of a darker turn that I didn't get.

The moral of the story: If you want to gain wealth and station, all you need to do decapitate an old lady and adopt 3 dogs.

⭐⭐⭐

The Princess and the Pea (1835) by Hans Christian Andersen

Without artwork supporting it this is less a short story and more a satirical parable, but I enjoyed it nonetheless and found it similar in tone to some of the satirical, biting short fiction of Mark Twain.

⭐⭐⭐