Sophies World was an educational, at the same time, a very entertaining book.

It taught
me a lot of virtues like being discern in every decision I make, being a critical thinker, and being
able to appreciate the wonders of Philosophy. It enabled me to wander to different worlds at a
time. The statement of the history of Philosophy was well organized that the reader could really
comprehend everything on it. Very systematic it is from the beginning to the very end.
Sophies World was a novel written from a childs perspective by Jostein Gaarder.
Gaardner is a Norwegian author of several novels, short stories and childrens books. The book
Sophies World: A Novel about the History of Philosophy written in 1994 was the book that
brought him to fame. Gaadner was born in Oslo on August 8, 1952 and came from a family with
deep educational attachment that made him develop a deep-rooted interest in reading, writing,
and teaching. His father was a headmaster while his mother was a teacher/ child books writer.
Gaardner attended Oslo Katerdralskole and studied Scandinavian and Theology at the University
of Oslo.
He began his writing career after marrying in 1974. He published his first fiction novel
The Diagnosis and other Stories in 1986 followed by two children books entitled The Children
from Sukhavati (1987) and The Frog Castle (1988). Jostein Gaarder won the Norwegian Literary
Critics Award and the Ministry of Cultural and Scientific Affairs Literary Prize for his 1990
book, The Solitaire Mystery. Sophies World: A Novel about the History of Philosophy published
in 1991 was the most famous book he had ever written which has been translated into 53
languages and produced over 30 million copies. It remained Norways bestselling book for three
years and became equally popular worldwide.
Aside from writing he has also been involved in support for human rights and sustainable
development. Because of this, Gaardner and his wife established an award named after his very
famous book, Sophies World which is an annual prize awarded for international environment
and development. Gaardner has also received numerous awards for his works and other
contributions to literature. A few were the Norwegian Critics Prize for Literature (1990),
Norwegian Booksellers Prize (1993), Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis (1994), Premio Bancarella
(1995), Buxtehude Bull (1997), Willy-Brandt Award (2004), Commander, The Royal Norwegian
Order of St. Olav (2005), and an honorary degree from the Trinity College, Dublin.
After the success of Sophies World, Gaardner devoted himself to writing and became a
full-time novelist. Until now, he still continues to publish quality books every one or two years.
Sophies World by the way, was a story of a 14-year old girl named Sophie Amundsen.
She is just an ordinary Norwegian only-child girl who lives with her mother, a cat named
Sherekan, a tortoise named Govinda, a goldfish, and two budgerigars named Smitt and Smule.

Her father was a captain of an oil tanker and was always away most of the year. The story begins
when one day after going home from school, she receives two anonymous letters with the
questions who are you? and where did the world come from? written on it. She started to
wonder. The next day, another letter came for her but even though the letter was mailed to her, it
was really addressed to an unknown Hilde Moller Knag who was, according to the letter, the
daughter of the sender and whose birthday was a month before her own. Sometime later, she then
received another letter with the words Course in Philosophy. Handle with Care written at the
back. With those anonymous letters, she then became a student of a 50-year-old philosopher
named Alberto Knox. At first, she did not know the identity of the philosopher but was later
revealed in the story. The letters turned out to be coming from him except from the letter
addressed for some Hilde Knag which came from an Albert Knag who was a major in a UN
peacemaking unit based in Lebanon.
Alberto teaches Sophie about the history of Philosophy starting from the era when
Philosophy started, the time before Socrates until the time of the French existentialist Jean-Paul
Sarte. While on the journey of mastering and understanding Philosophy, Sophie starts to become
a thinker and starts to become the flea that climbs up the fur of the rabbit to see whats up beyond
the rabbit furs, as Alberto had described philosophers in his letter. Sophie learned the Medieval
Philosophy during the time of Jean-Paul Sarte. Many philosophical questions were taught to
Sophie and she tries to understand all those ideas in her head. She was also taught about
philosophy from the Hellenistic age to the rise of Christianity and its connection to the ideas of
the Ancient Greeks during the Middle Ages. Other periods which were covered by the course
were the period of Renaissance, Baroque, Enlightenment, and the period of Romanticism and the
philosophies that stemmed from them. Due to this Philosophy lessons she is taking, she learned
the philosophies of many great and critical thinkers like Socrates, Plato, Thales, Democritus,
Aristotle, and many others.
Along with the Philosophy lessons that Sophie is taking, Sophie and Alberto try to
outsmart Major Knag, who they thought has God-like powers that troubles Alberto.
Back to the main plot, when she is not in her Philosophy lessons, Sophie interacts with
her mother and her best friend Joanna who often get confused with all the questions that Sophie
asks them. This is not the focus of the story but simply for the plot to move along. After the
introduction to George Berkeley, the story shifts from Sophies Perspective to mysterious
Hildes. Sophie and Albertos world was then revealed to be a story of a book written by Major
Albert Knag as a present on the 15th birthday of her daughter Hilde Knag.
The novel continues with Hildes story as an edging device for Sophies story but both
Hildes and Sophies stories interconnect as Hildes understanding about Philosophy starts to
broaden together with Sophies understanding. As Alberto Knag continues to write the path that

