Review: THE ONE HUNDRED YEAR OLD MAN WHO CLIMBED OUT THE WINDOW AND DISAPPEARED, Jonas Jonasson

• 
  first published in Swedish in 2009
  
• translated into English by Rod Bradbury in 2012
• ISBN 978-1-74331-127-1
• 384 pages
• author website 

Synopsis (publisher)

After a long and eventful life Allan Karlsson is moved to a nursing home to await the inevitable. But his health refuses to fail and as his 100th birthday looms a huge party is planned. Allan wants no part of it and decides to climb out the window...

Charming and funny; a European publishing phenomenon.

Sitting quietly in his room in an old people's home, Allan Karlsson is waiting for a party he doesn't want to begin. His one-hundredth birthday party to be precise. The Mayor will be there. The press will be there. But, as it turns out, Allan will not . . .

Escaping (in his slippers) through his bedroom window, into the flowerbed, Allan makes his getaway. And so begins his picaresque and unlikely journey involving a suitcase full of cash, a few thugs, a very friendly hot-dog stand operator, a few deaths, an elephant and incompetent police. As his escapades unfold, Allan's earlier life is revealed. A life in which - remarkably - he played a key role behind the scenes in some of the momentous events of the twentieth century.

The One Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared is a charming, warm and funny novel, beautifully woven with history and politics. 

My Take

Surprisingly Allan Karlsson has featured in nearly every important political milestone of the twentieth century world since 1929. He has been helpful to almost every one of the world's most important political leaders among them Truman, Churchill, Mao Tse tung, Nixon and others.

Karlsson's true talent is explosives including THE Bomb.
So while it is a black comedy, the story of Allan Karlsson's life presents a kaleidoscope of history, how one man has played East against West and vice versa.
His escape from the nursing home on the morning of his 100th birthday leads to him being on the run, wanted for murder by the police, and surviving for another month before he is recaptured.

Recollections of the main events of his life are set against this struggle for survival and Karlsson's philosophy about the important things in life.

This novel reminds me a little of a Mad Comic, episodic, not meant to be taken at face value, but at the same time full of little wisdoms.
I have to say that I did get a little tired of the seemingly endless list of adventures and escapades in Allan Karlsson's life, at the same time wanting to know how it all ended. 

My rating: 4.5

About the author
In 2007, I sold everything I owned, packed my bag and placed myself under a palm tree by Lake Lugano, laptop in lap.
Exactly twelve months later, I finished the manuscript. The one I had been carrying around in my mind for so long. Lovingly, it rips the twentieth century of all its glory and righteousness. And yet it embraces life. How could it not? How could we not? The alternative must be boring beyond everything!
Anyway, I sent the manuscript to six different publishing companies. Five of them turned it down, the sixths called me and said yes before they finished reading. Success was in the making, they said. They got bold and printed seven thousand copies in the first go. "Seven thousand? Are you sure?"
"You can never be sure", they said.
It sold ten million. Encouraging enough to give it another try.