Spoilers and such.
Basically, this is a book you should read without knowing anything more than the title.
The story of a Swedish Forest Gump and how his miraculous luck leads him from one history changing moment to another. The story is broken into two narratives, one that follows the hundred year old Allan Karlsson as he randomly stumbles through a number of adventures dealing with drug dealers and thugs of one sort or another and the other following around a much younger Allan Karlsson as he alters the course of human history.
Along the way he meets gangsters, world leaders, Einstein’s idiot son, a Beauty, an Elephant, and a Police Detective. There are a lot of funny moments. A lot of WTF moments. And a lot of moments that stretch the willing suspension of disbelief. But then, I never needed to believe that Forest really became a millionaire selling shrimp. It is a nice string of coincidences that finds our hero in his happily ever after.
Easily the most unusual aspect of the book is that it’s set in Sweden, features a Swedish hero, and is filled to the gills with absolutely incomprehensible Swedish place names. I listened to the audiobook and to me it sounded like The Swedish Chef from The Muppets whenever a town or proper name was mentioned. This didn’t stop from enjoying the book, just reminded me how little I know about the rest of the world. Alan does travel a good deal and ends up in all kinds of places, but his home is Sweden and it is to Sweden he often returns.
Alan has two superpowers, his amazing luck and his ability to inspire people to underestimate him, and often completely ignore him. This comes in handy when he sweeps the floor at Los Alamos and figures out how to make the Bomb work. It also allows him to make off with a large sum of money when he is a hundred years old.
The 100 Year Old Man was a fun book.
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