The Reading Column

Akhila Seshadri
The last month has been a really hot one: weather wise, activity wiseevents
wise as well. As I fell to ruminating within myself about what these portended, I
felt a little like a girl called Sophie who found letters for her in her letter bo,
asking her tremendous !uestions and I recalled "ika who came from a planet
where !uestions were more important than answers to them #ut that settled it
for me. I knew what I could write about.
The author: Jostein Gaarder
Books: Sophies World, Hello, Is An!od There" The Solitaire #ster$
These books cannot be categorised as merely fiction, but perhaps as
philosophy and life in fiction, and yet all books are philosophical and about life$
A perpleing conundrum indeed%
The book that made the most impression on me and also introduced me to
&ostein 'aarder was Sophie(s )orld. I will focus on this in the main and hope
that people will find other books of his to read as well. I did find The Solitaire
"ystery and Sophie(s )orld in the *ibrary. I think we should create a section
called Teenagers and +oung Adults, which is where these books could be kept.
"y colleague, a published poet in his own right brought this book to my notice
and said in his laconic way asked me to ,-ust read it(. And I did.
The Stor:%
Sophie(s )orld has a story. )hen the book begins, Sophie Amundson is a ./
year old, living in 0orway with her mother. 1er father is away at sea on an oil
tanker and does not feature in the story.
She begins a strange correspondence course in philosophy. A letter a day in her
mailbo, asks her perpleing !uestions: ,)ho are you$(, for instance. Then she
receives typed pages that address the issues that the !uestions raise. She soon
learns that Alberto 2no is the philosopher who is teaching her. These packages
are couriered via a dog, 1ermes. 3irst, 2no builds up a case for philosophy and
its relevance to life and builds a need for !uestions. ,Should we not !uestion or
ponder our very eistence$( he asks. 2no leads her through a history of western
philosophy: from ancient myths, natural philosophers4who were concerned with
change to 5emocritus who put forth a theory of invisible atoms in all natural
things.
3rom there they move on to the 'reek philosophy schools.
The plot thickens and moves mysteriously, for Sophie also receives a strange
postcard sent to 1ilde "6ller 2nag, care of Sophie. The postcard is from 1ilde(s
father wishing her a happy birthday. Then perpleingly, Sophie receives a scarf
for 1ilde, or belonging to her. #ut she feels sure that this was deeply connected
to the new philosophy course that she was now part of.
She learns about Socrates who was so wise that he declared that he knew that
he knew nothing. Then to 7lato who built a world of ideas. The idea of the horse
eisted before the horse came into being, did it not$ Aristotle criti!ued 7lato and
created a new classification of the natural world, and founded logic and our
theory of concepts.
The Reading Column
Akhila Seshadri
In the meanwhile, the mystery surrounding 1ilde begins to thicken. "ore
postcards arrived, even one dated &une .8
th
, the day that Sophie will turn .8, and
&une .8 is still a month away.
Sophie(s relationship with her mother gets strained as she further progresses in
her philosophy classes, learning now about &esus, the meeting of Indo49uropean
and Semitic cultures, about the :hristian philosophers. She further progresses to
learning about The 1umanists of the ;enaissance and about 5escartes who
knew he could do so by doubting.
Sophie learns about Spino<a, the empiricists, about *ocke, about 2ant, and
about #erkeley. The last suggests that our lives are actually in the mind of 'od. It
is at this point that Sophie realises that both Albert and she are actually creations
of 1ilde(s father who has written about them to teach his daughter philosophy.
Alberto has a plan to escape Albert 2nag=s mind, and they must finish the
philosophy course before that can happen. Things in Sophie=s life have become
completely insane but she and Alberto know they must figure out a way to do
something. It will have to occur on the night of &une .8, when 1ilde=s father
returns home. They rush through "ar, 5arwin, 3reud, and Sartre, desperate to
come up with a plan to escape even though everything they do is known by
1ilde=s father. Then at the end of Sophie=s )orld, the book that 1ilde is reading,
while at a party for Sophie on &une .8, Alberto and Sophie disappear. 1ilde=s
father comes home and they talk about the book, and 1ilde is sure that Sophie
eists somewhere. "eanwhile, Sophie and Alberto have a new eistence as spirit
>they have escaped from Albert 2nag=s mind but they are invisible to other
people and can walk right through them. Sophie wants to try to interfere in the
world of 1ilde and her father, and at the end of the book she is learning how to
do so.
Themes and #oti&s
Sophie(s )orld, therefore, is a novel as well as a history of philosophy.
7hilosophy is not something that ,philosophers( do and by that definition out of
the daily life of ordinary people. ?n the other hand, 'aarder says that it is
integral to life. &ust because we still are clueless about where our world comes
from or what life is does not mean that we stop asking !uestions. The author(s
insistence throughout the book is that the primary function of a philosopher is to
ask !uestions. This premise is really and absolutely fascinating.
The !uestions posed in the book, such as, why we eist, or what is a good life
and the other philosophical !uestions in the book are the most important
!uestions to ask. )hen our physical being is happy, it is necessary to take care
of the psychological realm. )e have been given *ife, we haven(t asked for it and
it is such !uestions that makes it meaningful to us at a personal level. 7hilosophy
stands alone, outside of other disciplines, because in reality 'aarder e!uates it
with living.
The crucial philosophical issue in the book is that of freedom of will. Are we
really given this freedom$ Sophie and Albert 2nag are intelligent enough to
realise that do not eist outside the mind of their creator. Till then, Sophie had
thought that she was a free soul. This illusion is shattered. They learn through
their study of #erkeley that the independence they have is -ust what 1ilde=s father
The Reading Column
Akhila Seshadri
lets them think they have. +et, despite the fact that they are imaginary, Sophie
and Alberto manage to find a way to escape.
So, here is your crucial philosophical !uestion to decide upon. +our free will.
Should you or should you not read the book$ :an you afford not to read it now
that it has featured in The Reading column$ Is it possible to be the ideal wise
teacher like Alberto, the loving thinking father and author like Albert 2nag, the
curious, ecited reader like 1ilde or the eager self4surpassing student who learns
and makes her learning part of her life, like Sophie$
Those who have read the The da Vinci Code would have by now seen the deep
connection between Sophie the name and the word philoS?71y. @my computer
is not wiseA it kept re-ecting the way I had typed it. I had to force it to accept itA
another eample of the computer thinking it had free will%B.
#eing Sophists, you can learn not -ust about wisdom but actually about
becoming wise.
1ave fun.