Sophie's World
Page 53
“I think both theories are equally inconceivable and equally exciting.”
“And they can compare with the great paradox of eternity that Sophie once sat pondering in her garden: either the universe has always been there—or it suddenly came into existence out of nothing…”
“Ouch!”
Hilde clapped her hand to her forehead.
“What was that?”
“I think I’ve just been stung by a gadfly.”
“It was probably Socrates trying to sting you into life.”
Sophie and Alberto had been sitting in the red convertible listening to the major tell Hilde about the universe.
“Has it struck you that our roles are completely reversed?” asked Alberto after a while.
“In what sense?”
“Before it was they who listened to us, and we couldn’t see them. Now we’re listening to them and they can’t see us.”
“And that’s not all.”
“What are you referring to?”
“When we started, we didn’t know about the other reality that Hilde and the major inhabited. Now they don’t know about ours.”
“Revenge is sweet.”
“But the major could intervene in our world.”
“Our world was nothing but his interventions.”
“I haven’t yet relinquished all hope that we may also intervene in their world.”
“But you know that’s impossible. Remember what happened in the Cinderella? I saw you trying to get out that bottle of Coke.”
Sophie was silent. She gazed out over the garden while the major explained about the Big Bang. There was something about that term which started a train of thought in her mind.
She began to rummage around in the car.
“What are you doing?” asked Alberto.
“Nothing.”
She opened the glove compartment and found a wrench. She grabbed it and jumped out of the car. She went over to the glider and stood right in front of Hilde and her father. First she tried to catch Hilde’s eye but that was quite useless. Finally she raised the wrench above her head and crashed it down on Hilde’s forehead.
“Ouch!” said Hilde.
Then Sophie hit the major on his forehead, but he didn’t react at all.
“What was that?” he asked.
“I think I’ve just been stung by a gadfly.”
“It was probably Socrates trying to sting you into life.”
Sophie lay down on the grass and tried to push the glider. But it remained motionless. Or did she manage to get it to move a millimeter?
“There’s a chilly breeze coming up,” said Hilde.
“No, there isn’t. It’s very mild.”
“It’s not only that. There is something.”
“Only the two of us and the cool summer night.”
“No, there’s something in the air.”
“And what might that be?”
“You remember Alberto and his secret plan?”
“How could I forget!”
“They simply disappeared from the garden party. It was as if they had vanished into thin air…”
“Yes, but…”
“…into thin air.”
“The story had to end somewhere. It was just something I wrote.”
“That was, yes, but not what happened afterward. Suppose they were here…”
“Do you believe that?”
“I can feel it, Dad.”
Sophie ran back to the car.
“Impressive,” said Alberto grudgingly as she climbed on board clasping the wrench tightly in her hand. “You have unusual talents, Sophie. Just wait and see.”
The major put his arm around Hilde.
“Do you hear the mysterious play of the waves?”
“Yes. We must get the boat in the water tomorrow.”
“But do you hear the strange whispering of the wind? Look how the aspen leaves are trembling.”
“The planet is alive, you know…”
“You wrote that there was something between the lines.”
“I did?”
“Perhaps there is something between the lines in this garden too.”
“Nature is full of enigmas. But we are talking about stars in the sky.”
“Soon there will be stars on the water.”
“That’s right. That’s what you used to say about phosphorescence when you were little. And in a sense you were right. Phosphorescence and all other organisms are made of elements that were once blended together in a star.”
“Us too?”
“Yes, we too are stardust.”
“That was beautifully put.”
“When radio telescopes can pick up light from distant galaxies billions of light-years away, they will be charting the universe as it looked in primeval times after the Big Bang. Everything we can see in the sky is a cosmic fossil from thousands and millions of years ago. The only thing an astrologer can do is predict the past.”
“Because the stars in the constellations moved away from each other long before their light reached us, right?”
“Even two thousand years ago, the constellations looked considerably different from the way they look today.”
“I never knew that.”
“If it’s a clear night, we can see millions, even billions of years back into the history of the universe. So in a way, we are going home.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“You and I also began with the Big Bang, because all substance in the universe is an organic unity. Once in a primeval age all matter was gathered in a clump so enormously massive that a pinhead weighed many billions of tons. This ‘primeval atom’ exploded because of the enormous gravitation. It was as if something disintegrated. When we look up at the sky, we are trying to find the way back to ourselves.”
“What an extraordinary thing to say.”
“All the stars and galaxies in the universe are made of the same substance. Parts of it have lumped themselves together, some here, some there. There can be billions of light-years between one galaxy and the next. But they all have the same origin. All stars and all planets belong to the same family.”
“Yes, I see.”
