Hitman Anders and the Meaning of It All

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But no, apparently the Swedish police are useless, or else grievous bodily harm isn’t a crime in Sweden. Si aceasta, la fel ca si celalalte, este scrisa intr-un mod absolut delicios, tratând niste subiecte "fierbinti" ale societății de astăzi, printr-un sarcasm fin, ce frizează realitatea. As wildly funny and unexpected as Jonasson's previous bestselling novels, Hitman Anders and the Meaning of It All is a zany, feel-good adventure story, tenderly and hilariously exploring belief, redemption, and the fact that it's never too late to start again. I found myself thinking about Andrey Kurkov’s novels about how fucked up life in Ukraine is, and Ryu Murakami’s books In the Miso Soup and Audition, and wishing that Hitman Anders was on a par. Incorrectly billed as a comedy by a desperate PR department, Hitman Anders and the Meaning of It All is a dreary crime caper that thinks it’s clever by making the highly original observations that, 1) Christianity is a bit of a silly religion and 2) tabloid newspapers are trash.

Perhaps she, sometimes reminiscent of pre-Counter-Reformation indulgence-sellers, or fraudulent televangelists, is meant to symbolise negative aspects of the church in a country where people still pay taxes to it, and where freedom of religion was made legal much later than in Britain. In an ironic aside in Chapter 57, the narrator acknowledges this lack of plot progression when he comments, "In some sense, one could say that they [the two main characters] were back in the vicinity of Chapter 16 of this story," but making a joke about this absence of forward progression doesn't make it ok. Unlike Jonas Jonasson's other novel, this one didn't manage to impress me and I even thought about DNFing it at some points. It’s left me (and I daresay publishers) wondering whether Jonasson is ever going to produce another The Hundred-Year Old Man ever again, or change direction, or if this is pretty much it - but the narrative still kept me interested in what would happen to the characters, and aside from a few moments of cringing, it was relaxing and escapist, which is, after all, the purpose of books like this one. After a long career as a journalist, media consultant and television producer, Jonas Jonasson decided to start a new life.The 100-year-old man and company may have all been reprobates of one type or another, but they were endearing and funny. A story of God, organised crime and faith in which Hitman Anders, Sweden's most tattooed assassin finds God after meeting an atheist protestant priest and the receptionist of an hotel cum brothel. But, whilst Johanna and Per both crave material wealth as a substitute for emotionally nurturing parents, I’m damned if I can see what any character other than Johanna is meant to symbolise individually - and besides, that sounds a bit high-concept for a Jonasson novel. Once I'd accepted that Jonas Jonasson was narrating the tale as would someone versed in the oral tradition of storytelling, and I got into the rhythm of it, then the novel grew on me. The story is a commentary on the violence of modern life, from the psychological violence of growing up with an alcoholic parent who rejects you and sets the benchmark for your misanthropy to the actual violence of being an alcoholic pill popper whose tendency to violence while under the influence leads you to become a hitman.

Of course it is the characters that carry the story as we move from one highly unlikely situation to another. If you get the chance, even if you get a copy from the library, I do recommend The 100 Year Old Man. För fem år sedan så läste jag ”Hundraåringen som klev ut genom fönstret och försvann” och den fick en fyra i betyg från mig. Funny, witty and just when you think you know where he's going he throws in a twist that keeps you flipping the page.

It’s easy and it’s been done people, move on or else have something original to say about it, which Jonasson doesn’t.

Back at the hotel, he’s about to give this priest, Johanna Kjellander, the room next to the hitman, when a gangster-type drops in half the agreed fee for a job half done by the hitman. Lucidni akteri ( dosta karakternih paralela sa likovima iz knjige prethodnice, apsurdisticki zaplet, road trip.Along the way, it explores the consequences of fanaticism, the sensationalist press, the entrepreneurial spirit and straightforward human stupidity—and underlying all of it, the tenuous hope that it’s never too late to start again. Hitman Anders may not have lived up to the author’s previous books (and it was strange to preview it in March when Jonasson was otherwise a summer read for me. Events were rolling along nicely until about half way through when the plot began to run in circles.