The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared

I just finished reading the fun book The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson for the second time. I liked it both times–maybe even more the second time around.

The narrative is actually two stories about the same person–Allan Karlsson. The first starts with him at the age of one hundred, just before a planned birthday celebration at the senior home. He is not excited about the idea, so he climbs out of the window and walks away. This story includes a bus, a case with fifty million crowns, a newly found drinking buddy named Julius, gangsters from the Never Again crime organization, the teetotaler Benny who almost completed education in several fields, Gunilla “The Beauty” with her elephant Sonya, Chief Inspector Aronsson searching for Allan, and Prosecutor Ranelid.

The second, interwoven story brings episodes from Allan’s long life. His interest in explosives takes him through many significant events in the world history. He saves General Franco’s life from his own bomb. He accidentally helps design the atomic bomb at Los Alamos and is thanked by Vice President Harry Truman. Working for the Kuomitang, he ends up saving life of Mao Zedong’s third wife. He walks over Himalayas, learning how to make alcohol from goat’s milk. He gets arrested in Iran, manages to escape, and returns back to Sweden. He is captured by the Soviets, but after a messed-up meeting with Stalin is sent to gulag in Vladivostok. His wild journey continues through North Korea, China, France, and back to the Soviet Union as a CIA spy.

Eventually, Allan makes it back to Sweden, where he blows up his own house trying to get rid of a fox, and ends up in the senior home. The book ends where it began—with Allan climbing out of the window.

All the time, he follows his mother’s wisdom: “Things are what they are, and whatever will be will be”. He ignores all ideology and religion, and lives his life quite happily. For me, the book was not only great fun but also full of interesting references to events and people from 20th-century history.