Home>> Culture & Life>>Jostein Gaarder
我从外星来
Jostein GaarderRead
  1996《我从外星来》(又名《喂,有人在吗?》)(Hello? Is Anybody There?)
  一艘太空船穿越广袤的银河,向着一颗蓝蓝绿绿的星球一地球前进。来自艾尔乔星的男孩米加打开舱门,对着夜空大喊:“喂,有人在吗?”《喂,有人在吗?》是乔斯坦.贾德继《苏菲的世界》、〈纸牌的秘密〉之后推出的最新力作。故事场景从西方哲学的原乡欧洲大陆延展至无垠的外达空,叙述小男孩乔金和外星人米加的第三类接触奇遇。〈苏菲的世界〉提出了“你是谁?”、“世界从哪里来?”等问题:〈喂,有人在吗?〉问的是“我们是谁?”、“我们从哪里来”? 可以说是一本“小苏菲”。作者透过深入浅出的童话形式,让奇遇之谜和哲学主题不断地碰撞,穿透梦境和现实,极具梦幻写实趣味,也展现出一个至为恢宏的地球观和宇宙观。
纸牌的秘密
Jostein GaarderRead
  The Solitaire Mystery was published in 1990 and written by Jostein Gaarder, Norwegian author of the best-selling Sophie's World. Its main target audience is young adults, but the themes of the book transcend any age group.
  
  Like Sophie's World, The Solitaire Mystery has a philosophical content, but unlike Sophie's World, it does not explicitly mention philosophers and theories, thus, the reader of the book may be unaware that he or she is actually engaging in philosophy.
  
  Plot
  
  The book follows two seemingly separate stories:
  Hans Thomas
  
  A twelve year old boy, Hans Thomas, and his father are driving through Europe on a journey to locate and bring home the boy's estranged mother. Whilst on their journey, a strange little bearded man gives Hans Thomas a magnifying glass, saying mystically: "You'll need it!"
  
  Not long afterwards, Hans Thomas and his father stop in a roadside cafe where Hans Thomas gets a giant sticky bun from a kind baker to eat on his journey. To Hans Thomas's great surprise, hidden inside the sticky bun is a tiny book, with writing so small it cannot be read with the naked eye.
  
  Hans Thomas begins to read the tiny book using his new magnifying glass, and the story then alternates between Hans Thomas's journey, and the story in the sticky bun book.
  The Sticky Bun Book
  
  The sticky bun book tells the story of an old baker whose grandfather gave him a drink of a wonderful liquid he called Rainbow Fizz (Rainbow Soda in the American edition). It came from an island which the grandfather had been shipwrecked on as a young man. On the island lived an old sailor called Frode, and fifty-three other people; the fifty three other people did not have names though, they referred to themselves as the numbers on playing cards (52 cards plus a Joker)
  
  The red suits were all women, except for the Kings and Jacks, whilst the black suits were all men, except for the Queens and Aces. The Ace of Hearts was particularly enchanting, and Frode had quite a crush on her, even though she was forever 'losing herself'. The cards (as he called them) were scatterbrained and childish, and talked in card-related riddles about "when the game ends" and "turning a person face up" etc.
  
  Frode told the young sailor the miraculous story about how the other people had come to be on the island with him:
  
   Frode himself was shipwrecked on the island many years earlier, and had lost virtually all of his possessions, except for a pack of playing cards. As he had no way off the island, he played solitaire a lot to pass the time. After a few months, he started talking to the cards, and even creating personalities for each of them in his head.
   Time passed, and through overuse, the pictures on the cards faded and disappeared, but Frode continued to talk to them in his mind. Then suddenly one day, the Three of Diamonds walked by -- a flesh and blood person -- and said hello to Frode as if they were old friends! Frode thought he must be going mad, and as the remaining fifty-two cards surfaced, he became convinced he had gone senile. But since there was no way off the island, he decided he may as well sink himself into his delusion and enjoy the company.
   When the new sailor was shipwrecked on the island, it came as a huge shock to Frode that he could see and interact with the card people as well! It wasn't a delusion! But then it seemed that Frode had simply 'dreamt' them into existence - how could this be so?
  
