I've listened to Fredrik Backman's novel Britt-Marie Was Here three times. I love Britt-Marie.
I listen to a lot
of reading material: novels, non-fiction, scriptures, and religious works. It
helps get me out the door for long walks, do weight-training, and sweep and scrub
my kitchen floor.
When I was a
schoolgirl, I invariably answered the question grown-ups often asked children,
What do you like to do, with a one-word answer: read. Reading opened up worlds
to me.
When reading became
difficult, a few decades ago, it was a deep wound to my self-image. I was a
reader, that was near the core of my identity. Yet my depression, and
medication, took that away.
After several years
of resignation, I finally took my son Matt’s advice and tried audiobooks. It
opened up the world again. I still have trouble retaining what I hear, but at
least I can comprehend and enjoy it at the time.
I belong to a
women’s book group and in November 2021 Brit-Marie was on offer. A book
about a socially-incompetent old woman, a ‘nagbag’ who starts coaching a
children’s soccer team? I took a pass. But it was late fall of 2021 and the
group was going to meet in person. Introvert though I am, I was starved for
social contact. So, four days before the meeting I changed my mind, got the
audiobook, and was smitten.
Backman
has a marvelous talent (I’ve now listened to A Man Called Ove, My
Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She’s Sorry, Britt-Marie Was Here, And Every
Morning the Way Home Gets Longer and Longer, Beartown, Us Against You, The Deal
of a Lifetime, Things My Son Needs to Know About the World, and Anxious
People. The Winners is on my Libby hold shelf). He draws complex and
sympathetic characters and helps readers fall in love with unlikely candidates.
He’s an astute chronicler of human nature with all its nobility and foibles.
Many
of us may be like Britt-Marie, more complex and layered than can be detected
from the outside. Britt-Marie is so much more than her nagbag exterior. She has
a history no one fully knows and appreciates and capacity even she is unaware
of. I believe that’s part of being human.
Henry
Wadsworth Longfellow, the most famous American poet of the mid-nineteenth
century, observed, “Every man has his secret sorrows which the world knows not,
and often times we call a man cold when he is only sad.
I
whole-heartedly recommend Britt-Marie and every other Fredrik Backman
book. If you do read it, or already have, leave us a comment. I’d love to hear
your thoughts.
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