Contents
This is a love story. No, it’s more about compassion and humanity. Or not, this is an ironic detective … However, she really talks about everything together. Like all books by Fredrik Backman. And it just came in handy in this troubling 2020.
The plot is really detective — before the New Year, a man decides to rob a bank. Trying to hide from the police, he finds himself in an apartment for sale and takes hostage those who came to view. When the strange demand of the «terrorist» is fulfilled and the hostages are released, it turns out that he himself has disappeared without a trace. The mysterious case is investigated by two police officers, interviewing witnesses and testing hypotheses.
There is some naivety in the book — as if the narration is being conducted by someone who is very important to tell everything well, in detail, without missing anything. The one who is attentive to each hero in the same way as to a real, living person. And they are really alive with Backman — with their experiences, secrets, with their pain, which they hide even from loved ones, and a «facade» that they show to strangers.
Everyone who is involved in this story could become its main character. Backman patiently and with gentle humor tells us about these people — about the living and the departed, young and old, happy and unhappy.
If you are trying to find the resources within yourself to live with even greater uncertainty, this book is an invaluable gift.
We look at them through his eyes. With warmth and love, digging out in each, even unpleasant, character that good and vulnerable thing that was so carefully hidden and disguised. Gradually, we discover the cause-and-effect relationships that connect each event and all the characters in the story.
The action of the novel takes place just before the New Year — and in a sense it is a real Christmas story. And this means that there must be a place for a miracle in it. The title of the book is in tune with what is happening to us today, in this strange and disturbing 2020.
If you, like many others, are trying to find the resources within yourself to learn how to live in conditions of even greater uncertainty, this book is an invaluable gift. She gives hope and faith in people. Into yourself. In the fact that in this world — imperfect, sometimes ridiculously absurd, and sometimes cruel — there is kindness and light. Light is in each of us.
Fragment from the book
Chapter 75
«WANT TO KNOW THE TRUTH? The truth about everything that happened? The truth is that this is a story about everything in the world, but mostly about idiots. We do everything we can. We are trying to learn how to be adults, love each other and insert the USB flash drive into the slot with the right side. We are looking for something to cling to, something to fight for. What to hope for. We try our best to teach children to swim. This unites us, and still we remain strangers, we never know how our actions will resonate in others. How will your life resonate with mine?
We hurry about our business, in a close stream, not noticing how we touch each other with the skirts of our coats, and immediately disperse in different directions.
I don’t know who you are, we are strangers to each other. But in the evening, when you get home, when the day ends and the night comes, take a deep breath. You and I made it through the day.
Tomorrow will be a new one.»
Fredrik Backman «Anxious People» (Sinbad, 2020).