Sophie’s World- An international Best Seller
Author:
Soophie World is written by “Jostein Gaarder”. He was born in Oslo, Norway in 1952. He is a Norwegian writer.
Publication:
Originally published in Norwegian under the title Sofies verden, in 1991.
Soophie World(Norwegian: Sofies verden) was written in 1991 and has been translated into more than 50 languages. There are over 30 million copies in print. When he write the book he thought it would appeal to only special reader but in 1995 the book was most sold novel in the world and sold over 50 million copies.
Sophie’s World became a best-seller in Norway and won the Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis in 1994. The English translation was published in 1995, and the book was reported to be the best-selling book in the world that year.
By the end of 2011, the novel had been translated into fifty-nine languages, with over forty million print copies sold. It is one of the most commercially successful Norwegian novels outside of Norway, and has been adapted into a film and a P.C game.
Abstract:
This novel is all based on Philosophy and the philosophers of life.To Understand Philosophy, Wisdom and Wonder.
Philosophy:
Philosophy the book teach us about
- Existence life is like a magic trick
- The Univer/The World
- Who/What Creates Control
- Who people are
Philospher:
Soophie was introduced to thinkers like Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Augustine,Aquinas,Galileo,Descartes,Locke,Spinoza,Hegel,Kant,Kierkegaard,Marx,Darwin,Freud and Sarte.
There philosophy based on
- Existence life is like a mystery novel
- Who /what creates control
- Who people are
Sophie realizes that she has never really thought about these things before, and when she does she understands that nothing could be more important. It seems that knowing who we really are is necessary for our lives to have meaning and import. Sophie is warned not to let this happen to herself, and when she talks with her mother she realizes that most adults not only do not ask themselves these questions, they think doing so is absurd. She realizes What is most important in life is asking these philosophical questions and most people do not ask them. In fact, a philosopher has more in common with a child than with most adults.
Characters in the Story
Sophie: Sophie is the protagonist of Sophie’s World. She is an inquisitive and spirited fourteen-year-old who learns just before turning fifteen that her life is the invention of Albert Knag. By the end of the story Sophie shows that she is a philosopher, because she has the ability to look at things from a different perspective, she is not much social.Sophie is critical. Sophie is opinionated and she is interested in saying only what she thinks.
Albert o Knox: Sophie’s teacher, Alberto Knox represents the ideal philosopher. He is never quick to judge, and he always thinks about what he is doing. Alberto believes passionately in philosophy, since it helps him understand that his existence and make her think by her own.
Hilde: Hilde is Albert Knag’s daughter and Sophie and Alberto are created for her amusement. Like Sophie, she is a deep thinker. Hilde is also extremely compassionate, and she feels for Sophie and Alberto while her father plays with their lives. She is independent. Hilde thinks things through but also trusts her instincts over her reason sometimes, and her instinct is what tells her that Sophie exists.
Albert Knag: He is Hilde’s father. He has the creative genius to write a book in which his characters become aware of their role as characters in the book. What’s more, he carries on direct interaction with those characters even though they are simply figments of his own imagination. Perhaps it was Albert Knag’s brilliant construction of Sophie and Alberto that allowed them to gain some sort of an existence for themselves. He created Alberto very much in his own image. Albert Knag is a philosopher first and foremost. His book about philosophy is a gift of love to his daughter.
Sophie’s Mother : She is the funny characters in the book because she provides a foil for Sophie’s philosophical adventures. Mrs. Amundsen thinks that her daughter is losing her mind when she starts spouting off about the differences between humans and animals and how thinking makes one a human being.
Joanna: She is Sophie’s best friend and she is loyal and friendly, although she does not think about things in the same way that Sophie does. But Joanna also will not turn away from philosophy
Hilde’s Mother : She has a very minor character in the book. The relationship between Hilde and her father is much more central.
Sophie’s father : He is hardly mentioned throughout the book. He sends his daughter a postcard early on and it is clear that he cares for her, but his work keeps him away from home for most of the year.
Hermes: Alberto’s dog who works as a messenger, bringing Sophie the lectures on philosophy and later taking her to Alberto. Albert Knag uses Hermes to wish Hilde happy birthday and help ruin the continuity of Sophie’s life.
Jeremy : He is the boy who Joanna begins passionately kissing at the end of the garden party. Sophie invites him because she knows that Joanna wants him at the party.
Novel Story:
Sophie Amundsen is a 14-year-old Norwegian teenager girl who lives in Lillesand, Norway.One day when she came from home she found 2 letter from a stranger and a post card addressed to “Hilde Moller Knag” and unknown philosopher letter where she is asked
“Who are you?”
