Book Review

Sophie's World:

A Novel About the History of Philosophy

By Jostein Gaarder

I haven't been reading too many good books lately, as you can tell from the dearth of reviews on this blog. So I went to the library the other day, firmly resolved to shove those old thrillers and my Harry Potters aside, and read something Enriching and Informative. Thought I'd have to settle for something boring. I was thrilled when I was able to get my hands on Sophie's World.

The author, Jostein Gaarder, is a Norwegian writer and former philosophy teacher. The foil for Gaarder's pedagogic fantasy is Sophie Amundsen, a spunky 14-year-old whose philosophic journey begins when a pair of timeless posers -- "Who are you?" and "Where does the world come from?" -- appear mysteriously in her mailbox. A follow-up envelope containing typewritten pages titled "What Is Philosophy?" orient her on a correspondence course in the history of philosophy that eventually turns into a Socratic tutorial.

Sophie's enthusiasm shocks her mother, who attributes her newfound interest in the mysteries of life to the influence of drugs.

Nothing could be further from the truth (at least until the Kierkegaard chapter, when things do get a trifle psychedelic). Sophie's tutor, Alberto Knox, grounds the philosopher's project in maintaining a sense of wonder, but on the whole he is clean and sober indeed. What keeps the novel moving are the tricks Gaarder plays with reality and illusion. Sophie begins receiving postcards addressed from a United Nations observer in Lebanon to his own 15-year-old daughter, Hilde. As Sophie gradually becomes aware of her existence within a book (within a book (within a book)), the philosophical question gradually take on an existential tinge, embracing problems of determinacy and free will.

The story-plot of the book (for want of a better term) was certainly delightful in places. The author quite ingeniously puts a new spin on staple Amar Chitra Katha concepts like time passing at different rates for two separate worlds; and sometimes there's a marvellous quality of resonance and unity between the plot and the philosophical discussions at that point. But the plot is decidedly thin overall. Gaarder sets things up reasonably well, and the plot payoff is really quite disappointing. Even the major characters (Sophie, Hilde, Knox, the Major) move and speak with the stiffness of cardboard. But the plot, in the end, is completely secondary.

The philosophical discussions themselves are excellent, summarising the teachings of the great philosophical masters with surprising simplicity and clarity. In tracing the course of philosophy, the discussions end up detailing social and political development too. I found this especially satisfying, because philosophical ideas do indeed shape politics and social trends, and sometimes vice versa, and it was a pleasure to read an author who realised the significance of this.

It's tempting to get all warm and gloopy over these things, but having done the trumpeting, I must say doubt the accuracy of Jostein Gaarder's summaries. It seems impossible to me that Plato and Aristotle and Spinoza can be discussed in the space of a couple of hundred pages, if the discussion is to fully represent each of their philosophical outlooks. I myself haven't read the original work (scary thought, that), but I suspect there have been many simplifications and favourable interpretations of these philosophers' work to preserve a unity of theme in the book itself. If so, it would be a great pity.

Then there is the question of the author's own bias, which certainly creeps rather heavily into the book, and that's where my enthusiasm for the book waned. For example, in this passage - towards the culmination of the book, the philosopher is teaching young Sophie about a 'pivotal' development of 20th century philosophy [p 463]:

In our own time, we also have completly new problems to face. The most serious are those of the environment. A central philosophical direction in the twentieth century is therefore ecophilosophy or ecosophy, as one of its founders, the Norwegian philosopher Arne Naess, has called it. Many ecophilosophers in the western world have warned that western civilization as a whole is on a fundamentally wrong track, racing towards a head-on collision with the limits of what our planet can tolerate.

...There is something basically wrong with western thought, they claim."

"I think they are right." [Sophie responded]

Ha, ha.

Predictably, Marx gets very sympathetic treatment [p 398]:

[Sophie] "If conditions were as bad as you say, I think I would have signed that Manifesto. But conditions are surely a lot different today?"

"In Norway they are, but they aren't everywhere. Many people still live under inhuman conditions while they continue to produce commodities that make capitalists richer and richer. Marx called this exploitation"

...On the other hand, it would be unreasonable to blame Marx for the negative factors in the so-called socialist countries fifty or a hundred years after his death. But maybe he had given too little thought to the people who would be the administrators of communist society."

Which rather reminded me of RK, actually, who thinks something similar of Marx - his ideals were right, he just forgot about the implementation part. Phthooey. Ongoing advertisements for environmental activism and world federalism via the United the Nations add to the novel's liberal agenda. Presumably, then, the "eco-philosophers" have solved the problems that plagued the socialists, right?

The ommissions irked me more - there's not a word about the pro-capitalist "econo-philosophers"; for instance, there's no mention of Adam Smith despite the deep coverage afforded to his contemporaries. Ayn Rand isn't mentioned either. (This would have been understandable in a mainstream, ivory tower kind of book because those idiots don't take Rand very seriously, but cannot be overlooked in this one, more so because Sophie laments the dearth of women philosophers on several occasions.)

At worst, Gaarder's book is a philosophical Ikea, whose clean lines and slick marketing offer a one-size-fits-all coziness, masking the bitter ideological rivalries and utter radicalism that characterizes so much of philosophy's history. At best, the book reveals the importance and prevalence of philosophical questions throughout different cultures and times, and the healthiness of the open, enquiring and curious mind. So while it may not be the ideal, unbiased reference book, it does make for an excellent, entertaining read that does manage to Enrich and Inform.

Rating: 7/10