Sophie’s world starts out reading like a highly summarized survey of philosophy, and it takes until half way in the book for the plot line to really take off. I found the first half hard to read and being only generally correct about the specific subjects of philosophy that it purports to explain. I was especially bothered by the inauthentic behavior of the girl, who clearly was not behaving like any 15 year old I know, never asking questions, never challenging what she was learning, not being freaked out by some old guy stalking her. It seemed to me that it could have been a lot less dry and would bring more of academic value if the girl challenged her teacher, asked him, proposed her own ideas in rebuttals to what she was hearing.
The second part of the book is substantially stronger, with the plot line actually becoming part of the story. I mostly enjoyed it, though my personal preferences would be a bit less feminism, and a lot less one world government / UN politics junk. I could have also done without big bang theory presented as a fact and not as a theory, for example.
It is really insightful of the author’s worldview, that the characters are offended and eventually rebel against their maker. Not only that, but they consider it the only logical option. In my mind, recognition and reconciliation with the maker would have been a much better ending, but that’s probably because my personal world view is a polar opposite of the book.
For all the minuses, though, it is definitely worth reading. It would have been nice though to hear about such great philosophers as Confucius and Buddha as well as any other non-European approaches to searching for life’s most meaningful questions. But until I find a better book, this one will have to do as a good (though incomplete) introduction to philosophy.
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