Review

Written in 1991 by Jostein Gaarder, Sophie’s world is one of the most famous books in Norway and
won the Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis in 1994.It is a philosophical fiction .despite being easy to
read, it contains some very complex and challenging ideas.it has had a profound influence on me and
taught me a lot about trends in in the philosophy, as well as, major ideas of each philosopher’s
project, so in that respect Sophie’s world is useful and educational.

The story is set in a Norwegian village, where the main character lives- who is an innocent, confused
teenage girl named Sophie Amundsen. One day she receives a letter from an anonymous sender,
which has the question: ”who are you?” she tries to answer the question but she can’t do it. Then
she starts to receive a lot of mails about philosophy from the anonymous person, which has
information about the ideas and the life of the most important, famous, Interesting and clever
philosophers of the history. In the course of the story, anonymous figure decides to reveal their
identity, whom as we find out is Alberto knox, a middle-aged man, enjoyable, talkative,
extraordinary and brilliant teacher of history of philosophy. There is a twist at the end. Sophie
discovers that she and Alberto don’t exist in real life and this is the most mind blowing part of the
book. By the end of the story, Sophie can escape to the real world.

I was very impressed with the characterization. Main characters are Sophie, Albert and Hilde Moller
Knag. The most important from them is Sophie. Although, her existence is just fiction, she shows us
that we should look at things in different perspectives and act on what we think. By the end of the
story, Sophie isn’t a mediocre teenage girl anymore. She has become a philosopher. Another amazing
character is Alberto Knox, a faithful, hard-working, convincing and selfless person. Alberto is never
quick to judge and he always thinks twice before he cuts once.

To sum up, although it is not an entertaining story to read and quite complex in some places, it is
both gripping and thought-provoking. It really made me think about what my purpose and
philosophy in life is.