A Man Called Ove

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2012

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Symbols & Motifs

The Saab

Ove takes great pride in driving a Saab, the car of his home country Sweden. The Saab is a representation of Ove: It’s Swedish, reliable, and trustworthy. It also represents his bond with his father, who taught him everything he knew about the car. At 18, Ove sees his elderly neighbor playing with his grandson, and this scene reminds Ove of how much he misses his father: “That night he had supper in the Saab” (79). Ove receives his father’s Saab after his death, and in turn, Ove leaves his Saab to Adrian.

In general, cars are a means of reading people in Ove’s world: “So there were certainly people who thought that feelings could not be judged by looking at cars. But they were wrong” (215). Rune’s downgrade from a family Volvo to a two-seater when they learn that Anita can’t have more children is the most concrete example of this. Then it’s also Rune’s buying a BMW that definitively ends his and Ove’s friendship.

Ove always comments on other people’s cars. He snidely remarks about Anders’s Audi, gets into an altercation with a Mercedes driver, and views Patrick and Parvaneh’s Japanese Toyota with disdain. When Adrian suggests he might get a French car, a Renault, Ove is furious. Ove views a man’s car as a reflection of his person. A BMW is flashy and impractical in his mind. Like a man, a car shouldn’t be about what it “says” in terms of money or status but about what it can do in terms of practical actions.

Houses/Homes

For nearly his entire life, Ove’s jobs involved building houses. He likes them “because they were understandable. They could be calculated and drawn on paper. […] Houses were fair, they gave you what you deserved. Which, unfortunately, was more than one could say about people” (80). They exemplify how he is drawn towards fairness and speak to his “what’s right is right” mantra.

The importance of this symbol is first seen in Ove’s family house burning down. The house itself straddles two municipal boundaries, not belonging in either; this lack of belonging is what leads to it burning down (the firemen can’t address it without permission from higher-ups since it doesn’t belong to a single district). This reflects how a lack of belonging can lead to destruction—as it almost does with Ove who is intent on killing himself before he finds his place in his neighborhood.

Ove’s house is also symbolic. He still has all of Sonja’s old things there, and it’s a great milestone at the end when he finally packs these things away, making space for his “new” life without her. Rune and Anita’s struggle also speaks to the importance of having not just a house but a “home” where one truly belongs. Being forcibly removed from one’s home can be compared to having one’s “emotional home” torn down—as what happened to Ove when Sonja died.

The Cat

The cat is the first creature that Ove comes to tolerate and bond with after Sonja’s death: “The cat instantly disliked Ove exceedingly. The feeling was very much reciprocated” (5). He tries to drive the cat away more than once, telling it to “scram” (6). It sticks around, however. Even though he doesn’t want it to live with him, Ove stands up for the cat and protects it—for instance, against the Mutt and Blonde Weed.

The fact that the cat barely has any tail left, just a stump, also shows that it has had a tough life. Like Ove, it has experienced trauma, and the two fit together well. The name “Cat Annoyance” is meanwhile telling of Ove’s take on other people: To him, everything and everyone is an annoyance. Despite the wry name, Ove’s opinion of the cat changes by the end of the book.