Sophie has to take, Alberto tries to help her fight back by teaching her everything he knows
about Philosophy. That, he explains, is the only way for Sophie to understand her world. On the
other world, Albertos lessons help Hilde develop an understanding of Sophies world and use
the knowledge against her father for exercising too much power over Sophies world.
Sophie and Alberto escaped and travelled to Hildes world and found Hilde together with
both her mother and father, who at that time just came home from his service at Lebanon. Sophie
and Alberto watch the family eat their dinner and after that, they watched Hilde and Albert Knag
settled themselves in the glider of their house and talk about the universe. They also tried to
move and control things in the Knags place but failed to do so. Even though it is impossible to
completely move anything from the place, Sophie said, A true philosopher would never give
up.
Hildes book (Sophies World) ends with Sophie and Alberto disappearing but the true
author (Gaadner) revealed that they had managed to escape from the storyline of the book
without the knowledge of the author, Albert Knag, into the world of Hilde but they cannot be
seen by their naked eyes though Hilde could feel their presence.
The book was really an eye-opening to me. At first, I feel bored reading the book because
I still dont get the essence of the letters that the anonymous philosopher (Alberto Knox) is
sending to Sophie. But later, I realized that he does not only want Sophie to become curious in
everything in the world. He wanted Sophie to philosophize. He wanted Sophie to be a critical
thinker in an interesting way. That was the first thing I liked the most about the story. I was
struck by how Alberto described the apathetic people. He described them as microscopic insects
existing deep down the rabbit fur doing nothing to discover whats outside those furs. Unlike the
philosophers who try to climb up the fine furs to see the magicians eyes, who was the one
controlling the rabbit which is the universe. In his example I classified myself as one of those
who chose to stay buried on the fur. I felt ashamed of myself identifying myself as a UPian. As
what I have known, a UPian must be a critical thinker. Me? I am apathetic. Sometimes, I dont
care what is happening outside the school most often especially when that does not concern me
or anyone who is close to me. I just want to live a normal life, an apathetic life. When I read the
book, I was hit by Albertos words. I realized, if I remain apathetic, I may be living in the world
of lies without me knowing it because I did nothing to discover new things that may be the truth.
Like Sophie, I want to become a critical thinker. I want to know something knew out of my own
curiosity and in order to do that I need to be curious about anything first. Ask sensible questions
to myself and to others. When I got the answer, I should remember them and apply them to my
daily life. I want to be great like Socrates and have great students like Plato. I want my name to
be remembered as a great Philosopher. Even though that needs a lot of work, I believe that if Im
really serious with my goals, I can achieve it and taking Philosophy I is a stepping stone in
becoming a critical thinker.

Another thing I like the most about the story is knowing how the philosophers push
through their philosophies even though people do not believe them, people laugh at them, and
mock the. Even some philosophers like Socrates were put to death because of pursuing their
beliefs. Like Socrates who continued to share his beliefs to his students and other people even
though some dont believe him and he even was sentenced to death because of spreading his
philosophies to others.
I also felt grateful to other philosophers because if not because of them, maybe we would
still be living with lies. Like how Nicolaus Copernicus asserted that it was not the sun which
revolves around the earth but rather the earth revolves around the sun. But he also asserted that
sun was the center of the universe but as we already know, it was only the center of the solar
system. Anyway, he still made one of the greatest stepping stone for other philosophers to
discover that the sun is the center only of the solar system and not of the whole universe.
Another thing that I felt while reading the book is surprise because for the first time, I
managed to finish a philosophy-related book not because I have to but because I want to. I
wanted to know how the story would unfold and I want to know more about Philosophy the way
Sophie did and in order to do that, I have to read the book. I was surprised for myself because
when I read philosophy-related book, I get tired of them easily that I dont read the whole story.
But Sophies World is different. The way the author writes the story is interesting. At first, the
reader would think that the story is all about Sophie. But later, the reader would realize that no!
its not just about Sophie, its also about me! Sophie is not the only one who the author wants to
learn. He also wants me to learn philosophy and to become a critical thinker. And that I would
really like to become.
When I was still in high school, during a quarterly exam, a teacher would gave us
subjective exams other than the typical objective type like multiple choices. Since this type is an
essay type, my perception is that the longer the essay, the higher score I could get. I make sure
that my essay is long so that the teacher would be impressed. But when the results came out, I
got a low score compared to others whose essays were shorter than mine. I asked the teacher,
Sir, why is my score so low when in fact, I got longer essay answers than the others? but
instead of agreeing with me, he only said, No, your essay deserve that score because I am not
looking for a long essay. I am looking for a meaningful essay. The length of the essay would not
matter. The context is what matters. Look at your essay. Its beating around the bush. Theres no
sense at all. Upon hearing that, I realized I was wrong. Length doesnt matter but the essence of

the answer does. In relation to the philosophy, its the other way around. The answer is not the
most important thing, but instead, its the question which matters most. I still did not got this

concept in philosophy but I will try to because this philosophy is important for my dream to
become a critical thinker.
Indeed I learned a lot from Sophies World and I promise myself that even my Philosophy
course will end, I would still read Sophies World over and over again until I can fully
understand everything in it.
My recommendations are not for the teacher, but rather for the library personnel or
anyone that oversee the learning facilities of the school. I recommend that they provide hard
copies of Sophies World on the library not only because Philo 1 students need them but for all
UP students. Sophies World is a very nice book and I believe that having this available in our
library would contribute for the UP students become critical thinkers. I also recommend this
because may Philo 1 students who find the book expensive resort to using PDF files which
contribute to the damage of ones eyes because of too much focus on the screen.
I would like to thank Atty. Windsor for letting us read the book because it really help me
appreciate philosophy a lot. Not just a simple appreciation but great appreciation to him. Because
of the book, a question popped out of my mind. What if like Sophie, my world is just someones
imagination and that someday, my story would end and I would just vanish and be together with
all the ideas of others?

SOPHIES WORLD: A NOVEL

ABOUT THE HISTORY OF
PHILOSOPHY
(Book Review)

Submitted by:
Marjorie Baquial

Submitted to:
Atty. Winsor Calamba