  The crossing over of worlds
  
  As the plot progresses, the reader sees that the 'two' separate stories of Hans Thomas's journey, and the events in the sticky bun book are beginning to overlap:
  
   The cards in the sticky bun book take part in a game, where each says a sentence, and Frode tries to interpret its bizarre meaning. But sentences such as "the inner box unpacks the outer at the same time as the outer box unpacks the inner" and "destiny is a snake so hungry it devours itself" seem devoid of meaning for Frode.
  
  However, the cards' predictions as told in the tiny book begin to reveal details about Hans Thomas's own plight to find his mother. It occurs to Hans Thomas that his mother bears a striking resemblance in her personality to the Ace of Hearts in that she 'loses herself' (disappears) for long periods.
  
  Also, throughout Hans Thomas's journey, he has seen the same odd little bearded man following him about (the man who gave him the magnifying glass which proved so useful to read the sticky bun book). But whenever Hans Thomas approaches the little man, he seems to dash away and vanish.
  
  The baffling thing for Hans Thomas is that he stopped for the cake merely by chance, and chose to eat a sticky bun by chance - how is it possible that a tiny book from a random bun is telling him things about his own life?
  
  In the end, it turns out that the man who gave Hans Thomas the sticky bun book was his estranged grandfather, the baker and writer of the sticky bun book, and grandson to the shipwrecked sailor who had met Frode and his cards on the magic island. The grandfather works this out at the same time Hans Thomas deduces it too (the inner box unpacks the outer at the same time as the outer box unpacks the inner), yet this understanding is never realised, as the grandfather passes away before Hans Thomas returns to the small alpine village, having reunited with his mother in Athens.
  
  Back in the sticky bun book, we discover that just as the cards had played their prophetic game where they predicted exactly what would happen between Hans Thomas and his family, the magic island begins to close in on itself, fifty-two years to the day after it had sprung into existence. It seems as if it were meant to happen that way (destiny is a snake so hungry it devours itself).
  
  The poor card-people get eaten up inside the island, and as the island folds in on itself and disappears into nothingness, the young sailor (Baker Hans) escapes on a rowing boat which he had brought. Only one of the 'cards' managed to escape the island: the Joker.
  
  Hans Thomas realises that it is the Joker who gave him the magnifying glass, and who has been following him about all this time. Just as Hans Thomas reads the last sentence of the sticky bun book, closes it and looks up, he sees the Joker slip away into the crowd, and vanish...
  Philosophical themes
  
  The book encompasses several philosophical themes; the obvious ones which are covered in the overall plot, but also little snippets here and there. Hans Thomas's father is a smoker but doesn't like to smoke inside his car, and so on their long journey across Europe, they are forever stopping for cigarette breaks, and the father is talking philosophically with his son. These bite-size chunks of philosophy are far easier to swallow than the weighty lectures in Sophie's World, but are nonetheless potent.
  The nature of existence
  
  The nature of existence is a theme which runs throughout, especially the miraculous nature of life itself. The book explores the question of whether it is possible to imagine something into existence. This theme is also found in Australian aboriginal myth, where elders claim that the world was dreamt into existence.
  
  It seems unimaginable that we can make something happen just by wanting it to happen, yet the placebo effect has been well-documented in psychology, and many psychic healers and suchlike will claim that you need to have faith in order for something to work.
  Religious Themes
  
  The Christian concept of the creator living within his creation is explored. The seemingly perfect creation is soon destroyed by the Joker, during the "Joker Game" sequence, which is arguably an intended parallel with the Garden of Eden.
  Destiny
  
  The fact that the cards in the sticky bun book predicted the goings on between Hans Thomas's family decades later gives the book a strong theme of destiny: the idea that some things are going to happen no matter what - it is fate.
  
