Sophie's World

I can’t give this book five stars due to certain flaws, but nevertheless, it really is one of my favorite books, one of the few books I’ve read twice. Why?

My father was a philosopher, part of that class of people whose books are the absolute hardest to read: full of obscure words and words that have been redefined either by them or by other philosophers that they assume you have read. We once read a philosopher in an ethics class who loved to use the word “ubiquitous.” Ubiquitous. Do you know what ubiquitous means? It means “commonplace, ordinary.” Apparently the irony of using such a non-commonplace word for a word that means commonplace when straight over that philosopher’s head.

And it is just completely unnecessary to use an obscure word if it doesn’t give you any extra sense of meaning over the common one! I have no patience for pretense.

As such, I have always had a love-hate relationship with philosophy. After all, what questions could be more important to contemplate than: Is there such a thing as free will? Is there God, and if so, what can we know about such a being? How do we know what is true; how do we come to knowledge accurately?

I spend great time contemplating these things and I have my thoughts on them, but it’s hard to know if you’re truly having an original thought or just reinventing the wheel if you don’t take the time to actually read all of the existing work in that field.

Thus far in life, I have not had the energy to really go through it all, although I have been investigating ancient Greek and Roman philosophers; I have a vague notion of one day reading all the way up through modern philosophers, but I’m just not going to commit to that level of torture—I mean, pleasure. Yeah, that’s what I meant.

Anyway. I stumbled upon this book when I was a teenager, and it was perfect for me. Sophie’s World is about a Norwegian teenager who starts getting letters in her mailbox with philosophical questions enclosed. First through letters, and then in person, an older man—a philosopher—teaches her all about philosophy, starting from the ancient Greeks and going chronologically through history, showing the progression of thought, how each new era builds on another, showing the cycle of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis.

Did I mention that this older man is having a friendship with her in secret for quite some time? It isn’t until the final act that he meets her mother. And that’s the one reason I just can’t bring myself to give this five stars. I just…no, nothing sexual happens. But it’s just creepy. I just…how did the author think that that would sound ok and fine? But anyways. Setting that completely aside, because at the end of the day, it just sounds bad, but nothing inappropriate happens. So.

For me the whole premise of teaching me the history of philosophy in laymen’s terms, simplified as much as possible, with an overview that’s quick but not too quick, and couches the whole thing in a narrative, is just great. Is it perfect? No, I mean obviously when trying to cover such a technical field concisely there are bound to be things that he leaves out that some people think are important. Now that I’ve read a bunch of Plato, I noticed when I re-read Sophie’s World that there were a couple of points that I disagreed with him on. But overall, I think he did a pretty good job of summarizing Plato and Socrates. I’m not really qualified to say whether he did the same for the other philosophers, but he gives the impression of being pretty fair and even-handed and not fanboying too too much over his favorite philosophers.

This book has been invaluable to me so that I can get an overview of all of philosophy and feel more comfortable with the general topology of the landscape. I re-read it a year or two ago and took copious notes. I will return to them time and again as I continue my journey slowly—veeeeery slowly, because I don’t want to get burned out—on the epic journey of philosophy.

My partner picked up a copy of Sophie's World by Jostein Gaarder in The Children's Society charity shop in Garstang last year (Great book selection there!). We both knew of its hype, but hadn't previously read it so were interested to see how good we thought the book really was. Sadly he gave up about a quarter of the way through so, discouraged, I let it languish on the shelf.

Having finished reading, I now have mixed views on Sophie's World hence the three star rating. On one hand I was fascinated by the potted history of philosophy, most of which I didn't know anything about, and am hoping that at least some of what I read has lodged itself in my brain. There are a lot of names and dates to take in so I would probably need to re-read in short sections - like a textbook - in order to really start learning. However the history is written in such an accessible way that this is something I may well do over the next few months.

The fiction elements of Sophie's World were very disappointing though. I think I understand what Gaarder was trying to achieve with the inclusion of his fictional characters, but I just didn't find their conversations convincing. We are repeated told that Sophie is a fourteen year old girl, but she doesn't speak or act like one and I don't think Norwegian teenagers are so very different from British ones! Everyone appeared more like a plot device than a real person and I frequently found that irritating and distracting. For me, the fictional interludes were a respite from the increasingly intense philosophy, but I would have preferred Gaarder to have written a similarly accessible history of philosophy instead. Then again, without the fictional hook Sophie's World probably wouldn't have hit the bestseller lists!

