Hitman Anders and the Meaning of It All

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But as the book continues on, and the story of one Johan Andersson unfolds, you begin to realise that no one’s life story is as simple and straightforward as it appears and that even a dimwitted, easily-conned dispatcher of people for the mob and other unsavoury criminal elements might regret his choice of vocation and long for an altogether different life. The novel is so very poorly plotted. Hitman Anders becomes a celebrity for breaking people’s arms and legs – really, why would the public venerate an ordinary gangster? And why aren’t the police arresting him? He’s literally advertising that he will hospitalise people for money and admitting to assault in the national papers – isn’t that evidence enough for the police to at least have a chat with him? But no, apparently the Swedish police are useless, or else grievous bodily harm isn’t a crime in Sweden. Maybe that’s the satirical element – is Jonas Jonasson saying that Swedish gangsters get away with blatant crimes? Who knows. But towards the end of the novel, Anders finally gets put away when he assaults a guy from the government – I guess that’s the line in the sand? Yeah, that’s not at all contrived. One minute it’s fine for Anders to go around breaking people’s arms and legs then suddenly, when the story needs that to change, it’s not. And for using them to delightfully skewer all kinds of societal and organisational pretensions in such a way that people you wouldn’t normally sympathise with suddenly become entirely relatable. In a former brothel turned low-rent hotel, the lives of three unusual strangers—a former female priest, recently fired from her church; the ruined grandson of an ex-millionaire working as a receptionist; and Killer-Anders, a murderer newly released from prison—accidently collide with darkly hilarious results.

Somehow, Allan Karlsson [the protagonist in The One-Hundred-Year-Old Man] became less worried about everything the more I worried about everything. I wouldn’t like to be like him because he’s a political idiot but still, up to this day, he’s sitting on my shoulder when I get worried telling me “Just calm down”. He’s my therapist. I know this though: the book should come with a warning about drinking any kind of beverage, especially Moldovan red wine, when reading Hitman Anders, lest liquid come out of your nose, when you snort at the one of the many funny, clever sentences. This reminds me of Joseph Heller too. Well, that's for you to learn, but what you will have gathered is that this is a quite unusual plot. There really does seem no way to pin this down as being akin to anything else. Drink, lapsed religious types, vengeful gangsters and people permanently out of their comfort zone are all ripely given by Graham Greene's entertainments, but this doesn't read like them. It has the warm clarity, gentle character of comedy and over-arching humanist tone of Mitch Albom, but again the style isn't correct. This might well only be categorisable as a Jonas Jonasson book – this being the first of his three I've read I really couldn't properly say.After all, who hasn’t sat there at some point, no matter how successful their life might appear on the surface, wondering if there isn’t more to things than what’s before you.

a b "The Meaning of it All". complete review. Archived from the original on December 14, 2010 . Retrieved February 15, 2011. a b c d Wilson, Wayne (March 2000). "The Meaning of It All". American Humanist Association. Archived from the original on December 16, 2010 . Retrieved February 14, 2011. The writer of internationally-successful novels The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared, and The Girl Who Saved the King of Sweden, Jonasson is a man with a gift for drawing together disparate characters and elements and fashioning into a thoroughly convincing, not to mention hilarious, whole. Hitman Anders follows much the same format as Jonasson's previous two books, The Hundred Year Old Man and The Girl Who Saved the King of Sweden. In each, an cast of unlikely characters come together in an even more unlikely combination, and a madcap adventure ensues. Together these two people, who share a distaste for the world in all its disappointing forms – their list of things they hate doesn’t shrink a little as the novel goes on and they realise that perhaps life does have something quite likable to offer them – and who believe there is no chance of anything good lasting long enough to change their circumstances for good, bond together, and with Hitman Anders embark on a zany search the length and breadth of southern Sweden in the search for the elusive meaning of it all.

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A madcap new novel from the #1 internationally bestselling author of The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and The Girl Who Saved the King of Sweden Neither the receptionist nor the priest had any experience of how the housing market worked. Per person has spent his entire adult life sleeping behind a hotel lobby or in a camper-van. Johanna Kjellander’s knowledge of the same matter encompassed little more than her dad’s parsonage, a student-housing corridor in Uppsala, and her dad’s parsonage again (as a new graduate she’d had to commute between her childhood bedroom and her job, twelve miles away; this was the most freedom her dad would allow).” (p. 315) Maybe you’ll find the answers you seek, and maybe you won’t – even with the happy ending of sorts that graces the book, no one gets to live a fairytale which is the way of things if we’re going to be brutally honest – but like Hitman Anders and his thoroughly pragmatic and often unwilling partners in life-changing crime, you may find that life has a way of serving you up just you need at the exact moment you figure it’s given up on you for good.

