What a fascinating book club discussion today. Place: My house. Food: tasty chips, dip, snacks, mushroom soup, and cookies. Book: Jostein Gaarder's Sophie's World: A Novel About the History of Philosophy. Many of us had not finished the book, but the discussion was lively, and we uncovered multiple connections between the philosophical ideas being described and the twists and turns of the story. In fact, the discussion may have inspired several of the readers to finish the book, and it definitely inspired me to reread the book some time, maybe.
I enjoy reading about philosophy, and I found the first half of the book an enjoyable read. Not only did Gaarder, in my view, provide an easy to read primer on philosophy, he also interwined the lesson with an intriguing mystery story. However, by the middle of the book, a great twist occurs that completely deflated any interest I had in following the mystery story to the end. I also felt that Gaarder was too ambitious tackling the entirety of Western philosophy and trying to cobble together a novel at the same time. The second half of the book felt entirely too rushed to me, and it became a bewildering rush of philosophers and philosphies and the dramatic engine of the novel portion of the book stalled for me.
Our next book club meeting is Wednesday, January 28. We'll be reading A.J. Jacobs' The Year Of Living Biblically: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible. Also, don't forget to bring along three suggestions for books to read as we'll be picking our next three books.
Happy reading!
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