Heroes come in all forms

Jonas Jonasson combines funny with fantasy in The Girl Who Saved The King of Sweden

My interest in Swedish writers began after reading Fredrik Backman’s A Man Called Ove last year — one of those rare books that can honestly be labelled ‘brilliant from start to finish’. It was in my hunt for other possibly gifted peers of his that I came across Jonas Jonasson’s The Girl Who Saved The King Of Sweden. First published in 2012, it’s certainly not fresh on the shelves; it was, however, written by the same author whose debut novel I knew to be a runaway hit.
The girl in question is Nombeko — and the last person you’d ever expect to make contact with the ruling monarch of Sweden, considering she is a black girl born into a community of latrine emptiers, 14,000 miles away in Soweto, South Africa. But a twist of fate — and an even more twisted judicial system — somehow lands her in the employ of the perpetually inebriated engineer who happened to run her down in the street. The engineer is a complete halfwit, but also in charge of South Africa’s secret nuclear weapons programme — and it is only Nombeko’s natural cerebral genius that saves him face on more than one occasion.
Jonasson relies on the most absurd situations to keep his story going. From making a break for it with three Chinese sisters and an atomic bomb in tow (don’t ask), and agents from the world’s most dangerous intelligence agency hot on their trail, to (accidentally) kidnapping the Swedish king and premier in the back of a potato truck, you can be sure of nary a dull moment in this book.
A former journalist himself, one of the best parts of the book is Jonasson’s running commentary on world politics that drip satire. Like this bit: “In Sweden, the Russian president had become more famous for the state visit on which he was so blotto that he demanded that the country, which had no coal power plants, must close all its coal power plants. An exciting follow-up to this event was… when the most developed country in the world made such a mess of its own presidential election that it took several weeks for the Supreme Court to decide 5-4 that the candidate with the most votes had lost. With this, George W Bush became the president of the United States… Incidentally, Bush later invaded Iraq in order to eliminate all the weapons Saddam Hussein didn’t have. There’s a history book we’d all have loved to read!”
The author’s laugh-out-loud humour is present throughout, while the maddest characters abound — including Nombeko’s Swedish boyfriend and his radical Republican brother, who are actually, on paper, one person; a paranoid war veteran who saw the CIA everywhere he went; and a potato-farming countess whose angry granddaughter had a beef with everyone and everything.
My only grouse was that the plot could’ve thickened a little less. Nombeko kept finding herself in perfectly fantastic situations (in the overly imaginative, not incredible, sense), and these seemed to drag on for far too long. I suppose though, if you can completely suspend your sense of disbelief, The Girl Who Saved The King Of Sweden is perfectly capable of saving your weekend too.
karen@khaleejtimes.com

The Girl Who Saved The King Of Sweden
Jonas Jonasson
> 419 pages
> Publisher: Fourth Estate
> Available at Jashanmal