Sophie's World (FSG Classics)
A brand-new 30th anniversary edition of the wildly popular (over fifty million copies in print!), page-turning novel about a young girl’s exploration of the great philosophical concepts of Western thought.
Jostein Gaarder’s Sophie’s World is an exciting coming-of-age novel that thrives on its contradictions. It is a page-turning science fiction adventure as well as a history of Western philosophy—from the discourses of ancient Greece to debates about the Big Bang.
The games begin when fourteen-year-old Sophie Amundsen finds two notes in her mailbox. One note asks, “Who are you?” The other asks, “Where does the world come from?” From here, with the aid of a devoted but mysterious instructor, Sophie sets off on a fantastic philosophical saga that will take her far beyond her small Norwegian hometown. Letters give way to lectures, questions give way to quests, and the dimensions of Sophie’s world (as well as our own) grow ever wider, deeper, and richer.
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Community Reviews
Sophie's World is a fresh way to look at the history of thoughts thought by the most genius minds over the millennia. The innovation in telling the history enjoins the imagination of telling a story; the story of Sophie Amundsen who, could it be argued, is more real than her real counterpart.
The coming of age for Sophie involves the creative play of splitting or rather multiplying her self ... to evolve into her indubitable double. Is it Hilde reading Sophie or the other way round, turned frantically over the pages, truly amounts to the best bits of the book. The postmodernist blend of fiction and history enables the flight of philosophy which the readers, much like Sophie, would be comfortable to take.
About the 'philosophy' as such, it would be better to hark as much at those other counterparts of the Western world. That the narration jars towards the final scenes is probably an outcome of the literary pull of closing down the circle that deserves to start all over again.
One cannot complain much albeit when at your helm is a girl who knows what is she dealing with and who is firmly taking steps to affirm her journey.
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