100 Year Old Man Who Climbed out the Window and Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson (2011)

(Translated from Swedish in 2012.) This is the funniest book I have read in a long time. It is a quirky kind of funny that just hit me right and I found myself laughing out loud. Written by a Swede, about a Swede in places I can visualize, as I have been to a bit of Sweden. The book is dedicated to the author's grandfather who had said something like: "Whatever is the truth is not worth listening to." So this is a tall tale, reminding me of Baron von Münchhausen. On the other hand, it is a Forest Gump story, where our main character Allan Karlsson happens to be at key events in world history and gets to meet three US presidents, Stalin, Mao, Churchill and more.

There are two main story lines. One is that of Allan in May 2005 starting on the day he turns 100 years old and doesn't want to celebrate it at the old folks home, so he climbs out the window without a plan, but a little money in his pocket. He goes down to the bus station and his adventures begin. As in various fairy tales I have read, one character starts the ball rolling, meets another character unhappy with his lot in life, who joins the first and off they go until they meet the next, etc. Jonasson ends up stringing six very different people together and we get back stories on all of them. Actually it is eight characters, if you include the elephant and dog. There are villains, dead bodies, bags of money, police investigations, car chases, you get it all.

It is Allan that is the glue that holds them together and his background is the other main plot line. We get his life story in chunks that intersperse with the current story. Allan was born in 1905, his father was a revolutionary who went off to Russia to depose the czar and died there. Young Allan works in an explosives factory where he learns the skills that sometimes get him in trouble, but at others open doors for him. So he travels the world - Spanish civil war, U.S. during WWII, China, Iran, Russia, N. Korea, Bali, etc. Over those years he learns Spanish, English, Chinese, Russian and probably more languages. He sees first hand events of the 20th century, sometimes having a role in them.

Allan is such a laid back, positive character, who doesn't care for politics, religion or money, though he sometimes has a substantial amount of the latter. He is such a likable character (I would like to meet him) that world leaders ask him to eat with them, but he gets along just as well with criminals and other unsavory characters. Plus he is convinced that everything will go more smoothly with some vodka.

We meet historical figures, but I also love many of the secondary characters, like Benny, who is an almost vet, doctor, lawyer, etc. or Sonya, the elephant, who's story on how she ended up in Beauty's barn is hysterical. Or the whole episode with Herbert Einstein, Albert's not so bright brother, which leads to many "he's no Einstein" jokes. But it didn't feel like jokes were being told, just very funny stories. I see one more of Jonas Jonasson's book translations in Amazon, so luckily there will be more to read in the future.