She was amused and there she take interest and than eager to learn the philosophy by accepting to be part of this free course.
Sophie, without the knowledge of her mother, becomes the student of an old philosopher, Alberto Knox. Alberto teaches her about the history of philosophy. She gets a substantive and understandable review from the pre-Socratics to Jean-Paul Sartre. In addition to this, Sophie and Alberto receive postcards addressed to a girl named Hilde from a man named Albert Knag. As time passes, Knag begins to hide birthday messages to Hilde in ever more impossible ways, including hiding one inside an unpeeled banana and making Alberto’s dog, Hermes, speak.
Eventually, through the philosophy of George Berkeley, Sophie and Alberto figure out that their entire world is a literary construction by Albert Knag as a present for Hilde, his daughter, on her 15th birthday. Hilde begins to read the manuscript but begins to turn against her father after he continues to meddle with Sophie’s life by sending fictional characters like Little Red Riding Hood and Ebenezer Scrooge to talk to her.
Alberto helps Sophie fight back against Knag’s control by teaching her everything he knows about philosophy, through the Renaissance, Romanticism, and Existentialism, as well as Darwinism and the ideas of Karl Marx. These take the form of long pages of text, and, later, monologues from Alberto. Alberto manages to concoct a plan so that he and Sophie can finally escape Albert’s imagination. The trick is performed on Midsummer’s Eve, during a “philosophical garden party” that Sophie and her mother arranged to celebrate Sophie’s fifteenth birthday. The party soon descends into chaos as Albert Knag lost his control over the world, causing the guests to react with indifference to extraordinary occurrences. Alberto informs everyone that their world is fictional but the guests react with rage, believing him to be instilling dangerous values in the children. When a Mercedes smashes into the garden, Alberto and Sophie use it as an opportunity to escape. Knag is so focused on writing about the car that he does not notice them escaping into the real world.
Having finished the book, Hilde decides to help Sophie and Alberto get revenge on her father. Alberto and Sophie cannot interact with anything in the real world and cannot be seen by anyone but other fictional characters. A woman from Grimms’ Fairy Tales gives them food before they prepare to witness Knag’s return to Lillesand, Hilde’s home.
While at the airport, Knag receives notes from Hilde set up at shops and gateways, instructing him on items to buy. He becomes increasingly paranoid as he wonders how Hilde is pulling the trick off. When he arrives back home, Hilde has forgiven him now that he has learned what it is like to have his world interfered with. Alberto and Sophie listen as Knag tells Hilde about one last aspect of philosophy—the universe itself. He tells her about the Big Bang and how everything is made up of the same material, which exploded outward at the beginning of time. Hilde learns that when she looks at the stars she is actually seeing into the past. Sophie makes a last effort to communicate with her by hitting her and Knag with a wrench. Knag does not feel anything, but Hilde feels as though a gadfly stung her, and can hear Sophie’s whispers. Sophie wishes to ride in the rowboat but Alberto reminds her that, as they are not real people, they cannot manipulate objects. In spite of this, Sophie manages to untie the rowboat and they ride out onto the lake, immortal and invisible to all but a few. Hilde, inspired and mesmerized by philosophy and reconnected with her father, goes out to get the boat back.
Philosphers Thoughts in the Book:
- Gaarder’s Philosphy :“But when these basic needs have been satisfied—will there still be something that everybody needs? Philosophers think so. They believe that man cannot live by bread alone. Of course, everyone needs food. And everyone needs love and care. But there is something else—apart from that—which everyone needs, and that is to figure out who we are and why we are here”.
In Alberto’s introductory letter to Sophie, he tells her what the aim of philosophy is and why it is central to our lives. Throughout the book, Gaarder repeatedly addresses the importance of philosophy and its relevance to our everyday lives. The only way that we can find meaning in life is through philosophizing, and it is important to have meaning. Some who do not philosophize may think that they have found meaning but in reality, they have simply accepted meaning handed down to them from someone or some tradition. But these are things that each person must work out, and that is why it is so critical that we all engage in philosophical thinking.
- Berkeley Philosophy :“According to Berkeley, my own soul can be the cause of my own ideas—just as when I dream—but only another will or spirit can be the cause of the ideas that make up the ‘corporeal’ world. Everything is due to that spirit which is the cause of ‘everything in everything’ and which ‘all things consist in,’ he said.”
