An overripe old age
A relentlessly jaunty sequel turns extreme old age into a second adolescence.
There were moments during The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window when I wished the protagonist had slipped and fractured some cervical vertebrae while doing so. The plot lolloped, the credibility lapsed, the centenarian himself seemed to
veer from middle age to mummification.
So how is this sequel, as Allan Karlsson’s 101st birthday approaches?
At the end of the previous fantasy, he and best mate, petty thief Julius, had arrived in Bali with a suitcase of banknotes. This time, they meet an Indian whose name is silly because it’s Indian, escape a hotel manager via a hot-air balloon stocked with champagne, crash-land in the Indian Ocean and are picked up by a North Korean freighter smuggling uranium. There’s a sidebar on the Congo and Mobutu, then we flick to Angela Merkel’s cellphone and an interview with “supreme leader” Kim Jong-un and his awful tea (awful because it’s foreign). That’s the first 20%.
It’s all relentlessly jaunty and picaresque. Extreme old age appears to be a second adolescence. There are physical pratfalls and knock-downs where a 100-year-old suffers no ill effects. Allan’s
memories skip around the 20th century, from Thatcher and Reagan to Stalin, Mao and Franco, which is relevant enough. Geographically, it’s all over the place – Germany, Kenya, Sweden, Indonesia, Tanzania, Denmark – which is diverting
Jonasson claims his novels are satires. This may surprise readers who see them as cheery slapstick.
enough. Structurally and psychologically, it’s also everywhere and nowhere, which just isn’t enough.
Jonasson claims his novels are satires on the 20th century. This may surprise readers who see them as cheery slapstick. A gallery of world leaders are indeed mocked, mostly in protracted dialogues.
Repetition overwhelms subtlety. Allan and Julius aren’t characters, though the author seems to like his protagonist in a patronising sort of way. They’re props to whom knockabout things happen. There’s much inventiveness: an anti-nuclearweapons coffin, a séance featuring the family cat, a coffee-addicted Nazi and many more. It capers but seldom coheres.
There’s the occasional redeeming note of poignancy: what’s the use of a mobile phone to Allan? Everybody he feels like calling has been dead for years.
Tennyson talked about old age having its honour and its toil. Neither of those applies here. Retire the guy, I say. End elder abuse. ACCIDENTAL FURTHER ADVENTURES OF THE HUNDRED-YEAR-OLD MAN, by Jonas Jonasson (4th Estate, $27.99)