Jonas Jonasson - The Accidental Further Adventures of the Hundred-Year-Old Man

4th Estate

An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.4thEstate.co.uk

This eBook first published in Great Britain by 4th Estate in 2018

Copyright © Jonas Jonasson 2018, first published by Piratförlaget, Sweden, and upon agreement with Brandt New Agency

Translation copyright © Rachel Willson-Broyles 2018

Cover based on a series design by Jonathan Pelham

Jonas Jonasson asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library

This novel is a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN 9780008275570

Ebook Edition © August 2018 ISBN: 9780008275587

Version: 2018-10-03

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Foreword

Indonesia

Indonesia

Indonesia

The Indian Ocean

The Indian Ocean

Congo

North Korea

USA, North Korea

The Indian Ocean

The Indian Ocean

Tanzania

North Korea

North Korea

North Korea

South Korea

North Korea

USA

Switzerland, USA

North Korea

North Korea

USA

USA

USA

USA, Sweden

Sweden

Indonesia

Sweden

Sweden

Sweden

USA

Sweden

Russia

Sweden, Germany

Germany

Denmark, Sweden

Russia

Sweden

Sweden

Sweden

Sweden

Sweden

Sweden

Sweden

Sweden

Russia

Sweden

Sweden

Sweden

Sweden

Sweden

Sweden

Sweden

Sweden

Sweden

Sweden

Sweden

Sweden

Sweden

Sweden, Denmark

Russia

Denmark

Sweden

Denmark, Sweden, Germany

Germany

Russia

Tanzania

Congo

Tanzania

Tanzania, Kenya

Tanzania, Kenya

Kenya

Kenya

Congo

Kenya

Kenya

Indonesia

Kenya, Germany

Kenya

Kenya, Madagascar

Kenya, Germany

Germany

Kenya

Sweden

Madagascar, North Korea, Australia, USA, Russia

Sweden, USA, Russia

Kenya

Extra thanks to:

Also by Jonas Jonasson

About the Publisher

I AM JONAS JONASSON and I want to explain myself.

There was never meant to be a sequel to the story of the hundred-year-old man who climbed out of a window and disappeared. Many people wanted one, not least the protagonist, Allan Karlsson, who kept strolling around inside my head and calling attention to himself whenever he wished.

‘Mr Jonasson,’ he might say, out of nowhere, as I was busy with my own thoughts. ‘Have you changed your mind yet, Mr Jonasson? Don’t you want to have another round before I’m really old?’

No, I didn’t. I’d already said everything I wanted to say about what was perhaps the most miserable century ever. The idea had been that if we reminded one another of all the shortcomings of the twentieth century, maybe it would make us better at remembering and less inclined to make at least those mistakes again. I packaged this message of mine with warmth and humour. Soon the book spread all over the world.

It sure as hell didn’t make the world a better place.

Time passed. My inner Allan stopped getting in touch. All the while, humanity kept moving forwards, or whatever direction it was moving in. Event after event filled me with the sense that the world was more incomplete than ever. All the while, I was just an onlooker.

More and more I started to feel the need to speak up again, in my own way. Or Allan’s. One day I heard myself asking Allan straight out whether he was still with me.

‘Yes, I’m here,’ he said. ‘What might you have on your mind, Mr Jonasson, after such a long time?’

‘I need you,’ I said.

‘For what?’

‘For telling it like it is and, indirectly, how it ought to be.’

‘About everything?’

‘About more or less everything.’

‘Mr Jonasson, you understand that won’t help, right?’

‘Yes, I do.’

‘Good. Count me in.’

* * *

RIGHT, THERE’S ONE MORE THING. This is a novel about recent and present events. I make use of a number of public political figures in the plot, and of people in their immediate vicinity. Most of the characters in the book go by their real names. Others, I have spared.

Since these leaders sometimes look down upon, rather than up at, ordinary folks, it’s reasonable to poke a little fun at them. But that doesn’t make them less than human, every one, and as such they deserve a moderate amount of respect. To all these potentates, I would like to say: I’m sorry. And: Deal with it. It could have been worse. As well as: What if it is?

Jonas Jonasson

A life of luxury on an island in Paradise ought to be satisfactory to just about anyone. But Allan Karlsson had never been just anyone, and his hundred-and-first year of life wasn’t the time to start.

It was, for a certain amount of time, gratifying to sit in a lounger under an umbrella and be served drinks of various colours at whim. Especially when one’s best and only friend, the inveterate petty thief Julius Jonsson, was right next to one.

But soon old Julius and the much older Allan grew tired of doing nothing but frittering away the millions from the suitcase they’d happened to bring with them from Sweden.

Not that there was anything wrong with frittering. It just got so monotonous. Julius tried renting a fully staffed hundred-and-fifty-foot yacht so he and Allan could sit on the foredeck with fishing rods in hand. It would have been a pleasant break if only they enjoyed fishing. Or, for that matter, eating fish. Instead, their yacht excursions involved doing the same thing on deck as they’d already learned to do on the shore. Namely, nothing at all.

Allan, for his part, made sure to fly Harry Belafonte in from the United States to sing three songs on Julius’s birthday – speaking of too much money and not enough to do. Harry stayed for dinner even though he wasn’t paid extra for it. Altogether, this constituted an entire evening of pattern-breaking.

By way of explanation for his selection of Belafonte over anyone else, Allan pointed out that Julius had a soft spot for this newer, youthful sort of music. Julius appreciated the gesture and didn’t mention that the artist in question hadn’t been young since the end of the Second World War. Compared to Allan, he was, of course, a child.