First Haters of Sophie’s World, don’t read it..

Even Admirers of Gaarder’s work need to ask themselves first can they handle a story which can possibly look extremely disjoint and too much of fiction without providing a solid reasoning behind that..?

Associated specially with Goya’s La Maja Desnuda, it is interesting read in regard of information about evolutionary sciences, question of very reason of existence of universe and about love.

I liked the book. I took it in more fictional perspective, one thing which I learnt from it is that everything has very clearly defined reason behind it. And the reason is appreciated sometimes quite after the very end of the incident, sometimes billions of years after that. It makes me think that whatever happens or whatever we do sometimes don’t seem to have any meaning or reason behind it, nevertheless the true rationale about them can be understood by others maybe after quite some time.

But a question which I will ask is why we don’t accept the Faith as a truth with a meaning yet to be found..? why science can provide hypothesis and make us hold on to it until the actual reason is found but totally deny this liberty for faith..? I guess we are one confused bunch of conscious primates who maybe are trapped in the world like play cards of Solitaire Mystery. We can’t find the answers until we are out of this mystery and observe it like a film on screen rather being part of it as mere actors. According to book, only joker is able to do that.

When I finished 85% of the book, I ended up with a postscript by the writer, which was the reality, behind the illusion-al letter encompassing that 85%. And I was like ‘what the hell, what happened to everything which I have developed in my mind..?’ But the second last paragraph just clears everything.. Let me write a small excerpt from book..

“So at last I came to realize that the novel I’d started writing wasn’t really about Frank and Vera or Ana and Jose. It was about Sheila and her solitaire. And it was about me.”

It was amazing how writer interpreted whole story about something and someone who were merely mentioned only twice maybe during the whole book. But every other human’s actions were interpreted and fictionalized according to that someone who was not considered part of the entire story. That just reminded me someone saying

"At the end of the day, when it comes down to it, all we really want is to be close to somebody. So this thing, where we all keep our distance and pretend not to care about each other, is usually a load of bull. So we pick and choose who we want to remain close to, and once we've chosen those people, we tend to stick close by. No matter how much we hurt them, the people that are still with you at the end of the day - those are the ones worth keeping. And sure, sometimes close can be too close. But sometimes, that invasion of personal space, it can be exactly what you need.."

I guess I have started developing my own Manifesto. I think I won’t need a joker to provide ground for me. I can be my own joker. A great book indeed which talks about someone’s kinship indirectly but so fully that it overwhelms others (and by the way I am talking about the solitaire game which Sheila liked to play).

If again you are not looking for a straight forward, hardcore day-to-day life defining stuff then Maya can be good snack for you.