A review by pufford
Sophie's World, by Jostein Gaarder
3.0
It was probably inevitable that I wouldn’t get along with this book. As an idea, it is brilliant, but I wish that I had read it at 15, along with the key protagonists. There are some excellent games afoot, the framing narrative is - at least initially- engaging. But its descent into the absurd irritated me, as much as I understood the clever trick it was trying to play.
Equally brilliant and frustrating was the history of philosophy at the core. The early sections are excellent, and- for this British reader, whose schooling was woefully thin on philosophy and lacked any clear chronology- were a good primer for later, more familiar ideas. But the oversimplification began to jar once I was on more familiar ground. Like I say, for a teenage reader, this would have been perfect.
Equally brilliant and frustrating was the history of philosophy at the core. The early sections are excellent, and- for this British reader, whose schooling was woefully thin on philosophy and lacked any clear chronology- were a good primer for later, more familiar ideas. But the oversimplification began to jar once I was on more familiar ground. Like I say, for a teenage reader, this would have been perfect.