“But what is this earthly substance? What was it that exploded that time billions of years ago? Where did it come from?”
“That is the big question.”
“And a question that concerns us all very deeply. For we ourselves are of that substance. We are a spark from the great fire that was ignited many billions of years ago.”
“That’s a beautiful thought too.”
“However, we must not exaggerate the importance of these figures. It is enough just to hold a stone in your hand. The universe would have been equally incomprehensible if it had only consisted of that one stone the size of an orange. The question would be just as impenetrable: where did this stone come from?”
Sophie suddenly stood up in the red convertible and pointed out over the bay.
“I want to try the rowboat,” she said.
“It’s tied up. And we would never be able to lift the oars.”
“Shall we try? After all, it is Midsummer Eve.”
“We can go down to the water, at any rate.”
They jumped out of the car and ran down the garden.
They tried to loosen the rope that was made fast in a metal ring. But they could not even lift one end.
“It’s as good as nailed down,” said Alberto.
“We’ve got plenty of time.”
“A true philosopher must never give up. If we could just…get it loose…”
“There are more stars now,” said Hilde.
“Yes, when the summer night is darkest.”
“But they sparkle more in winter. Do you remember the night before you left for Lebanon? It was New Year’s Day.”
“That was when I decided to write a book about philosophy for you. I had been to a large bookstore in Kristiansand and to the library too. But they had
nothing suitable for young people.”
“It’s as if we are sitting at the very tip of the fine hairs in the white rabbit’s fur.”
“I wonder if there is anyone out there in the night of the light-years?”
“The rowboat has worked itself loose!”
“So it has!”
“I don’t understand it. I went down and checked it just before you got here.”
“Did you?”
“It reminds me of when Sophie borrowed Alberto’s boat. Do you remember how it lay drifting out in the lake?”
“I bet it’s her at work again.”
“Go ahead and make fun of me. All evening, I’ve been able to feel someone here.”
“One of us will have to swim out to it.”
“We’ll both go, Dad.”
Reading Group Guide
SOPHIE’S WORLD
A Novel About the
History of Philosophy
by Jostein Gaarder
Translated by Paulette Møller
About This Guide
The questions and discussion topics that follow are designed to enhance your reading of Jostein Gaarder’s classic bestseller, Sophie’s World. We hope they will enrich your experience of this irresistible tale of mystery, philosophy, fantasy, and exuberant living.
Introduction
With more than thirty million copies in print, Sophie’s World is an exciting, entirely innovative novel that thrives on its contradictions. It is a page-turning adventure as well as a history of Western philosophy—from the discourse of ancient Greece to debates about the Big Bang. Yet it is also a refreshingly contemporary coming-of-age novel with echoes of science fiction.
The games begin when fourteen-year-old Sophie Amundsen finds two notes in her mailbox. One note asks, “Who are you?” The other asks, “Where does the world come from?” From here, with the aid of a devoted but mysterious instructor, Sophie sets off on a fantastic philosophical saga that will take her far beyond her small Norwegian hometown. Letters give away to lectures, questions give away to quests, and the dimensions of Sophie’s world (as well as our own) grow ever wider, deeper, and richer.
Questions and Topics for Discussion
The first chapter’s title, “The Garden of Eden,” underscores the concept of beginnings and origins. How did you first respond to the initial two questions, “Who are you?” and “Where does the world come from?” Did your answers change by the time you reached the end of the novel?
When Sophie first starts receiving letters from the philosophy teacher, she finds that each one is slightly damp, having “two little holes in it.” Thinking of Sophie’s World as a mystery novel, what other “clues” did you encounter over the course of the book?” Were you able to use them to solve any riddles?
As Sophie watched the video tape in secret, what was your understanding of how Alberto Knox was able to bring ancient Athens back to life? What distinctions are made in the novel between reality and the surreal? How do such distinctions play out in your own life?
How did you react to Aristotle’s views on women? In your opinion, which of the thinkers in Gaarder’s history provided admirable answers to questions about gender? What did you make of the fact that a vast majority of the authorities in the novel are men?
In the “Middle Ages” chapter, Alberto says, “We can say that Aquinas christianized Aristotle in the same way that St. Augustine christianized Plato.” What was the result as these great medieval thinkers applied the teachings of Christ to ancient philosophy?
“You could say,” Alberto tells Sophie, “that a process started in the Renaissance finally brought people to the moon. Or for that matter to Hiroshima or Chernobyl.” What is this “process”? What is the relationship between philosophy, religion, economics, and science? How much of contemporary life is the result of Renaissance ideals?
