Sophie's World
Sophie's
World (Norwegian:
Sofies verden) is a 1991 novel by Norwegian writer Jostein
Gaarder. It follows Sophie Amundsen, a
Norwegian teenager who is introduced to the history of philosophy by Alberto Knox, a middle-aged philosopher.[1]
Sophie's
World became a best-seller in Norway and
won the Deutscher
Jugendliteraturpreis in 1994. The English translation was published in 1995, and the book was
reported to be the best-selling book in the world in that year. By 2011 the
novel had been translated into fifty-nine languages, with over forty million print
copies sold.[2] It is one of the most commercially successful Norwegian
novels outside of Norway, and has been adapted into a film
and a PC game.
Plot summary
The
book begins with Sophie receiving two messages in her mailbox and a postcard addressed to Hilde Møller Knag. Afterwards, she receives a
packet of papers, part of a course in philosophy.
Sophie,
without the knowledge of her mother, becomes the student of an old philosopher,
Alberto Knox. Alberto teaches her about the history of philosophy. She gets a substantive and understandable review from the Pre-Socratics to Jean-Paul
Sartre. In addition to this, Sophie and
Alberto receive postcards addressed to a girl named Hilde from a man named
Albert Knag. As time passes Knag begins to hide birthday messages to Hilde in
ever more impossible ways, including hiding one inside an unpeeled banana and
making Alberto's dog, Hermes, speak.
Eventually,
through the philosophy of George
Berkeley, Sophie and Alberto figure out that
their entire world is a literary construction by Albert Knag as a present for
Hilde, his daughter, on her 15th birthday. Hilde begins to read the manuscript
but begins to turn against her father after he continues to meddle with
Sophie's life by sending fictional characters like Little Red Riding Hood and Ebenezer
Scrooge to talk to her.
Alberto
helps Sophie fight back against Knag's control by teaching her everything he
knows about philosophy, through the Renaissance, Romanticism,
and Existentialism,
as well as Darwinism
and the ideas of Karl Marx.
These take the form of long pages of text, and, later, monologues from Alberto.
Alberto manages to concoct a plan so that he and Sophie can finally escape
Albert's imagination.
The trick is performed on Midsummer's Eve, during a "philosophical garden party" that
Sophie and her mother arranged to celebrate Sophie's fifteenth birthday. The
party soon descends into chaos as Albert Knag lords his control over the world,
causing the guests to react with indifference to extraordinary occurrences.
Alberto informs everyone that their world is fictional but the guests react
with rage, believing him to be instilling dangerous values in the children.
When a Mercedes
smashes into the garden, Alberto and Sophie use it as an opportunity to escape.
Knag is so focused on writing about the car that he doesn't notice them
escaping into the real world.
Having
finished the book, Hilde decides to help Sophie and Alberto get revenge on her
father. Alberto and Sophie cannot interact with anything in the real world and
cannot be seen by anyone but other fictional characters. A woman from Grimm's Fairy Tales
gives them food before they prepare to witness Knag's return to Lillesand, Hilde's home.
While
at the airport, Knag receives notes from Hilde set up at shops and gateways,
instructing him on items to buy. He becomes increasingly paranoid as he wonders
how Hilde is pulling the trick off. When he arrives back home, Hilde has
forgiven him now that he has learned what it is like to have his world
interfered with. Alberto and Sophie listen as Knag tells Hilde about one last
aspect of philosophy—the universe
itself. He tells her about the Big
Bang and how everything is made up of
the same material, which exploded outward at the beginning of time. Hilde
learns that when she looks at the stars she is actually seeing into the past.
Sophie makes a last effort to communicate with her by hitting her and Knag with
a wrench. Knag doesn't feel anything, but Hilde feels as though a gadfly stung her, and can hear Sophie's whispers. Sophie wishes to
ride in the rowboat
but Alberto reminds her that as they are not real people, they cannot
manipulate objects. In spite of this, Sophie manages to untie the rowboat and
they ride out onto the lake, immortal and invisible to all but a few. Hilde,
inspired and mesmerized by philosophy and reconnected with her father, goes out
to get the boat back.
Adaptations
Movie
Main article: Sophie's World (film)
In
1999 Sophie's World was adapted into a Norwegian movie by screenwriter Petter Skavlan. It was not widely released outside of Norway. Kjersti
Holmen won an Amanda
Award for her role in the movie.[3]
Television
The
1999 movie was also presented as an eight-part TV series in Australia and Iceland,
again scripted by Petter Skavlan.
It
was also adapted for television in 1995 by Paul
Greengrass and shown on the BBC as part of The Late Show. This version starred Jessica Marshall-Gardiner as Sophie, Jim Carter
as Albert Knox, and Twiggy
as Sophie's Mother.
Board game
In
1999 it was made into a board game by Robert Hyde and Ken Howard, and published
by Sophisticated Games Ltd.[4] The game involves answering trivia on famous philosophers
and requires players to talk for several minutes on philosophical topics such
as animal rights.
Computer game
In
1998 it was adapted into a PC and Mac
CD-ROM game
by The
MultiMedia Corporation.[citation needed] The game
allows players to learn about philosophy as in the book, while adapting the metafiction elements for a virtual world.
Music
English
space rock band Spiritualized
named their 1997 studio album Ladies
and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space
after a line in the novel. Chinese math rock indie band Baby Formula's
self-titled album has a track called "Sophie's World（苏菲的世界".
Censorship
In
the Xiao Baosen-translated Chinese version (Simplified Chinese)
published by Writers Publishing House, parts of the content related to Karl
Marx were deleted according to the
requirements of the Ministry
of Culture of the People's Republic of China,
such as the last 32 paragraphs in the Marx Chapter.[5]
References
· Gaarder, Jostein (7 October 2015). "Sophie's
World in Danger".
Independent. Independent. Retrieved 7 November 2019.
· · Mattin, David (14
March 2011). "Sophie's
World author turns from philosophy to climate change". The National. Retrieved 24 February 2019.
· · "AMANDA-VINNERE
1985–2006" (PDF) (in
Norwegian). Filmweb.no. Archived from the
original (PDF) on 20 September 2008.
Retrieved 3 March 2008.
· · Bloor, Chris
(2000). "Sophie's
World: The Boardgame!".
Philosophy Now. Retrieved 24 February 2019.
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