Posted on July 28, 2008 by Laureen Gonzaga

Sophie’s World is a novel written by Jostein Gaarder. It was originally written in Norwegian with title Sofies verden in 1991, later on translated into English in 1995.

Sophie is a fourteen year old girl living in Norway with her cat named Sherekan, a goldfish, a tortoise and her mother. Her father is a captain of a tanker and is away most of the time. The teen=aged girl becomes suddenly shaken by two letters she found in her mailbox addressed to her. The letter said “Who are you? Where does the world come from?”. Then on, she has received succeeding letters and then becomes a philosophy student of an anonymous mentor, later on identified himself as Alberto Knox.

An old friend introduced me to this book. After he finished reading, he convinced me to read it myself. But I was just a teenager then, and after reading a few pages on philosophy, I eventually got bored and never got to finish the book. After a few years, I was looking for something to keep me busy while looking after my baby boy. So, I found the book hidden in my closet and I thought of starting to read it again.

I must say that this book is very engaging (maybe it just depends on the age of the reader). It’s a comprehensive major philosophy book, and a mystery novel in one. I definitely like how the story ended and it took me some time before I could figure out how the book will end. This is something I could not just put down.