“Bjerkley” marks the transition from Sophie’s to Hilde’s point of view. Both of the heroines in Sophie’s World are going through phases of rapid physical, intellectual, and emotional development. How do their lives, personalities, and philosophies compare? What makes Berkeley/Bjerkely an appropriate backdrop for putting such dualities in the spotlight?
What parallel does Hilde’s father build between the French Enlightenment and the United Nations? How does this parallel compare to the UN analogies in the “Kierkegaard” chapter? In what other ways does philosophy reverberate throughout current international politics?
Explain the “red-tinted glasses” experiment employed in the “Kant” chapter. What does Sophie discover about rationalists and empiricists along the way? How do these questions of perspective apply to issues in your own life?
In the “Romanticism” chapter, Alberto quotes a character from Henrik Ibsen’s Peer Gynt as saying, “One cannot die in the middle of Act Five.” What is your interpretation of this line? What do the poets and the other philosophers discussed in this chapter say about the nature of life and identity?
“In a sense,” Alberto tells Sophie, “Freud demonstrated that there is an artist in everyone.” Is this point of view valid? Compared to other notions proposed throughout the book, were Freud’s the most radical or the most mundane?
Discuss the concept of theaters and role-playing as they unfold in the novel. Do you agree with Alberto’s assertion that “the Baroque period gave birth to modern theater”? What were the playwrights involved in the “theater of the absurd” trying to say? How did their motivations compare to those of Shakespeare and his contemporaries?
In the “Big Bang” chapter, we find that stargazing is actually a form of time travel. How do these concepts of time shape the novel’s closing scenes?
More than once in these pages, the child’s perspective is mentioned as a paradigm for how philosophers should think or perceive. Though they are at an age when they are beginning to leave childhood behind, do Sophie and Hilde possess greater wisdom than their elders?
Sophie’s World encompasses numerous time periods, cultures, discoveries, and belief systems. How many of the novel’s terms and references were you already familiar with? Which aspects did you most want to research further?
Ultimately, what is a “philosophical project”? Does reading a novel—or any book—constitute a philosophical project? Does language limit or spur philosophical exercise? Can philosophy be learned?
Also by Jostein Gaarder
The Frog Castle
The Solitaire Mystery
The Christmas Mystery
Through a Glass, Darkly
Hello? Is Anybody There?
That Same Flower
Maya
The Ringmaster’s Daughter
The Orange Girl
Jostein Gaarder
Sophie’s World
Jostein Gaarder was born in Oslo, Norway, in 1952. He taught high-school philosophy for several years before publishing a collection of short stories in 1986 and, shortly thereafter, his first two novels, The Solitaire Mystery and Sophie’s World, which has been translated into fifty-three languages. He lives in Oslo with his family.
Acknowledgments
This book would not have been possible without the support and encouragement of Siri Dannevig. Thanks are also due to Maiken Ims for reading the manuscript and making useful comments, and to Trond Berg Eriksen for his trenchant observations and knowledgeable support through the years.
J.G.
Index
The index that appeared in the print version of this title does not match the pages in your eBook. Please use the search function on your eReading device to search for terms of interest. For your reference, the terms that appear in the print index are listed below.
absurd, absurdism
academy
Acropolis
Adam and Eve
adaptation
Aeschylus (525–456 B.C.)
aesthetics
agnostic
Albert the Great, St. (Albertus Magnus) (c. 1193–1280)
Alexander t
he Great (356–323 B.C.)
Alexandria
Alice in Wonderland
alienated, alienation
Allah
alternative movements
anatomy
Anaxagoras (500–428 B.C.)
Anaximander of Miletus (c. 610–547 B.C.)
Anaximenes of Miletus (c. 570–526 B.C.)
Andersen, Hans Christian (1805–1875)
Andromeda nebula
angst
antibiotics
Antisthenes (c. 455–360 B.C.)
antithesis
Apollo
Aquinas, St. Thomas (1225–1274)
Arab, Arabic
Archimedes (c. 287–212 B.C.)
Areopagos
Aristippus of Cyrene (c. 435–366 B.C.)
aristocracy
Aristophanes (c. 450–385 B.C.)
Aristotle (384–322 B.C.)
Armstrong, Neil (b. 1930)
Asbjørnsen, Peter Christen (1812–1885)
Asclepios
astrologer, astrology
atheism, atheist
Athens
atmosphere
atom, atom theory
attribute
Augustine, St. (354–430)
automatic writing
automaton
Babylonian captivity
Bach, Johann Sebastian (1685–1750)
Bacon, Francis (1561–1626)
bacteria
Balder
Baroque
basis
Beauvoir, Simone de (1908–1986)
Beckett, Samuel (1906–1989)
Beethoven, Ludwig van (1770–1827)
Benedictine Order
Berkeley, George (1685–1753)
Berlin
Bible