Sophie's World: A Novel about the History of Philosophy Book

It took me two months to get through this 500-page book. I can rationalize the reasons thusly:

' I was busy.

' I took time to absorb the content of the book. Instead of rushing through it, I let each chapter sink in before I moved on.

But that's, you know, rationalizing. Here's the real reason: It's not very good. Okay, wait, that's not fair. Let me start again.

Sophie's World is, as the full title suggests, a "Novel about the history of philosophy." The idea is to present that history as a narrative, featuring a 14-year-old girl named Sophie and her philosophy teacher, Alberto Knox. There are two major premises for the existence of this book:

1. "He who cannot draw on 3,000 years is living hand-to-mouth." This quote by Goethe illustrates that if one is to understand one's world, one needs to understand the history of that world. You could also say "He who does not understand the past is condemned to repeat it." As you will.

2. There is not a worthwhile introductory Philosophy text for young readers. Bertrand Russell's History of Western Philosophy might be a bit much for some people. While the "for young people" part of this premise is spelled out in the text, it's clear that anybody, regardless of age, needs an accessible survey of the history of philosophy if one is to understand one's world.

So enter Sophie's World. It's written in a very light, young-adult way with short sentences and simple language. There's nothing wrong with that if that's what you're after. This aspect grated on me initially, before I actually realized that it's geared for ease of use, as it were.

There are two aspects to this book, since it bills itself as a double-header: it's both a novel and a history. It's fiction and non-fiction. It's entertainment and education. It's tough to combine these things. It's like writing (and reading) two books at once. So, in a sense, I need to review it twice. At once.

Sophie's World: The Novel
Remember I said "It's not very good?" I was talking about the novel/fiction/entertainment half of the book. Here's the plot in a nutshell: Sophie begins getting letters from a stranger. These letters form the text of a correspondence course in philosophy. Sophie learns and grows and begins to think about her world differently.

Great, right? The problem is that a story needs a conflict. This is story-writing 101. At first, you're intrigued because it's a little weird and creepy that Sophie should ' out of the blue ' begin receiving a course in philosophy from a perfect stranger. But absurdly, she just rolls with it and takes it as it comes.

For the first 250 pages or so, nothing happens, story-wise. Sophie gets a new letter. She reads it. She meets the weirdo, they talk. The entire thread of "plot" is just a way to get from one philosophy lesson to the next, and you find yourself discarding the "story" bits and jumping right into the "philosophy" bits.

It's only after the halfway point that a real literary conflict arises and this book starts to hold its own as a novel. Here's the proof: it took me 8 weeks to read the book, but 7 of those weeks were getting through the first half. I blazed through the second half because things were actually happening.

Sophie's World: The History
As a history, the book fares much better. As an introduction to philosophy, or even a refresher survey, it excels. Gaarder, through the character of Alberto Knox, is a superb teacher.

The history hits all the high points of philosophy, starting with the Greeks and moving forward all the way to 20th century existentialism, ending with a brief introduction to the universe (Big Bang, stuff like that).

Obviously, one cannot expect in-depth coverage of any particular subject or philosopher, but there's enough information presented at each stop along the way that a reader can identify what particular aspects they might want to explore further through other channels.

The history is primarily concerned with western philosophy. While it touches sometimes on eastern knowledge, it's only in illustration of particular cases where an eastern thought directly affected a western idea.

Conclusion
Read Sophie's World, even if you think you already what you need to know about the world we're living in. And especially if you don't.

Just be warned: approach this book as a light-hearted textbook, not as an information-heavy novel. Even without the trappings of Sophie's story, the history of philosophy is a fascinating subject, because it's the history of us.