Life has become what it is now. This is the only feeling that Ovie has.
Ove, a 59-year-old man living in Northern Europe. The company he had worked for more than 30 years had recently been fired on the grounds that "there was a surplus of labor and the older generation needed to be eliminated"; six months ago, his beloved wife died of cancer; he had no children, his parents died very early, no siblings, no friends...
In fact, after his wife died, he wanted to go to another world to accompany her. Losing his job deprived Ove of the last bit of meaning left alive, so he decided to commit suicide:
The first two times, hangings, were interrupted by the newly moved neighbors in various situations;
The third time, hanging, ended temporarily because the rope could not bear his weight and broke;
The fourth time, the exhaust of the car was interrupted because the newly moved neighbor asked him to help take him to the hospital;
The fifth time, lying on the rail, because saving a man who fell on the rail before him because of the onset of the disease attracted the attention of everyone, and had to give up;
The sixth time, the pill, was terminated to save the cat outside the door who was bullied by a neighbor and her dog;
The seventh time, the shooting was fired, and the neighbor boy had to give up because of a conflict with his father to stay at his house.
The process of being interrupted again and again is also the process of Ovie's integration into the neighbors: helping the newly moved neighbors reverse the car; sending the neighbors to the hospital; teaching the neighbors to drive, helping the neighbors with children; rescuing the frozen and bullied stray cats; taking in the gay boys who clash with their fathers; sending the neighbors a little girl iPad; repairing the heat for friends who love and hate, fighting for the rights and interests of the municipal people...
Despite doing these things at first, Ove was forced, reluctant, and resentful. Just like a person who does not understand "love is to give", he slowly understands the true meaning of "the one who is blessed to come, and the one who loves to return", and finally, Owei found the meaning of continuing to live.
Before that, Ovie was rigid, stubborn, eccentric, and irritable. Every day with the principle of indestructible, get up on time, make coffee; community patrols: check whether the warning signs in the community are strong, check whether the garage is trespassing or arson, check whether the garbage is sorted, register illegal parking, return the bicycles parked at random... He blamed dogs that defecated on the ground, cursed stray cats, looked down on neighbors, cursed people who didn't follow warning signs... He was called "the evil neighbor from hell" by his neighbors, a nasty old-fashioned old man.
There are moments in everyone's life that determine what kind of person he will become in the future. And if you don't understand these moments, you don't understand the person.
Ove lost his mother at a very young age, and his father died when he was 16 years old. He took over his father's job because he was not ignorant of gold and insisted on not taking more than his father's salary. He was then framed by his co-workers and dismissed for adhering to the principle of not telling other people's gossip behind his back and not defending himself.
In order to keep the house left by his father from being demolished and taught to repair the house, the neighbor's child was burned down by the fire and was cheated by a passerby he helped.
With nothing, Ovie meets the love of his life on the train, Sawyer. Encouraged by Sawyer, he went on to learn about the architecture he loved, and has been working on it ever since. After the wife became pregnant, the two went to Spain for their honeymoon, only to encounter a bus overturn, losing both legs while losing the child. An angry Ovie wrote countless letters to the government to negotiate fruitlessly, his wife was about to lose her beloved job because of the wheelchairless ramp of the school where he worked, and the fruitless negotiation of Ovie himself spent a whole night to build a ramp for his wife.
Ovie used to have friends too, Rooney. They were the earliest residents of the community, and together they set up a neighborhood committee to jointly defend the rules of the community. Influenced by his father, Ovi has loved Saab all his life, and Rooney has always loved Volvo. The rupture in the relationship stemmed from Wayne Rooney giving up his decades-long love for a BMW. For Ovey, Rooney abandoned the last rules of the world that the two men held together, and the two broke up.
He was a man of both black and white. She was the color, his whole color.
Life is not friendly to Ovie, and the only generosity is that he meets Sawyer.
Ovey only understood the things he could see and touch, concrete, cement, glass, and tools. Something that can be calculated, something that can be drawn on paper. Sawyer only loves abstract things, music, books, strange words, and so on, she has a person with brilliant emotions, loves to read Shakespeare, loves romance, loves to laugh, warmth, kindness, tolerance. He was always silent, and she liked to talk. He "was willing to spend the rest of his life listening to her tell her about the things she loved." She fought for everything good, he fought for her.
Everyone felt that Ovi was not worthy of Sawyer. But Sawyer felt that Ove was not mean, gloomy, and unbearable, on the contrary, there were not many people in this world like Ove who believed in rules, justice, hard work, morality, right and wrong. When others fled, he would rush into the fire to save people; he would be willing to take the train in the opposite direction for hours every day to listen to her; he insisted on negotiating with the government despite knowing that he had failed.
"People always say that Ovie and Ovie's wife are night and day. Ove couldn't have been clearer, of course, he was night. He doesn't care. But Ovie's wife always found it funny, so she always pointed out with a smile on her face that everyone thought Ove was the night because he was too kind to bear to set the sun on fire. ”
After she left, the room remained as if she were. He often stroked her coat and spoke; the kitchen stove was still the height of his transformed wheelchair; her medicine was still in the closet; her picture in the living room; he went through all the rooms twice a day to touch the radiator to see if she had secretly opened it. She liked him to wear a blue suit, so he wore a blue suit every time he was ready to commit suicide.
"I miss you." He said in the empty room.
He said he had no life before her. Neither has it since.
After her death, his goal was to die.
Until, his plan was interrupted again and again by the neighbors, and he gradually integrated into the community in the need of him again and again. Agree to the boys patrolling with the cats; fight with the neighbors for the rights of old friends; reconcile with old friends; accept the hugs of the little girls in the neighborhood and call her grandfather... He felt the family, the friendship, and the friendship between people again.
ultimately
He tidys up the room and starts a new life.
He said to Sawyer, I can't go with you for a while.
This book is one of the few books I have seen in the past two years that has made me cry, and after reading the book, I went to the movie. I saw some comments that I had depression tendencies, and when I saw the name of the book, I thought I could find resonance, but after reading it, I was cured.
After reading this book about two weeks ago, I always wanted to write something and didn't know where to start.
During this time, I experienced some broken things, and also experienced some warm things. Constantly thinking about the plot of the book, some feelings flashed through my mind from time to time. About love, about life, about yourself and others, about the meaning of being alive... The sensation of a flash of thought does not constitute a complete idea.
What ends up is an overview of the book. More to present, less self-emotion. The power of this book is that just presenting it brings much more and more intense feelings than those brought about by the feelings after reading.
"Fu Lai, those who love to come, those who love to return", encouraged together!
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