Comedies are tricky things.
Jokes or conceits that I find simply dull, you may find hilarious – or offensive. I remember loathing ‘A short history of tractors in Ukrainan’ despite it being universally feted as a ‘jolly romp’ and I found that ‘Then we came to the End’ – supposedly a satire of modern office-life written in the plural third-person – left me cold. Humour in translation is even trickier; cultural barriers can be more damaging than any language difficulties. Something that fits beautifully into one country’s comedic tradition may fail to make a similar impression abroad. Or it may even work better in a different format. (Some fans swear that ‘The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’ make a better radio play than book, although of course it was a play first.) Could ‘The hundred-year-old-man who climbed out of the window and disappeared’ really be as funny as the jacket’s praise claimed?
What’s it about?
It’s Allan Karlsson’s 100th birthday and he is about to attend a party in his honour at his residential care home. Except that he isn’t. Reluctant to attend the party, he steps out the window and is soon on a bus with a suitcase full of cash, a petty criminal on his tail and some incompetent police officers fumbling in the background.
As his increasingly unlikely journey continues, Allan collects associates, commits a few manslaughters and continues to outwit the police. Meanwhile, Jonasson reveals Allan’s earlier life, a life in which he has played a surprisingly important role in world history.
What’s it like?
A bit mad. Nothing daunted by his frail body – after all, he reminds himself, he once crossed the Himalayas, and that was no picnic – Allan gathers together a ragtag group of unusual people and one elephant. Despite the realistic descriptions of events, this is a rather fantastical tale from the start and may not suit readers who prefer straightforward realism or fantasy instead of the muddle of the two which creates the picaresque.
Allan collects associates, commits a few manslaughters and continues to outwit the police.
Despite Allan’s complete lack of interest in politics, readers might be advised to refresh their historical knowledge; Allan meets many of the leaders of the twentieth century, often in some rather odd situations. I was mildly amused by this habit of his, but feel I would have been much more entertained if I had greater knowledge of or interest in the cold war in particular. History buffs should love this.
Most of the minor characters are intensely politically minded, so there is much focus on dictators, despots and the ideals of democracy throughout; uninterested readers can skim these spiels much as Allan does, but there is an awful lot of politics to consume if you aren’t politically minded. Interestingly, the major characters tend to share Allan’s apathy, unless of course they can make some money out of a situation. If Jonasson has something he wants to say about politics, domestic and international, it seems he has a rather bleak view; the idealists die, the fanatics prosper…until they all die too.
Black humour is present throughout, not least in Allan’s habit of taking everyone at their word and being ready to blow things up for them. (If Stalin says that he’s a nice bloke, who is Allan to doubt him?) Jonasson’s humour seems very mild but I am not sure that Rod Bradbury has translated it particularly well and have heard that the book is much funnier in the original Swedish.
I can easily envisage this as a cartoon with 2D characters chasing each other across the screen.
However, it may be simpler than that. Much of the comedy is a bit slapstick and perhaps more suited to a TV cartoon than a book. I can easily envisage this as a cartoon with 2D characters chasing each other across the screen. The joy of this approach would be that the story could be consumed in bite-sized chunks and therefore would remain lightly amusing. Personally, I find the difficulty with this kind of sustained light humour is that after a while it actually makes for quite dull continuous reading. I need regular breaks in order to more readily appreciate the daft, dark humour.
One aspect I did enjoy was the focus on story-telling towards the end. Allan is, of course, a consummate story-teller, used to adapting his narrative to suit his audience, and it was entertaining to see him putting together a story to suit the final situation he finds himself in. The ending itself is just as surreal as the rest of the book and requires a hefty suspension of disbelief.
Final thoughts
I quite enjoyed reading this book as long as I read it in small chunks, but I wasn’t sufficiently interested in Russian-American politics to find it deeply engaging.
I prefer realistic books and occasionally became a bit frustrated with the random coincidences and odd characters, but if I had approached this with different expectations I don’t think that it would have bothered me.
Look familiar?
‘The hundred-year-old man who’ has been such an ‘international best selling sensation’ (according to the front cover) that the cover design and title has been imitated not only by Jonsson himself, who will publish ‘The girl who saved the king of Sweden’ in April, but also by his fellow Swedish novelist Catharina Ingelman-Sundberg, whose book ‘The Little Old Lady who broke all the rules’ was published in the UK in January. Interestingly, Ingelman-Sundberg’s crime caper is also translated by Rod Bradbury, so presumably his work on Jonsson’s book was received positively.
As for me, I’ll be steering clear of both those capers and settling down with the latest book group choice, Liane Morriarty’s ‘The Husband’s Secret’, for some more realistic drama.