Focusing more on hotel receptionist Per Persson and shamed priest Johanna Kjellerman than the titular Hitman, Jonasson chronicles their first encounter when the priest tries to rip off Persson, and it all goes downhill from there. The characters are all so morally corrupt, that no matter how much good they try to do, it always left me with a bad taste in my mouth. Their constant scamming and Robin Hood-esque redistributions of wealth, may appear at first glance admirable, but their singular motivation always seems to be their own financial gain, leaving the reader pretty much disliking everyone in the whole book. k.a. φίλοι του μια παστόρισσα που δεν πιστεύει στο Θεό αλλά έγινε κληρικός γιατί την πίεζε ο πατέρας της να τιμήσει την οικογενειακή παράδοση και ένας ρεσεψιονίστας που για όλα κατηγορούσε τον παππού του που από εκατομμυριούχος πτώχευσε, αφήνοντας την οικογένειά του (δηλαδή τον πατέρα του, πολλά χρόνια προτού γεννηθεί αυτός) στην τύχη τους. Και ο Άντερς, μη φανταστείτε ότι είναι κακός άνθρωπος, απλά κάποια στιγμή παραφέρθηκε, συνδύασε αλκοόλ με χάπια, ξέρετε τώρα, ατυχήματα συμβαίνουν - και όταν αυτά καταλήγουν με ακέφαλους ή τρύπιους από σφαίρες ανθρώπους, σου βγαίνει το ρημάδι το όνομα χωρίς να φταις.... Probably not by launching a ridiculously profitable hit man service, or fleeing into the wilds and not-so-wilds of Sweden in a campervan and dispensing money to deserving causes while you wage a hearts-and-minds campaign through the press, but who’s to say that wouldn’t work for you too? Like the author’s previous outings, Hitman Anders was a low-effort read that rattled along at a fair pace. And once again there is that curiously flippant way of describing dark and painful events, no matter who they affect, which makes classic British understatement look like Italian melodrama. Having noticed similar in other Swedish authors’ light fiction, A Man Called Ove and, more so in The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend, I’m getting the impression that it may be a national thing, not just a Jonas Jonasson thing: Scandinavian stoicism. I like it, and it makes me feel a little more stoic whilst reading, even whilst I imagine it may offend or bewilder some other readers. a b c Kintisch, Eli (1998). "A Physicist's Fantasia". The Yale Review of Books. Archived from the original on June 29, 2011 . Retrieved February 14, 2011.Having loved Jonas Jonasson's previous tomes "The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared" and "The Girl Who Saved the King of Sweden" I was super excited to get my hands on his latest effort "Hitman Anders and the Meaning of It All". Sadly, it was a bit of a disappointment. For those who have read / listened to either of the author's previous books, there is nothing really surprising here, and if you enjoyed those books, I'd highly recommend this one to you as well. The same unpredictable twisting plot and the same vein of light humour flows throughout this story.

Hitman Anders, recently out of prison, is doing small jobs for the big gangsters. Then his life takes an unexpected turn when he meets a female Protestant vicar (who also happens to be an atheist), and a homeless receptionist at a former brothel which is now a one-star hotel. The three join forces and concoct an unusual business plan based on Hitman Anders’ skills and his fearsome reputation. The vicar and receptionist will organize jobs for a group of gangsters, and will attract customers using the tabloids’ love of lurid headlines. 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. Moloney, Daniel P. (November 1998). "Question Everything?". First Things. Archived from the original on November 11, 2014 . Retrieved November 11, 2014. A mordantly funny and loopily freewheeling novel about ageing disgracefully’ Sunday Times (on The Hundred-Year-Old Man)It took me a while to get into this novel, mostly due to the strong authorial voice employed. 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. While no author should just keep doing the same thing over and over again, to me this tale felt too far removed from Jonasson's previous style to have me falling in love with the characters. Whilst a lot of the things that I loved in Jonasson's other novels were present - quirky personalities, happy coincidences and a lot of heart - the moral compass of this tale was way off. All in all, if you want to read a novel that doesn't take too much effort and, in a diverse way (considering the subject matter), does have a feel-good factor rather like watching a farce on television or in the theatre, then give this a go.