The return to work after a four-day weekend is bad news for the spirit and is most damaging to cheer, but would not affect the likes of Allan Karlsson. The protagonist of Jonas Jonasson’s novel is blithely unaffected by politics, religion and the misery of monotony and chooses instead to go through his life with a minimum attachment to anything bar vodka and his signature optimism.
Read this book for Karlsson’s unique take on things as much as for the story of his life and final hooray with an eccentric bunch of conspirators. I did, and like to think a little of Allan’s unique lightheartedness has provided me with an aegis with which to face the coming week.