At the beginning, I just could not understand the relationship between Ove and Parvaneh. It looks wired. Parvaneh is active and Ove passive. Parvaneh is always asking and Ove always giving. It was unbalanced. I did not know why Ove allowed her to get into his life. Maybe Ove liked Parvaneh because her personality likes his deceased wife Sonja? Maybe Parvaneh knew this and took the advantage of him? Or did Parvaneh love Ove, not the father-and-daughter’s love, but lovers’ love? It made little sense to me.

Until one day I suddenly understand why Ove could have this relationship with Parvaneh -- he wanted to be useful, too.

Ove lost his wife and then his job. He did not have any children or relatives. His friend had Alzheimer’s disease. The world dumped him. He was USELESS. This is the worst thing could happen to a human being. We are so hungry for the feeling of importance; we are craving for being needed -- being needed by family, by colleges, by friends and by the society. Even for kids, they want your attention. If they could not get it, they make a fuss to attract your attention.

Parvaneh knew that. So she asked Ove for help, starting from small things like borrowing a ladder to giving her a ride to acting as a grandfather to her kids. Slowly, she broke the ice in Ove’s heart, gave him reasons to be alive because they NEED him. She used her action, but not words, to tell him that he is useful and important. What a smart woman!

Ove was a miserable man, but he was lucky to meet Sonja and Parvaneh.

Here are two paragraphs I love so much:

A few mornings later Ove walked past the neighbor’s house and saw the elderly man feeding the birds in the company of a little boy. A grandchild of his, Ove realized. He watched them surreptitiously through the bedroom window. The way the older man and the boy spoke in low voices with each other, as if they were sharing some great secret. It reminded him of something.

“Now, you listen to me,” says Ove calmly while he carefully closes the door. “You’ve given birth to two children and quite soon you’ll be squeezing out a third. You’ve come here from a land far away and most likely you fled war and persecution and all sorts of other nonsense. You’ve learned a new language and got yourself an education and you’re holding together a family of obvious incompetents. And I’ll be damned if I’ve seen you afraid of a single bloody thing in this world before now.”