The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared – Jonas Jonasson

 

Suggested to be read and discussed about by the book club in my office, I was a bit apprehensive whether to give the book a try solely owing to the title that suggested a “kids book”. However, after going through a couple of blobs on the book, I finally made up my mind and bought the kindle edition, not knowing that with the book I was buying a couple more happy hours of reading.

The book is, as the title suggests, about a hundred-year-old Alan Karlsson who jumps out of his retirement-home window, minutes before his hundredth birthday celebration. The book then traverses parallelly through the present-day as well as past expeditions of Alan, frequently making switches between chapters. Originally written in Swedish, I read the English translation by Roy Bradburry who have captured the essence to the full, I believe. A whooping 400+ pages seemed a bit challenging at first but the outright crazy happenings in Alan’s life just keeps it going in the flick of an eye.

Though this book do not speak volumes of philosophy, it shows how Alan lived his life in his terms, got into troubles, learnt from it, committed new adventures, learnt from it again and thus moved on. It shows a simple way of living without complicating life more than what is required. Will start “What I liked” section with one of the favorite sentences in the book which I took to my heart and life.

What I liked

-            People could do what they wanted but Alan considered that in general it was quite unnecessary to be grumpy if you had the chance not to.”

-            The absolute craziness that ruled Alan’s life and his decisions is sure to ease the readers off any stress.

-            All the historical situations mentioned are satirically exaggerated to a point which probes the readers’ opinions on whether these are true events or not.

-            The book offers a lot of moments which guarantee laugh-out-loud’ moments and some of which stay with us for a long time even after finishing the book.

-            Though fiction, and we are aware that a hundred-year-old man cannot pull off such acts, there are places in the book wherein we ask to ourselves “If a hundred-year-old man can do that, why can’t you!”.

Honestly there was no single page, line on the book I can think of that needs changing and I loved every part of it. If you are ready to put aside facts, logic and reality, and strap in for a 400 pages fun adventure ride, this is the right book!