A Man Called Ove

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2012

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Chapters 7-9Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 7 Summary: “A Man Called Ove Drills a Hole for a Hook”

In the Chapter 7 opening, it seems Ove is finally going to achieve his mission. He prepares the living room, laying down a plastic tarp, and puts on a nice suit. In the breast pocket he has a letter with instructions for wrapping up his affairs. However, his well-intentioned new neighbors interrupt the task. They arrive with cookies to introduce themselves.

Patrick and Parvaneh get into a silly argument in front of Ove, who again seems to soften towards the woman. She comes across as intelligent compared to her spouse: “If it hadn’t been for her belly, which testified to a willingness on her part to contribute to the survival the Lanky One’s genetic make-up, Ove might have found her almost sympathetic at this point” (54).

When it’s revealed that they also came to ask for a ladder, Ove goes to get his from his shed. In the meantime, another neighbor arrives: Anita, the wife of Rune. Rune and Ove were once friends, but Over dislikes the couple ever since Ove was “deposed” as head of the neighborhood “Residents’ Association”—in what he calls a “coup d’état” (59). Anita asks if Ove can bleed the radiators as a favor because Rune is too ill to do it.

Ove is still holding old grudges again Rune and flat-out refuses. The moment becomes awkward, and in an attempt to diffuse it, Patrick remarks on something on the floor inside Ove’s home—it looks like tire tracks indoors. He asks if Ove rides a bicycle inside. Anita knows the reason for the marks and says it has something to do with Ove’s wife, Sonja—this is the first time the narrative reveals Sonja’s name.

Upon hearing his dead wife’s name, Ove loses his temper. He shouts at Anita to shut up and slams the door in his neighbors’ shocked faces. Then he goes to finish the job he planned for the day: killing himself. He hangs the hook, ties the noose, puts his neck through, stands on a chair, and steps off—ending the chapter on a cliffhanger.

Chapter 8 Summary: “A Man Who Was Ove and a Pair of His Father’s Old Footprints”

Chapter 8 jumps away from the scene of Ove’s suicide and takes a backward look: “She believed in destiny” (63). It tells the story of exactly how Ove came to meet Sonja. After his father’s death, Ove goes on to work for the same railway as his dad. The other workers see him as quiet and a bit strange, but he mostly gets along with people.

One day, money goes missing on the job. Only two people were on site at the time, Ove and Tom—the same man Ove had a confrontation with years ago as a child. The railway director calls Tom into his office for an interview before summoning Ove. He asks Ove if he took the money. When Ove says no, he then asks Ove who did.

Ove refuses to inform on his coworker. The railway director makes it clear that Tom has fingered Ove as the culprit. Tom has also convinced two other younger colleagues to lie and say they saw Ove take the money. It would be Ove’s word against Tom’s, but if Ove won’t accuse Tom—who everyone, including the director, knows is the real thief—then the company will have to let Ove go.

When he’s drawing up the paperwork to let Ove go, the director makes it clear he knows Ove is innocent. Ove responds, “Men are what they are because of what they do. Not what they say” (69). The director knows Ove is an honest man and decides to give Ove a different job—as a cleaner on a long-distance night train. That is where Ove sees Sonja for the first time, when he’s finishing a shift as the night cleaner.

Chapter 9 Summary: “A Man Called Ove Bleeds a Radiator”

Chapter 9 returns the reader to the action at hand, picking up from where Chapter 7 left off: Ove’s suicide attempt. He finds himself lying on the floor and discovers that the rope he used to tie the noose snapped in half. In typical Ove fashion, this is cause for complaint: “Can’t they even manufacture rope anymore? […] How can you get rope wrong?” (74).

As he fell, however, Ove had time to think because “[t]hey say the brain functions quicker while it’s falling” (71). He thought about Rune, the neighbor: They have known each other for almost 40 years, yet they have “been at loggerheads” (71), or arguing, for at least 37 of them. Ove can’t even remember what the initial argument was about.

Before this, they got along; they had even set up the Residents’ Association together. Rune moaned with Ove about things like how modern people can’t do their own tax accounts or change a tire. That changed, however: “And then Rune went and bought a BMW” (73). Ove takes great pride in driving a Saab, the car of his home country of Sweden. The book has already shown him snidely remark about his neighbor Anders driving an Audi, get into an altercation with a Mercedes driver, and view the new neighbors’ Japanese Toyota with disdain. To Ove, a BMW is unforgiveable.

Ove realizes he’s not sure if Rune even still has the BMW. He reflects on his memories of Rune and their relationship and comes to a realization: “[T]here was a part of him that missed the bloody old sod” (74). He gets up, goes over to Rune and Anita’s, and offers to bleed the radiators.

Chapters 7-9 Analysis

These pivotal chapters pave the way for what could be a turning point in Ove’s narrative. He tries to carry out his suicide attempt, and the question remains whether will he try again. The narrative follows Ove’s fall and hints at his reawakening when Ove reflects on how he and Rune were once friends. The fact that he then goes out of his way to bleed the radiators, coup d’état aside, is indicative of change.

Ove’s love for Sonja is evident in his painful reaction when he hears her name. He then turns the photo of her in the living room away from what will be his suicide scene: “[H]e daren’t put the photograph face down […] Ove’s wife was always horribly ill-tempered if they ended up in some place without a view” (50). He positions her so that her image faces the window.

The issue of destiny arises in Chapter 8. Ove’s beliefs are initially at odds with his wife’s, who believed in destiny. However, after Ove survives his suicide attempt, he reflects on his wife and his path to her, reaffirming the significance of destiny in his life. If Tom hadn’t framed him as a thief, he would never have lost one job and gotten the second that led him to her: “She often said that ‘all roads lead to something you were always predestined to do.’ And for her, perhaps, it was something. But for Ove it was someone” (70).