.Berkeley’s idea is not necessarily any more enthralling or brilliant than any of the other philosophers who are discussed in the book. However, it just so happens that Berkeley is right in the case of Alberto and Sophie. They exist in the mind of Albert Knag, who created them in order to give his daughter a spectacular birthday gift. The point is not so much that Berkeley was right but rather a magnificent demonstration of just how relevant philosophy can be to our everyday lives.
Socrates Philosphy: A philosopher knows that in reality he knows very little. That is why he constantly strives to achieve true insight. Socrates was one of these rare people. He knew that he knew nothing about life and the world. And now comes the important part: it troubled him that he knew so little.
One of the most important philosophical truths is the one that Socrates was famous for. Alberto tells Sophie about it early on in their correspondence. Socrates started from the fact that he knew nothing. The statement is paradoxical, but also very powerful. It allowed him to use his ignorance as a tool. If one knows nothing then one can ask questions about anything. Not knowing anything is the first step on the path to philosophical wisdom, and Gaarder continually warns us against assuming knowledge of anything. Descartes doubted everything, and finally the one thing he knew was that he doubted. From that doubt he went on to create a grand philosophy. The point is that in order to actually learn something it is better to strip ourselves of what we think we know or what others have told us.
Why I like :
It is extremely knowledgeable and have reasons of life and living beings. It makes me to view my surrounding and objectives with the perspective of Soophie. Gaarder seems to think that most people live their lives without actually partaking in the most important part of living. It is thinking that is critical, and not just thinking about practical, everyday affairs. We need to think about life itself, to ask why about everything that we normally take for granted.
Interesting facts:
It has underlying mystery of the post card present, and it slowly rise the limelight of different philosophical aspects. This keeps the reads in constant search for the link between the two sides of the novel.
Weak Facts:
It have slow start and then it becomes faster after the middle of the book and this may disorient some readers. But for some it is the strength from the writer to gain readers attention.
Why to read This Book?
To educate Young children and adults about the basis of western philosophy. The value of learning philosophy and understand the human nature from ages and how there views of loge and living being changed with the time. It will make you understand that life is not granted and it’s a gift and every human being must understand there existence.
Reviews:
Over all it is liked by the readers around the world. Its rating is 4.7 according to google search and some of the reader reviews are: Amazon reviews are:
- This book is a fun, fantastical hybrid of fiction and non-fiction reading, primarily geared towards younger adults. The fiction part of it centers around a 14-year-old Norwegian girl named Sophie and her philosophy teacher Alberto. The non-fiction elements (Alberto’s lessons to his younger pupil, a proxy for the reader) are a lovely journey through the history of philosophy. “Cody Allen”. Reviewed on May 11, 2021. Detail Review on A history of philosophy via a fantastical hybrid of fiction and non-fiction (amazon.com)
- I enjoyed the book up to an extent. The book did a nice job talking about the different philosophy and their point of view. But I was not really into the whole a grown man befriending a child of 14, who drops off letter to her. As a father of a daughter, I would not be into being cool about my daughter seeing an old man. I may have missed a point in the story but it was just weird for me. “ Willy P” Reviewed on October 22.2022
- Sophie’s World is a novel about the history of philosophy. It is also a novel about a young Norwegian girl named Sophie. I can’t give away too much of the structure without spoiling some of the mystery that unfolds over the course of the book, but suffice it to say there are some strange twists to the plot that make the story interesting, if a bit bizarre, and are actually useful in illustrating some of the points of the volume.” Spencer” Review on June 29, 2022
- “An extraordinary writer.” —Madeleine L’Engle
Conclusion:
Sophie’s World arrives at the strange conclusion that although it’s important to ask philosophical questions, it’s not particularly important to choose definite answers to these questions. For this reason, Socrates may be the paradigmatic philosopher for Sophie and Alberto: a wise man who accepted that he understood nothing, and never lost his fascination with existence. For Socrates—and perhaps for Sophie and Alberto—philosophy must be an ongoing process of reading, discussing, and contemplating. (This explains why it’s necessary for Sophie to learn about the history of Western philosophy, and why she often goes back to reread her lessons.) Philosophy is about preserving one’s sense of wonder—this, it’s suggested, is the only real wisdom.
Recommendation:
I would recommend this book to all reading enthusiasts. This novel could have been as dull and monotonous as a history book, the friendly and casual tone of the narrative voice, along with a mystery plot, keeps the readers engaged and the flow easy to follow. It will teach the reader philosophical theories through questions about our own lives, and how do we know things? What controls our morals and ethics etc. The concepts and understanding derived become more personal and real, as opposed to being mere textbook knowledge. It will give the habit to always question and ponder upon the very mundane aspects of nature, universe, and everyday life.