by Fredrik Backman
I enjoyed this book a fair bit but I have mixed reactions to it. Backman can write, there’s no question about that, He has a very good translator too. This is my first Backman. He has been published a dozen or more times in too many languages to count. What I had difficulty with was his humor, satire, and irony. It’s not that he didn’t have any, it’s that he has too much. A better description would be that he chooses to use too much (at least for my taste). The story was a good one and the characters, although abnormal compared to most people I know, were still enjoyable.
I was telling a friend about this book and I said that Hemingway would have written the same story in half the number of pages and it would have been just as good. There’s no accounting for taste. That’s one of the things that makes reading fiction enjoyable — you never know quite what you are going to get.
All of that aside. I appreciate Backman’s ability to reach into a topic and pull out some essence of meaning. What he comes up with may or may not be to your liking, but he has the ability to be profound. One of my favorite passages between two of the characters:
“Me neither,” she whispers.
“But I don’t think the most important thing for an artist is being able to draw, but having something to say,” he says, more to the sky than to her.
That hit me in a big way. Close to home.
There is so much out there to read, and so little time. I don’t know if I will pick up another Backman any time soon, but I haven’t tossed him onto the scrap heap either.
I also enjoy the reflection that is part of the journey.