Grandmother Asked Me To Tell You She's Sorry By Fredrik Backman

My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She’s Sorry by Fredrik Backman would undoubtedly be an entirely different novel without the interconnectedness brought by Granny’s fairy tales. In fact, it is the fairy tales that really make Backman’s work more of a piece of art than a simple work of fiction. Like a normal child, Elsa loves to hear stories and imagine a world where they are true--but unlike a normal child, these stories are integrated into her reality and help her to understand the world. Each story teaches Elsa many lessons, and often reveals more than one character and ties them together. One of the first fairy tales readers explore in the book is the one about Wolfheart and the wurses, the War Without End, and their subsequent banishment

One of the mutts bit Britt-Marie and her mum made a hell of a commotion about it,’ Alf says, a shockingly lengthy description given that it’s coming from Alf. Taxi pulls into the street. Elsa thinks of Granny’s stories about the Princess of Miploris.” (Backman

Britt-Marie is the perfect example of the theme of appearance versus reality; until the tail end of the book, Elsa is confident in her knowledge of Britt-Marie and her character. In contrast, the fairy tale of the Princess of Miploris is introduced on page thirty eight--and the princess is immediately painted in a positive light, as an innocent, goodwilling, beautiful young girl. When Backman revealed that they were one in the same, it rocked Elsa’s world, as well as the reader’s. It is a powerful tool that teaches both readers and Elsa a lesson on the harmful consequences of judgement, and how a person’s outside appearance is not always representative of their inner being and feelings. The way Backman writes the story about Alf, Kent, and Britt-Marie ensures feelings of sympathy in the reader, and often times some guilt as well. Elsa and readers cannot help but feel bad for casting off a woman who clearly has had such unfortunate luck in