The hundred-year man who jumped out of the window and disappeared - by Jonas Jonassen

The hundred-year man who jumped out of the window and disappeared - by Jonas Jonassen

Discussed April 2013


As usual there was quite a variety of opinion on this book bringing out both lighthearted amusement and enjoyment with some and irritation and  tedium with others.

So, what were the good bits?

* Interesting how the book interwove a variety of scenes in 20th century history
* Simplistic light-hearted Swedish humour
* Innocence and quirkiness of the story
* Marginal implausibility of the storyline throughout(just a bit)
* The concept of an OAP breaking loose from the shackles of his Home and finding freedom.
* The use of vodka throughout to lubricate the storyline.
* A reminder of the good old days growing up making pipe bombs !?
* The escapism of climbing through a window to live a hedonistic lifestyle
* The subtle interlinking of Presidents and world leaders into the story
* Lightly written and better than Dickens -Mildly amusing and occasionally enjoyable.

and the less good bits.....

* The Swedish humour does not translate well - too much slapstick and lack of sophistication
* Silly, farcical and repetitive
* Were all the historical flashbacks really correct? Misleading information about nuclear weapons.
* Tiresome and the rot really set in when the elephant turned up!
* Could have been a shorter novella.
* Leading character was too a-political.
* Story lacked any female involvement
* Rather like the Tom Sharpe Wilt farces - basic unsophisticated humour level.

- So really a book you've got to read to find out whether it amuses or irritates you.

Interestingly after the initial debate there was then discussion about whether in fact there were  more profound and hidden meanings in the book than had been discovered. Was it just  a lighthearted and ' frothy' read or was there was much more depth in the story that might have been missed by the erudite panel? Well nobody was quite sure but it was clear that with a lot of vodka the story moved along with a fair pace which kept everybody mildly amused some of the time.
.... Perhaps the final message ( as retirement beckons - for some anyway ) was that there may be hope for all of us .......so long as we can still get our leg over the window cill. ( no jokes)

Chris W.

Richard V: I have finally read this, having now managed to catch up on the books I could not get in India.  I really enjoyed this book, for lots of reasons.  I enjoyed the easy style and found the humour generally acceptable (unusually for me) and I very much enjoyed the overall quirkiness of it.  I really liked the speedy examination of most  of the important historical events over the 20th century, and the book reminded me a lot of the Woody Allen film, Zelig, where WA appears as part of all of these historic situations - and that was what our protagonist did here, too.

So, a clever book, rather erudite in its understanding of history (although, having read Chris's notes above, I agree that he may not have represented the creation of the Atomic Bomb with complete accuracy!), and with a very light touch.  I might recommend it to someone who dislikes history but would quite like to know what did happen in the world over the last 100 years! 

I see the notes above have no scores, but my score is: 7.5