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I JUST FINISHED THE WINNERS AND THERE WILL BE MINOR SPOILERS
when I say just I mean like 15 minutes ago— There are still dry tears on my face.
The way Mr Backman spoils the book for us over and over is flawless at giving individuality to the story as a narrative, giving it its own voice, but it’s also a top notch literary device to cultivate plot twists. I was so preoccupied with him telling us—from the beginning—who was going to die that the things that Bang the dog, Mumble’s ending, and all the other little tragedies we watched happen took shocked me to my core
On the subject of the compassion and hopefulness— I can’t even begin to put into words how I feel about the “Time travel can’t be real” lines and the lines written on all the different tombstones in the story, or Alicia’s story
Cannot deal with how the story of Beartown knows itself inside and out and how it tells itself so nonchalantly, spoiling things left and right, and killing our notions of a happy ending before we even get the stupid idea to hope.
"She won't succeed." "It won't be enough." "He will be too late."
But what gets me is how the story also so obviously cares. Cares about the people, about the events that went down, and it knows that the outcome can't be changed but it wishes so damn hard it could be.
"Obviously we still hoped. Dear god, how we hoped." "The people in this town who loved him. There were so many of us."
It's not them, it's us. Almost like the town itself is telling it. Fredrik Backman I am in your walls.