Britt-Marie Was Here. So what? What difference does it make if a 63-year-old divorced woman with obvious psychological and interpersonal challenges shows up in a small, dying town?
Lots.
The author of Britt-Marie Was Here, Fredrik Backman, gave us a feel for what it’s like to be on the inside of the obsessive-compulsive personality in a previous novel, A Man Called Ove. (You can read my review of the film here.) He seems to have a fascination with the personality type and portrays it with both honesty and affection.
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Why You Should Read Britt-Marie was Here
I’m recommending this book (originally in Swedish) to readers of my blog partly because I think they’ll find a lot in common with its protagonist:
- She lives by her lists. “She has to keep a separate list to list all the lists. Otherwise anything could happen. She could die. Or forget to buy baking soda.”
- She’s overly conscientious. Even when it’s not in her interest.
- She’s perfectionistic. She never writes in ink for fear of making an intractable mistake.
- She’s rigid and doesn’t like change. Dinner is at 6. No matter what.
- She’s stubborn and determined. “One doesn’t just give up.”
- She’s neither playful nor spontaneous. That would be irrational and of course she would never be irrational.
(Unfortunately just about every reference to Britt-Marie online says that she has OCD, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. She probably does. But what everyone seems to miss is that she certainly meets the diagnostic criteria for OCPD, Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder. OCPD occurs more frequently, and is more pervasive and often more destructive, yet is less recognized. Part of the mission of this blog is to help people recognize OCPD as different from OCD so that those who have it can get proper treatment. See my post about the differences here.)
I’m also recommending the novel because I believe that the experience of reading it can move us in a positive direction.
I’m not a literary critic, I’m a psychotherapist. I sometimes make suggestions about literature and film because they can help shift us to the healthier end of the compulsive spectrum–so that our “being here” can make a positive difference. And for me, that’s the kind of shift that makes great literature and film.
Here are five reasons to read Britt-Marie Was Here:
1. Britt-Marie helps us to understand our own battle between desire and “common sense.”
Britt-Marie often has feelings—physical and emotional–that she fends off with “common sense.” She would never say “that’s beautiful,” or “that’s poetic,” and rarely allows herself to touch or be touched–even though she longs to do so. She’s sided with “common sense” in this battle for so long that she no longer has her own dreams—literal or figurative.
We witness this painfully and wonder why she can’t permit herself such innocent luxuries.
As if we didn’t do the same.
We come to see that “common sense” isn’t necessarily good sense.
2. Britt-Marie will help you laugh at yourself.
As most of us do, Britt-Marie has ideas about how things should be. When these ideas aren’t your ideas, you can see how amusingly absurd they are:
Forks. Knives. Spoons.
In that order.
Britt-Marie is certainly not the kind of person who judges other people. Far from it.
But surely no civilized person would even think of arranging a cutlery drawer in a different way from how cutlery drawers are supposed to be arranged?
We’re not animals are we?
We laugh. As if we didn’t do the same. Maybe her story will help you take your story about how things should be just a little less seriously.
3. You’ll see the fatal flaw in the compulsive’s misunderstanding of what people want from us.
Britt-Marie spends much of her energy making sure that others don’t think badly about her. Her guiding mantra is “What would people think?”
She speaks formally and sets about proving that she is a clean, civilized person. Not a barbarian or criminal.
She seeks a job because she’s become totally isolated. If she were to die no-one would know, and her corpse would leave a horrible stench in the apartment building. What would people think of her then?
She’s the people-pleasing type of compulsive, yet she’s still astonishingly good at offending others. Her husband says she’s socially incompetent.
This is because she’s confused about what people want from her.
When she goes to get a job and meets the counselor at the employment office, she calculates that she should say something nice to her. So, she tries. But thinking that honesty is what people want, she miscalculates:
You have a very modern hairstyle.
What? Oh. Thanks…
It’s very courageous of you to wear your hair so short when you have such a large forehead.
She just doesn’t get that people aren’t as interested in how honest or clean or organized she is, as in what sort of friend she might be.
This is the classic misunderstanding that most compulsives fall into: they think that people want perfection, not connection.
Her new friend, appreciating her quirks, tries to enlighten her: “That is why I like you, Britt. You are also human.”
4. You’ll see Britt-Marie develop the potential benefits of her compulsive personality.
Despite her quirks Britt-Marie is able to do good. In fact, only someone with her special quirks—including dogged determination–could save the day and pull off the feats she does.
Everyone likes Kent [her husband] when they first meet him. It takes years to see his bad side. With Britt-Marie it’s the other way around.”
At first you might say she’s rigid and harsh. But her perseverance and conscientiousness turn out to have redemptive value.
I won’t tell you just what happens in the story, but I will share what goes on inside of her:
Something within her decides, against her most reasonably protesting common sense, that this is a good point in Britt-Marie’s life to stand her ground a bit.
Compulsion, in this instance an internal urge of the most noble kind, finally overrides self-conscious “sensibility,” and makes Britt-Marie a heroine. Her capacity to act on these urges independently and productively awakens, and it serves both her and her new community.
In a brave throwback to 1960’s humanistic psychology, Britt-Marie says that in the months away from her husband she has been “self-actualizing.” Her compulsions come to serve a purpose, rather than drive her meaninglessly.
5. Britt-Marie just might inspire you to reach for positive change when things are bad.
Britt-Marie suspects she’s in one of those periods that people call “life crises.” But she’s avoided change her entire life, and she’s mostly skeptical about the possibility of it ever getting better.
She woke up in great spirits. Another day. This alone should have immediately made her suspicious, because little good can come out of waking up all enthusiastic like that.
But something else in her opens to the possibility of positive change.
She loves her balcony and the flower boxes she nurtures there. The plants in the boxes that she has rescued and replanted over time have become symbolic for her. She takes them with her when she leaves her husband and the Big City for a small dying town:
The balcony boxes may look as if they only contain soil, but underneath there are flowers waiting for spring. The winter requires whoever is doing the watering to have a bit of faith, in order to believe that what looks empty has every potential. Britt-Marie no longer knows whether she has faith or just hope. Maybe neither.
The compulsive life can grow flat. Depression is common.
But she begins to realize both that that strategy will lead nowhere, and that change can actually be good.
Britt-Marie’s quirks force her into a heroic quest, leaving her familiar, comfortable home in search of…well…herself? That’s what heroes and heroines usually find. In her case her actualization includes finding her self-reliance while at the same time using her strengths to support community.
She becomes less judgmental and even opens up enough to experience the passion of soccer, a religion of undying hope. She jumps up in expectation and exultation for her team and returns to the ground a changed woman. Something has come alive in her.
She becomes the unlikely heroine savior of a small town that’s closing down because “it’s no longer profitable.” This town may represent the fruitless life Britt-Marie had come to inhabit, and the possibility of new life emerging.
Britt-Marie was here. She found herself and made her mark.
***
Of course, this is all naïve and unrealistic.
Or is it? This is an important question for compulsives. With a deep devotion to what we like to think of as “common sense,” most of us rarely make time for such inefficient indulgences as fiction, especially not such a fantastical variety of fiction.
And that’s part of the problem. We’re too busy preventing the inevitable fall of civilization that would happen if we let things get out of order to allow ourselves to have experiences that can truly move us.
It’s emotions that move us to a better place. Not common sense.
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