Tuesday 13 August 2013

The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out Of The Window And Disappeared

by Jonas Jonasson - 3.5 stars


Having decided that if he's going to live he might as well live, on his 100th birthday Allan Karlsson slips quietly through the window of his nursing home and shuffles off into adventure. A rather slow-paced adventure - Allan is 100 years old after all - but a lovely one nonetheless, despite the fact that it's something of a criminal one which will see Allan become involved with a suitcase full of stolen money, rubbish police, violent but thick biker gangs, a thief, and an elephant, amongst other things.

While Allan is on his adventure, we take some stops through his actually rather eventful and Forrest Gump-y life, as his talent for blowing things up combined with his simple practicality soon see him interacting with and influencing important men and events in modern history.

I wanted light and amusing, and got it here with an added dash of quirk. It won't work for everyone - I can certainly imagine that in the wrong mood what charmed me here could have irritated instead - but it certainly put a smile on my face for a couple of days.


No comments:

Post a Comment