Para iniciar y sin fin de hacer spoiler, se trata de un libro dentro de otro libro, al punto que en cierto momento estaba atenta por si de pronto, me mencionaban a mí como lectora dentro de los relatos, eso es parte de lo que te hace seguir leyendo.
La historia es sobre Sofía, una joven que está por cumplir los 15 años y de pronto empieza a recibir ciertas preguntas en el buzón de correo que despiertan su curiosidad y le llevan a embarcarse en un curso de filosofía por correspondencia que le invita a plantearse interrogantes sobre la vida, la forma de pensar, e incluso de llegar a cuestionarse su propia realidad. De esa forma profesor y alumna realizan un viaje en el tiempo para comprender de forma sencilla la evolución de diferentes ideologías de la humanidad al lado de los principales pensadores y científicos que con sus contribuciones a la historia le han llevado al punto actual.
El autor hace todo un esfuerzo para resumir 3.000 años de historia en un solo libro, lo que a ratos lo hace cansado, pero que intenta paliar con el misterio y la intriga en el mundo de Sofía y su aprendizaje sobre la filosofía. También hace uso de elementos fantásticos, por lo que no se deben extrañar si en un momento se encuentran con Alicia del País de las Maravillas o con Caperucita Roja. De esta forma el autor busca mantenernos en la lectura para que logremos ver a la joven Sofía cuestionar el papel de la mujer en la filosofía y la historia, así como el tratar de identificarse o descartar las ponencias de los pensadores en estudio.
En realidad se trata de un regalo del padre para una hija, donde cuenta la interesante historia de un profesor con su alumna, provocando que también se despierte la imaginación en la hija para hacer caer a su padre en su propio juego. Al final, el libro nos invita a no dejar de asombrarnos, no perder la capacidad de preguntar, investigar, y seguir cuestionando.
Leído en 2021.

Wie schon Jostein Gaarder's Das Kartengeheimnis zieht einen die Geschichte sofort in seinen Bann. Leider ebenfalls wie beim o.g. Buch hält dies nichtmals bis zu Hälfte, weshalb ich das Buch auch sehr lange nicht zu Ende gelesen habe.

Zwischenzeitlich habe ich versucht es als Audiobuch weiterzuhören, aber mitten im Buch das Medium zu wechseln oder vielleicht auch nur die Stimme der Vorlesering, irgendwie war das noch nicht die Lösung.

Dank Corona wird dies nun endlich nachgeholt...


Die Geschichte in der Geschichte über Hilde und Sophie hat mich leider nicht gecatcht. Was vermutlich an den schwachen Dialogen lag. Dafür aber wieder die Passage über die modernen philosophischen Strömungen.

An unknown person starts writing letters to fourteen years old about philosophy, intrigued by the letters and subject the main character, Sophie gets on to the track to know about western philosophy.

The book is a starting point to know about western philosophy and not any substitute for the history of western philosophy by Bertrand Rusell.

At times, the writing style poses a serious question, is it a fictional or non-fictional work.

The author/translator gets a few facts wrong about India and it's language.

In page 126, ”In Sanskrit, the ancient classical language of India, the gods are called asura and in Persian Ahura.”

Asura may mean God, in most of the time it's used to denote demon or evil.

Author/translator may be unaware of Tamil which also a classical language in India. Rather writing it as ”Sanskrit, one of the classical languages of India ” write it as ”classical language of India”, as of no other language in India has a similar status. You can read more about Tamil’s status of classical language in southasia.berkeley.edu/tamil-classes by George L Hart.

I first read this book 20 years ago, and just finished re-reading it. As I'm sure most people know, it is a compact history of Western philosophy in the guise of a novel. I'd forgotten much of the plot of the fictional part, and it seemed to end differently and more disappointingly than it did the first time I read it.

It reminded me of a few things that I learnt in Philosophy I at university back in 1964, and also reminded me that I was a big fan of Kierkegaard in my teens, and rereading this reminded me why. It also got me thinking -- was that a marker of a significant departure? Did young people of my generation choose two different paths -- some became fans of Ayn Rand, and others became fans of Kierkegaard?

But the book does not mention Ayn Rand, and nor does it mention the modern/postmodern debate. Not a word about Derrida, Lyotard et al.

I'd really like to reread this one sometime. Pure genius.

Sophie’s World is written as a novel but really dives into the history of Philosophy. The book is about a teenage girl, Sophie who keeps getting letters on philosophy in the mail. These letters spark Sophie’s curiosity and provide questions and answers to questions on life. Jostein Gaarder intended the book to be both a novel and a basic guide to philosophy, which made the book very easy to read.

Sophie started her studies with the natural philosophers, before moving onto the popular Greeks (Socrates, Plato and Aristotle) all the way up to Darwin, Freud, and Sartre. Though covering most of the major philosophers Gaarder didn’t shy away from the lesser known or even the controversial ones (Marx). He did a good job of showing the positive and negative points of each philosopher, while trying not to tell the reader which ones are better than others.

The novel aspect of this book is bizarre and intriguing, with little examples of philosophical theories along the way. It did a great job of breaking up the history lesson to bring the reader back to the feeling of reading a novel. I really enjoyed this book and look forward to reading it again. Next time I plan to read it slower and spend time exploring these philosophers in greater detail. Well worth the read and a good introductory point into the world of philosophy.