BEARTOWN- Fredrik Backman. A Lesson in Characters
There are just books which resonate with you in ways which pull at your heartstrings. There are stories which make you cry for a million different reasons; that doesn’t mean we stop reading it just means we turn the pages a little slower and a little more carefully. There are stories which aren’t real, that you simply wish were because we’d like to imagine those characters exist if only for a moment. There are stories which teach us moments are all we have, and this is a story about people that deserve a lifetime of moments and only get one. And there are stories which teach us to be better people, this is one of those stories.
BearTown is a beautiful story told by Fredrik Backman, initially translated from Swedish to English. There is a purity to this story, and I have read it twice within the year. After having it initially recommended by Anna from my local independent bookshop. She commented on the fact that I would love this book in a way I wouldn’t love many. I didn’t jump initially, and it took me far too long to buy the book and read it. I am not sure if I told my Mum about it or if she discovered it herself, but she said she’d loved it after reading it. I asked what it was about and she said Ice Hockey and my Mum doesn’t care for sports in any sense of the word. She doesn’t watch sports, movies about sports and certainly doesn’t read books about sports. She must not have known what this story was about before reading the novel. I eventually bought the book and had planned to read it on the plane back to my then-new home. After what had been a tough week, I sat at another airport staring at the cover. I was emotionally broken, exhausted and I’d never felt more guilty.
A lovely woman said over the noise of the airport, that I’d love the book sitting in my lap as I sat trying not to cry. She mentioned she had hated the book herself but had a good feeling I’d love every moment of it. She said a few other things, but she was right about the book. I sucked up my sadness turned over the first page and didn’t stop reading until I arrived home at 3am. I couldn’t help but think of her as I got off that plane, how kind she was to an absolute stranger. I think she knew, part of me wants to believe she knew how hard it was for me to be leaving again and any distraction was a welcome one. I hope wherever she is she’s doing okay, I needed her then and I’m sending out good wishes for her now. If only I thought to ask her name. It’s the best book I’ve read in three years.
I cried on that flight, I learnt we only get a few moments and other people deserve a lifetime of moments. I learnt that sport won’t always influence young people the right way. I learnt and started taking the steps to understand that people keep the worst things that have ever happened to them a secret to protect others. Reading that idea I had tears rolling down my face.
Maybe it was the moment I picked up the book that it made me feel more than I’d felt in years. The timing was perfect, the story made me understand chasing my dreams wasn’t a bad thing; if I was being kind, if I was being a good person.
I thought this book only mattered in a certain moment, but after re-reading this book it still hits in the same tender spots it did the first time. I am reading this book with a different perceptive than I did last time. I have fundamentally changed aspects of who I am since. The same spots which hurt the first time still hurt now, but it’s lines and paragraphs which I didn’t feel mattered the first time hit me now too.
BearTown is a story about an Ice Hockey team which are a bunch of brothers. They are loyal, they care deeply about hockey and they aren’t always the best people. All until an incident happens one night at a party.
There are two quotes from this book that don’t leave me. The first “Some things mean everything and nothing at all.” The second “All the good you do today will be forgotten by others tomorrow. Do good anyway.”
We only ever really get moments and some people who deserve the world but only get a single moment. And maybe you can call that sad but then again even the sadness only lasts a moment. There’s something beautiful about one moment and at the end of the day, it’s all we can really ask for.
