The Hundred Year Old Man Who Climbed Out Of The Window And Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson is a crackling, sharp, witty, rock-star of a novel.
The original Swedish novel has been translated into English by Rod Bradbury. I picked this up at a recent 80% discount, but would recommend you to buy it, even if you are paying 400% premium. Books like this don’t come around often and you shouldn’t miss this one.
The life story of the 100 year old Alan Karlsson is told in two tracks of present and flashback.
No words can do justice to the experience of reading this breathtakingly funny book. I broke into laughter on every second page. While the book is a solid 389 pages long, halfway into the book you would hope that the story never ends. As Alan continues his current journey out of the window, each new character he meets turns out to be wilder than the previous.
While the current story line is hilarious, Alan’s past is downright maniacal. Over his 100 year life journey he meets significant historical characters like General Franco, Roosevelt, Truman, Johnson, De Gaulle, Churchill, Stalin, Mao and some-one who turns out to be Einstein’s Brother.
While each of these meetings are crazily funny, the impact of these meetings are outlandishly enormous. To give you a sample - our hero Alan seems to be at the center of great revolutions in Iran, Spain and China. He has trekked across the Himalayas. He also seems to be the person responsible for the invention of the atom bomb, strangely for both America and Russia. If your head is already spinning, wait to you read the funniest book of the year.
This novel is an epic and I am sure it will inspire many more novels and movies.
Rating : 4.5 / 5
No comments:
Post a Comment