A Delightful Palate Cleanser: The Girl Who Saved the King of Sweden by Jonas Jonasson

Written by Kristy Dolson

Now that this record-breaking summer is winding down, let us ease into autumn with a book that is simply delightful. The Girl Who Saved the King of Sweden is a comedic fiction novel by Swedish journalist and author Jonas Jonasson. Despite being a rollicking, laugh-out-loud comedy, this book also has a surprising amount of substance, addressing the issues of sexism, racism, monarchism, and anarchism.

Ever since I had my world rocked in 2016 by Frederick Backman, another Swedish writer, I have kept my eyes open for curious Nordic literature. I happened to pick Jonasson up at my local library the last time I was in Canada, and I really, really liked his second novel. It was ridiculously enjoyable. Belonging to that rare class of nonsensical books, it just grabs readers, pulls them along on an outrageous journey populated with even more outrageous characters, and refuses to let go until the final outlandish page. Even now I am wondering what else Jonasson’s unlikely heroes have gotten themselves into since I closed the book.

The Girl Who Saved the King of Sweden begins in Soweto, South Africa, where a young girl named Nombeko struggles to stay alive and dreams of visiting the National Library in Pretoria. She does not quite make it, however, as she is hit by a car driven by a drunken engineer. Because this is 1970s South Africa, our protagonist is sentenced to seven years of service to the white engineer, who turns out to be the head of South Africa’s top secret nuclear bomb development project. What a twist! So, she finds herself in an extremely secure research facility, cleaning the floors for an alcoholic know-nothing engineer, in what turns out to be a life sentence. But Nombeko is too determined and too smart to let things stay that way, and eventually she manages to escape. But an unfortunate mix-up with the diplomatic mail traps her in another unlikely and seemingly inescapable reality in Sweden.

This book is absolute mayhem and madness – with endearing characters and a heart of gold. The situations have real-world parallels and implications, but the narrative is delivered in a way that will make you laugh, shake your head at the mayhem, and continue reading at an unstoppable pace. I found it incredibly easy to gobble up nearly 200 pages in a single afternoon.

Although the novel jumps around a lot, the timing of events is linear, beginning in the 1960s and ending in 2007. The reader is never lost thanks to superb transitions and fantastic pacing. The dialogue, hilarious and full of wit, serves to develop the characters and their relationships, and to move the plot along. The novel is divided into seven parts and an epilogue, and each part begins with a quote taken from a real-world source. These quotes set the tone of the events to come. It is an utterly charming technique which, as a lover of book quotations, only adds to my overall adoration of this masterpiece.

The Girl Who Saved the King of Sweden is a tour de force on modern Western history and the follies of humans, countries, and world leaders. It is nothing short of brilliant as a looking glass back on the errors of human ways and the foolishness of harmful policies and politics. This book was written to make readers laugh, but I hope it will also make them think more deeply about these follies and the future of humanity. My optimistic side looks forward to Jonasson’s future novel lambasting the harmful isolationist policies of modern politics – assuming we see the pendulum swing back before humanity gets to witness the effects of nuclear warfare, which Nombeko’s Swedish love interest, Holger Two, so efficiently described in his thesis.

I am sorry, did I say we were going to “ease into” fall? My bad. This book is easy to digest. But the issues and themes, when examined and discussed in the current political and social climate, may take a bit longer to break down.

The Author

Kristy Dolson lived in South Korea for five years before taking a year off to travel, read, and spend time with her family in Canada and Australia. She holds a Bachelor of Education and has just moved to Yeosu, where she splits her time between teaching at the new Jeollanamdo International Education Institute and reading as much as she can.