The 100 Year Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared — Jonas Jonasson

Read: 08.20.16

Centenarian Allan Emmanuel Karlsson is anti-religion, anti-politics, immoral, objective, and pro-alcohol. He's the best. In contrast to his white-sheet personality, Allan lived an extraordinary life. From creating the Atom Bomb to altering the fates of the Spanish, Chinese, and Russian revolution, it would not be an exaggeration to say that the Swedish Vodka-enthusiast had quite the historical influence. I won't say anymore to refrain from spoiling the book but I strongly recommend it as a fun read.

Jonas Jonasson accomplishes some amazing things with his novel. One of them being that he seamlessly incorporates other characters into Allan's stories, including their unique backgrounds and motives. This allows readers to interact with each character differently and obtain a new understanding of the novel as a whole. It was a completely different feeling (almost Godly?) to know the history of every introduced character in a fictional piece. Everyone has a story. 

Another interesting characteristic of Jonasson's writing was reader participation. Whenever possible, Jonasson invites the reader to complete his descriptions. As a result, an exclusive telling of the story is created, one unique for each reader. For example:

“The young man got up again, and explained to the ticket seller what would happen to him, his wife, his children, and his home if he told the police or anybody else what had just occurred.” (14)

Without explicitly stating what the young man says, Jonasson borrows the help of his readers for the finishing touches. At this point, readers know enough about the young man's personality to imagine the words he spoke, how they were phrased, and the accent in which they were stated. Additionally, Jonasson provides just enough detail that personal interpretations won't diverge too far from each other, thus maintaining the plot's flow. 

Here's one for imagery instead of dialogue:

"Nature had not yet succeeded in entirely eating up the tracks, but it was only a matter of time.”

Another characteristic of Jonasson's craft I appreciated, although extremely tangential, is his passage about the Korean War. The matter-of-fact tone was a fresh reminder of our country's past. 

“The Korean Peninsula was kind of left over when the Second World War ended. Stalin and Truman each occupied a bit in brotherly agreement, and decided that the 38th parallel would separate north from south. This was then followed by negotiations lasting forever about how Korea should be able to govern itself, but since Stalin and Truman didn’t really have the same political views (not at all, in fact) it all ended up like in Germany. First the United States established a South Korea, upon which the Soviet Union retaliated with a North Korea. And then the Americans and the Russians left the Koreans to get on with it.

But it hadn’t worked out so well. Kim Il Sung in the north and Syngman Rhee in the south, each thought that he was best suited to govern the entire peninsula, and then they had started a war.

But after three years, and perhaps four million dead, absolutely nothing had changed. The north was still the north, and the south was still the south. And the 38th parallel still kept them apart.” (281-282)

All in all, the book was a joy to read. It's been awhile since I picked up a novel, but I decided to try switching between fiction and nonfiction more regularly. As usual, I'll list some of my favorite quotes from the book below. Take a look through them.

“It wasn’t that Allan took an opposite view of the ways of the world and argue accordingly. No, he simply had no opinion whatsoever.” (82) 

[after Estebán got blown up by enemy mortar]:

“for his part, Allan looked around at what was left of his friend and decided that it wasn’t worth picking up the bits” (86) 

“Allan had always reasoned about religion that if you couldn’t know for sure then there was no point in going around guessing.” (183)

“Bosse was a hit when he pulled out the Bible and said that now he would tell them the story of how he, quite involuntarily, came to read the whole book from beginning to end. Allan wondered what devilish method of torture Bosse had suffered, but that wasn’t what lay behind it.” (237)

“Yury Borisovich and Allan Emmanuel immediately took a liking to each other. To agree to follow him without knowing where he was going or why— that impressed Yury Borisovich and indicated that there was something devil-may-care about Allan that Yury himself lacked. And as for Allan, well, he appreciated the fact that for once he could talk with somebody who didn’t try to fill him with politics and religion.” (246)

“Allan interrupted the two brothers by saying that he had been out and about in the world and if there was one thing he had learned it was that the very biggest and apparently most impossible conflicts on earth were based on the dialogue: “You are stupid, no , it’s you who are stupid, no, it’s you who are stupid.” The solution, said Allan, was often to down a bottle of vodka together and then look ahead.” (230)