Book review: Fredrik Backman writes too gained about male loneliness

Halfway through the ”People with anxiety” I am starting to get difficult to breathe. The man who stands on the bridge and thinking of jumping, the ice-cold karriärkvinnan who insults everyone she meets, the retired couple who live in order to renovate the apartments and sell at a profit. The unsuspecting rabbit Lennart Without Borders (yes, you read that right, the rabbit – but only at certain performances).

And all the others, there are many to choose from.

Lonely people, unhappy people. Life is almost impossible, we make mistakes all the time. It is so incomprehensible much we shall be able, on a daily basis. ”You have to have a job and somewhere to live and a family and you will have to pay taxes and have clean underwear and remember the password to his cursed wi-fi.”

the recognition, by Fredrik Backman. It is simple things, like the usb stick that you can try to put in on the two way, and yet, you always four attempts before you get it right. The irritation that occurs between people who really love each other, the anger between people who do not know each other at all, but happens to collide in everyday life and not even have the energy to be polite.

Fredrik Backman made her debut in 2012 with ”A man called Ove”, a novel about an elderly widower who does not want to live anymore, but stubbornly points out all the faults of others. The book was a success not only in Sweden, where it was filmed, with Rolf Lassgård in the title role, but was also number one on The New York Times saleschart 2016. He has written a number of books since then, on the edit people in an incomprehensible modern world.

Fredrik Backman so special, a tone that balances between despair and reconciliation. He makes continual everyday observations that puts the words on our shortcomings, and spiced with humor in surprising twists and turns. Nevertheless, he can convey hope, and let there always be an outstretched hand, a vital community to the one who is abandoned.

it is Often about men, Fredrik Backman is one of the very few samtidsförfattare that manages to portray male loneliness. Those men who are helpless when the women die or leave them, groping for a foothold in a present where all the old gender roles are urvuxna and the new not fit.

”People with anxiety” trying a failed robber rob a bank. Not to become rich, but to be able to pay the rent and retain custody of the children. The bank uses, of course, no longer cash, and the robber happens to instead take a crowd of lägenhetsspekulanter hostage, resulting in a pretty peaceful deckargåta.

for life is to go overboard, " says Fredrik Backman. But it is difficult to go the where the balance between despair and reconciliation, and get the proportions between them to sue. Fredrik backman's a way that the writing works exceptionally well in the shorter texts, but this time it will be too cumbersome, for the many fun phrases that roll out a fairly thin story.

Maybe that is why the lingering feeling of ”People with anxiety” is grief, of the consolation really is not enough.