In order to escape celebrating his 100th birthday at the retirement home, Allan Karlsson climbs out of his bedroom window with only a few dollars in his pocket and the slippers on his feet. Once he reaches the bus depot, he buys a one-way ticket to as far as his money will take him. While waiting for his bus, he is asked to guard a suitcase for a stranger, but while the man is using the restroom, Allan decides to confiscate the luggage, hops on the bus and thus begins another adventure in the inconceivable life of The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared.
The story follows Allan Karlsson on his antics with the suitcase, the unlikely people who help him as he eludes the owner, including a lady with a pet elephant, and the mishaps of his pursuers. It also includes flashbacks of Allan's life, from birth until he lands up in the retirement home. In the way Forrest Gump met up with many a famous character, Allan also encounters some very famous people throughout his lifetime, however unlike Gump, Karlsson becomes involved in ways that shape history. Here are just a few of the people Allan meets: Franco, Stalin, Churchill, Kim Il Sung, Kim Jong Il, de Gaulle, Mao, and US Presidents Truman, Johnson and Nixon.
Here are a few of the situations in which he makes a contribution: a trek through the Himalayas in which he saves the wife of Chairman Mao, undercover CIA agent, involvement in the Manhattan Project, USA/USSR disarmament and Star Wars.
Pretty funny read.
