The Hundred Year Old Man Who Climbed Out Of The Window And Disappeared is a Swedish Novel by Jonas Jonasson, that has been translated into English by Rod Bradbury.
It was quite a novel experience reading a Swedish Novel that did not focus on horrific crimes and murders. However, this is a difficult book to categorise. There is humor, there is crime, there is social insight, well developed characters, loads of history and a man who finds himself slap bang in the middle of it all.
The life story of the 100 year old Alan Karlsson is told in two tracks of present and flashback.The book starts with him climbing out of the window of his old age home, and his adventures from that point and also shares with us the most interesting life that he has led to date. Think Forrest Gump, but with a lot more depth to the story and an equally if not more loveable lead character.
Alan Karlsson, is a simple character with simple needs, who hates politics of any kind, but finds himself in the middle of almost every political war of the century. From Spain to America to China to Iran to Indonesia to Russia. His simplicity puts him in complicated situations, but also extracts him from those same situations.
This is not a book that can be captured in a review, you have to read it for yourself.
Very, very heavily recommended.
Rating : 4.75 / 5
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