Michelle F's Reviews > Sophie's World

This book has existed in my periphery for almost 20 years. A theoretically deeper me was enchanted by the mysterious concept, and I had a hope for philosophical growth and education. My brain was always too impatient to commit, though, so it became a repeat victim of first-chapter abandonment. Couple that with recurring (and arrogant) annoyance with the extremes of the subcultures that tend to find philosophy deep, grooooovey, spiritually enlightening or best soaked in substance and depression, and, well, I just kept putting the damn book off.

I've finally read it, so...

To love, or not to love...okay honestly, that doesn't always have to BE the question (for me, anyway.) I'm perfectly ok with an unpacked smoosh of reaction. But for the purposes of the unpacking, for the purposes of a review, I guess, it kind of becomes THE question.

Gaarder is clever, and that manifests on every page. The layered meta-adventure is perfectly on point for a novel about philosophy. The more I think about it critically, the more I like it, the more I appreciate the layers and the themes and the slow burn.

Another part of me simply did not connect with the presentation.

In large part it was Sophie herself. An unsatisfied teenager who suddenly begins receiving anonymous deep questions by the post and latches onto the mystery of the lessons that follow, and the new worlds of information they contain...it sounds amazing! But Sophie seems too facile, a caricature. If an erudite middle-aged man was writing his vision of a plucky but difficult 15 year old girl for maybe a 9 year old girl to read about, it would be Sophie. She ultimately becomes too annoying to connect with.

Even in basic simplistic introduction, the history of Western Philosophy is a big topic to cover. Gaarder finds fascinating ways to to work the knowledge into not only the lessons but the stories that surround the lessons, but at times even despite this, it can feel like huge blocks of information dump. I liked it better in the early story, when Sophie was receiving her information in actual typed out lessons. Once she meets Alberto and the teaching becomes conversational, the back-and-forth between the two is frustrating. Sophie's questions are too tailored to the information that Gaarder wants to get across, as opposed to realistic. And her interjections, theoretically to break up the exposition, are grating. She vacillates between impossibly insightful and needlessly attitudinal with no depth of character in between, and the amusement of counting how many variations Gaarder can come with of “yes”, “I see”, “I understand” and “Why is that?', sours in short order.

As the layers of the story become apparent there is an almost sudden shift when Albert seems to abandon the sense of the story HE is telling, and to just use it whimsically instead. I understand why that happens, and I can hypothesize about why it gets as out of control as it does, but I was disappointed from a sense of completion. If Sophie and Alberto's story had been told outside of the layers, it could have had some satisfying conclusions. I kind of wanted to see how it was at least meant to end. I can forgive that, I suppose, in light of the bigger picture, but still be a little put out.

In the end of this muddled unpacking, I am waffling between the disconnect and the clear cleverness of the writing. It is most certainly one of those books that I need to reread – to absorb more of the lessons themselves, obviously, and also to really sink into the novel's meta-layers. And yet, I absolutely balk at the prospect of doing so anytime soon.