“A Man Called Ove” by Fredrik Backman: Swedish bestseller’s protagonist is inadvertently depicted as having multiple personality

Ove, 59, has been laid off from work, and although his wife died six months ago from cancer, he speaks to her as if she were present, an example of the “ghosts” that many people normally experience when grieving.

However, as her ghostly presence fades, he decides to commit suicide, in order, as he believes, to join her in the afterlife. Seriously suicidal, he actually hangs himself. He does not die only because the rope breaks.

For most of the novel, Ove repeatedly plans to kill himself, but either tries and fails or is prevented from trying by events that engage his attention and alter his state of mind.

He has two indications of multiple personality, 1. out-of-character behavior, and 2. involuntary behavior. An example of the former is how he behaved when he first saw Sonja, the young woman who would become his wife. She was a cheerful total stranger whom he saw on a train one morning (Ove worked for the railroad at night): He took a seat next to her, and traveled hours out of his way, daily, when she was commuting to work.

Such forwardness was particularly out-of-character for a young man who was a dour loner. He’d kept to himself since becoming an orphan at age sixteen, when his father died; his mother had died when he was seven.

After they were married, Sonja said, “You don’t fool me darling, you’re dancing on the inside, Ove, when no one’s watching.” But “Ove never quite fathomed what she meant by that. He’d never been one for dancing. It seemed far too haphazard and giddy. He liked straight lines and clear decisions” (1, pp. 108-109). He concluded that they were compatible, because “She liked talking and [he] liked keeping quiet” (1, p. 129).

The above is suggestive, but not decisive for multiple personality, because it could be nothing more than a pretty girl getting a shy man out of his shell.

More convincing to me regarding multiple personalty are Ove’s episodes of behavior that are not only out-of-character, but are experienced by him as involuntary, making him wonder where that came from [from an alternate personality].

After an incident on his job at the railway, having been summoned to the office of the director, Ove said in his defense, “Men are what they are because of what they do. Not what they say.” “The director looked at him with surprise. It was the longest sequence of words anyone at the railway depot had heard the boy say since he started working there two years ago. In all honesty, Ove did not know where they came from” (1, p. 78). (Had the author of this novel sometimes had the experience of not knowing where his words came from?) (from an alternate personality).

In a separate incident: “Ove hauls the keys out of his pocket. As if someone else has taken control of his arm. He’s having a hard time accepting what he’s actually doing. One part of him in his head is yelling ‘NO’ while the rest of his body is busy with some sort of teenage rebellion” (1, pp. 158-159). (People with undiagnosed multiple personality often think of themselves as having “parts” with minds of their own.)

“Ove twists without meeting her eyes. Then he turns and starts to leave, while his words slip out of him involuntarily” (1, p. 221).

“Ove’s words seem to pop up out of nowhere” (1, p. 228).

“And this was the reason why Ove did not die today [by suicide]. Because he was detained by something that made him sufficiently angry to hold his attention" [prompting a switch to an angry, but nonsuicidal, alternate personality] (1, p. 270).

Comment

This novel is not intentionally about multiple personality. What, then, are these out-of-character and involuntary behaviors doing in it? They probably reflect the multiple personality trait of yet another great fiction writer.

1. Fredrik Backman. A Man Called Ove. Translation by Henning Koch. New York, Atria Books/Simon & Schuster, 2014.