Philo-Sophie

I'm in love. Yes, I am. With this new reading that I just started a few days ago. Introducing Dunia Sophie, as known as Sophie's World or Sophie Verden in the original version. I knew this book from my English classmate, Bagas (click here for his blog. P.S: His English are hellish. Make sure to bring a dictionary while reading his blog.) when he present it in front of the class. I was not-giving-a-f-ish while listening to him, until he said that this novel is talking about the A to Z of philosophy. Honestly, I'm trying to understand this subject in many kind of media, but I just can't. (maybe my brain is just rejecting it. Duh, understanding it is a hard work.)

It was long ago before I have a much time to read some nice novels. And Thank God, it's long holiday already (before some graduation rehearsals) and I decided to have one in a local bookstore. Initially, I would like to buy the English version, but since it was 800-ish pages (or less in the original version), it must be costing so much money. Duh. Anyway, I still got the book, tho. 

So basically, the story goes on like this. There's this girl named Sophie who lives ordinary as a teenager until she receives a letter from an unknown (which is later known as Albert Knox or the Philosopher), asking about philosophical questions, such as "Who am I?" or "Where do the world came from?". Later on, the philosopher gives Sophie explanations about the questions. And... The rest of it, read it by yourself, because I hate spoilers.

There's one analogy that I really love from this book. The rabbit analogy, they said. In one of the philosopher's explanation, he tells about this. It gives us a clear explanation about the correlation between the universe, people inside of it, and of course, philosophy:

"If a newborn baby could talk, it would probably say something about what an extraordinary world it had come into. We see how it looks around and reaches out in curiosity to every thing it sees... But long before the child learns how to talk properly -- and long before to think philosophically -- the world will have become a habit. A pity, if you ask me... A lot of people experience the world with the same incredulity as when a magician suddenly pulls a rabbit out a hat which has just been shown to them empty. In the case of the rabbit, we know the magician has tricked us. What we would like to know is how he did it. But when it comes to the world it's somewhat different. We know that the world is not all a sleight of hand and deception because we are in it, we are part of it. Actually we are the white rabbit being pulled out of the hat. The only difference between us and the white rabbit is that the rabbit does not realize it is taking part in a magic trick. Unlike us. We feel we are part of something mysterious and we would like to know how it all works... As far as the rabbit is concerned, it might be better to compare it with the whole universe. We who live here are microscopic insects existing deep down in the rabbit's fur. But philosophers are always trying to climb up the fine hairs of the fur in order to stare right into the magician's eyes." -–Albert Knox's letter to Sophie, Sophie's World

So, if you feel interested in philosophy, this book is a good choice and a light reading rather than reading textbooks (obviously). Philosophy is fun!