Same but different

The Girl Who Saved the King of Sweden is Jonas Jonasson's second novel and his self-confessed description is that it is the 'same but different' to The Hundred Year Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared.That's just dandy for me because his first one was the funniest and best novels I've read in ages. It was a pretty good film as well with delicious black humour.

What I like best of all is the way Jonasson rides roughshod over received political opinions about international politics and boils events down to the random actions of different personalities as if the world is just one big dysfunctional family. A country and a country's culture is always more complex and diverse than can possibly be expressed in a single story and yet Jonasson's farce is uncomfortably close to the truth with broad historical events turning on the whim of a few individuals' self-interest. This time apartheid era South Africa, China, Israel and, of course, Swedish politics and monarchy come in for a bit of a working over albeit in a gentle and affectionate way for the King. Can't wait for Hitman Anders and The Meaning of It All.