The Solitaire Mystery: a novel about family and destiny by Jostein Gaarder - Wide Eyed Wonder

Jostein Gaarder had an unlikely international success with Sophies World, a novelized exploration of western philosophy through the eyes of a young girl. This is an earlier work, translated from the Norwegian by Sarah Jane Hails. This fable-like story dabbles in philosophy too, though more lightly. It tells of a Norwegian boy traveling across Europe with his calm and reflective father in search of his long lost mother. The boy finds a tiny manuscript that reveals the secret of a magic deck of cards that can tell the future.

Wide Eyed Wonder
Jostein Gaarder proved himself to be a remarkable teacher of philosophy with his first translated novel Sophies World, an imaginative trip through philosophers past and present. He brings his unique blend of fantasy and philosophy to The Solitaire Mystery, a novel quicker in pace and slightly less dense than the more heavily academic Sophies World. It is a mystery filled with fantasy and fact as one family tries to reconcile itself with destiny.

The story begins with Hans Thomas and his father driving across Europe to Athens to reclaim Hans Thomas mother who left them many years before. Along the way, Hans Thomas and his father philosophize about life and just how they are going to convice the woman they both love to come back home with them. The trip begins quite normally, until Hans Thomas encounters a midget at a gas station who gives him a tiny magnifying glass and tells them to stop in the town of Dorf. When they do so, Hans Thomas encounters a local baker with a secret he slowly shares with Hans Thomas, for he bakes an almost microscopic book inside of a sticky bun that tells the story of a fantastical magic island where life quite literally follows along the lines of a game of solitaire. But what does this mysterious story have to do with Hans Thomas and his father? The more he reads, and the closer the two get to Athens, the more Hans Thomas realizes that the story he is reading is his very own.

Jostein Gaarder is a remarkable storyteller, crafting unbelieveable tales which readers readily grant a suspension of disbelief. The only faults I would find with this novel is that the plot seems a little too contrived at times, and the writing is sometimes a little too choppy, but I chalk that up to things lost in the translation. What isnt lost in the translation is Jostein Gaarders sheer wonder and joy with the world around us. Too often as humans we forget to marvel at how truly marvelous our world is, at how marvelous we are, no matter what we believe in terms of how we came to be. Being awakend to that wonder is the sheer beauty of Jostein Gaarders magical philosophical trips.

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