Allan Karlsson is about to be faced with the celebration of his one hundredth birthday, a very formal and shallow event in the old people's home he has a room in. He wants to be surrounded by carers and old people, as well as the director of the institution who, as we find out, is not quite his ideal. It Should be the capping of a long and full life-experience, but he does not quite see it that way.
Perhaps his decision to abscond is a spur-of-the-moment thing, Perhaps He has been planning it for a long time. Regardless, as with almost everything That has been a part of his life, where there is a plan there is therefore the opportunity for fate to take a hand and turn things round. His escape is not what he had imagined, and adds another intriguing, comedy-ridden episode to his long life.
And this work is a comedy. It is filled with dark humor, with the twists and turns of Both Opportunity and Fate, with the unexpected and the Stroke of Luck Which age everything. Were did not the case, Allan Karlsson would never have made it into the third decade of his life, let alone the tenth.
No matter what a person's age, They Should Never Give Up, Never Forget That tomorrow is another day and thatthere is more to life than what is happening right now. At the sametime we get to see, through Carefully crafted and interesting flashbacks Exactly what has made Allan Karlsson's life so interesting; how he has managed to cheat the early grip of death many times; how He has literally seen the world, from the good and the bad side of things. We take a part in his optimism, in his zest for the new, in his risk-taking adventures and get to meet some of the great, if more infamous than famous, names of the last century. Across China, Russia, Europe and the United States, we follow his lead and his bluffs as much as his rise and fall. We meet with people who are in the history books onlynames, can put faces to them, can experience a little bit of the human side of each person through the almost naive but Determined character of our hero.
History is shaped by Those Who are there, and Allan Karlsson, we learn, was there more oft than not, hidden in the background but making his presence felt. Whether, at the end of his journey, we can say his active help in forming the course of history was a good thing or not depends on the reader. At least, thanks to a few thrown-together friends, we can be sure of one thing: Life does not stop simply Because You are older than everyone else. There is always a tomorrow, always a new adventure to be lived right outside the door, if we just take the chance and go through it.
