Sophie's World (Norwegian: 'Sofies verden') is a novel by
Jostein Gaarder about a Norwegian girl, Sophie Amundsen, who one day starts receiving letters with philosophy lessons from a mysterious stranger. Together they explore the entire history of philosophy, and find out more about who they are themselves. It is a lot less dry than it sounds, thanks to the personality of Sophie and a big twist near the end.
The story is full of mysteries. Who is Alberto Knox, the philosophy teacher? Why would a UN major send his daughter Hilde postcards by way of Sophie, who doesn't know either of them? How do Hilde's scarf and other objects find their way into Sophie's world?
Originally written in Norwegian,
Sophie's World has been translated into 54 languages. There is a little known but
surprisingly faithful and
good movie adaptation made in the late 1990s. A computer game was also based on the novel.
The book is both a mystery novel and a fun philosophy course in itself, so it is heavily recommended as an introduction or refresher to philosophy, for both children (not too young, of course) and adults.
Wild Mass Guessing had it that the book is in fact written by
Roald Dahl or written under his command.
Spiritualized's
Magnum Opus Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space is named after a line from it.
This novel contains the following tropes:
- Arc Words: "Happy birthday, Hilde!"
- Author Avatar: Alberto Knox, for Major Albert Knag.
- Conversational Troping: Sophie and Alberto talk about almost all the Philosophy Tropes on the list. They also talk about some Psychology Tropes.
- Fake Crossover: Late in the story, all kinds of famous fictional characters, including Alice Liddell and Winnie The Pooh, show up for brief cameos. This is, however, after Sophie has discovered that she herself is a fictional character, and now her author is just messing around and throwing all kinds of surreal stuff into the story, so it can hardly be said to be canon for any of the other characters.
- Still, the ending reveals that all fictional characters are, in a sense, real, and can and do meet each other outside their stories, so the "fake" part might get a little blurry there.
- Framing Device: All of Sophie's world is in fact imaginary and conjured up by the major to give to his daughter Hilde as a birthday present by way of a book.
- Gainax Ending: Your head will be spinning.
- Hand Wave: "A bagatelle, Sophie."
- Insignificant Little Blue Planet: Hilde and Albert's conversation at the end.
- Instructional Dialogue: Most of the novel is taken up by a dialogue that summarizes the entirety of Western philosophy from the Pre-Socratics to Sartre.
- Intergenerational Friendship: Sophie and Alberto, eventually.
- Little Miss Snarker: Sophie.
- Meaningful Name: Lampshaded with Sophie, Alberto, and Hilde.
- Medium Awareness: Alberto. He's aware that he and Sophie are characters in the major's book, at points even going as far as saying "Next chapter!" and telling Sophie not to talk to him so he can work on his plan while the book isn't focused on him.
- Meta Fiction
- Mind Screw: The book can drift into this occasionally.
- Leaning on the Fourth Wall / Noticing The Fourth Wall
- Nested Story Reveal
- Nice Hat: Alberto
- Recursive Reality: The major's book, the content of which is actually identical to the actual book up until the point where Hilde comes in.
- Show Within a Show: But the reader is introduced to the inner show first.
- Significant Birth Date: June the fifteenth, which is both Sophie and Hilde's birthday.
- Trash the Set: A literalute example happens in the last chapter of Sophie's "world" (i.e., the one made up by the major).
- Walking the Earth and Walking Entire Eras of Human History To Observe Various Human Philosophies and Ideologies
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