This long, dense novel, a bestseller in the author's native Norway,
offers a summary history of philosophy embedded in a philosophical
mystery disguised as a children's book--but only sophisticated young
adults would be remotely interested. Sophie Amundsen is about to turn 15
when she receives a letter from one Alberto Knox, a philosopher who
undertakes to educate her in his craft. Sections in which we read the
text of Knox's lessons to Sophie about the pre-Socratics, Plato and St.
Augustine alternate with those in which we find out about Sophie's life
with her well-meaning mother. Soon, though, Sophie begins receiving
other, stranger missives addressed to one Hilde Moller Knag from her
absent father, Albert. [...] Norwegian philosophy professor Gaarder's
notion of making a history of philosophy accessible is a good one.
Unfortunately, it's occasionally undermined by the dry language he uses
to describe the works of various thinkers and by an idiosyncratic bias
that gives one paragraph to Nietzsche but dozens to Sartre, breezing
right by Wittgenstein and the most influential philosophy of this
century, logical positivism. Many readers, regardless of their age, may
be tempted to skip over the lessons, which aren't well integrated with
the more interesting and unusual metafictional story line. Author tour.