  Fate as a concept also has many supporters; those who believe that some things (or the more stronger claim, that all things) have been pre-planned from long ago -- perhaps from the dawn of time. This is a main theme running through theology as well as more pseudo-scientific disciplines such as tarot reading and palm reading.
  
  It certainly seems possible (though highly improbable) that the cards could have predicted the goings-on in Hans Thomas's young life, but the unlikelihood of it all only adds to the mystery and wonder of the story.
苏菲的世界
Jostein GaarderRead
  Sophie's World (Sofies verden in the original Norwegian) is a novel by Jostein Gaarder, published in 1991. It was originally written in Norwegian, but has since been translated into English (1995) and at least 53 other languages. It sold over 30 million copies and is one of the most successful Norwegian novels outside Norway.
  
  Mostly consisting of dialogues between Sophie Amundsen and a mysterious man named Alberto Knox, interwoven with an increasingly bizarre and mysterious plot, Sophie's World acts as both a novel and a basic guide to philosophy.
  Plot summary
  
  Sophie Amundsen is fourteen years old when the book begins. She begins a strange correspondence course in philosophy. Every day, a letter comes to her mailbox that contains a few questions and then later in the day a package comes with some typed pages describing the ideas of a philosopher who dealt with the issues raised by the questions. Although at first she does not know, later on Sophie learns that Alberto Knox is the name of the philosopher who is teaching her. He sends her packages via his dog Hermes. Alberto first tells Sophie that philosophy is extremely relevant to life and that if we do not question and ponder our very existence we are not really living. Then he proceeds to go through the history of western philosophy. Alberto teaches Sophie about the ancient myths that people had in the days before they tried to come up with natural explanations for the processes in the world. Then she learns about the natural philosophers who were concerned with change. Next Alberto describes Democritus and the theory of indivisible atoms underlying all of nature as well as the concept of fate.
  
  At the same time as she takes the philosophy course, Sophie receives a strange postcard sent to Hilde Møller Knag, care of Sophie. The postcard is from Hilde's father and wishes Hilde happy birthday. Sophie is confused, and more so when she finds a scarf with Hilde's name on it. She does not know what is happening but she is sure that Hilde and the philosophy course must somehow be connected. She learns about Socrates, who was wise enough to know that he knew nothing. Then Alberto sends her a video that shows him in present day Athens and somehow he seems to go back in time to ancient Athens. She learns about Plato and his world of ideas and then about Aristotle, who critiqued Plato, classified much of the natural world, and founded logic and our theory of concepts.
  
  Then, as Sophie's education continues, the Hilde situation begins to get more complicated. She finds many more postcards to Hilde, and some of them are even dated on June 15, the day Sophie will turn 15. The problem is that June 15 is still over a month away. She discovers some of this with her best friend Joanna, and one of the postcards tells Hilde that one day she will meet Sophie and also mentions Joanna. Strange things are happening that the girls cannot figure out. Sophie's relationship with her mother becomes somewhat strained as she tries both to cover up the correspondence with Alberto and to practice her philosophical thinking on her mom. Meanwhile, Alberto teaches Sophie about Jesus and the meeting of Indo-European and Semitic culture. She learns about St. Augustine, St. Aquinas, and the christianization of Greek philosophy that occurred in the Middle Ages. By this time, Sophie has met Alberto and he begins hinting that the philosophy is about to get extremely relevant to the strange things that are happening to her.
  
  Sophie learns about the focus on humanity in the Renaissance and the extremes of the Baroque and then Alberto focuses on some key philosophers. Urgently, he teaches her about Descartes, who doubted, and by doing so knew at least that he could doubt. They move on to Spinoza as it becomes clear that Hilde's father has some awesome power over them. Then Sophie learns about the empiricists. Locke believed in natural rights and that everything we know is gained from experience. Hume, an important influence on Kant, showed that our actions are guided by feelings and warned against making laws based upon our experiences. But Berkeley is most important to Sophie because he suggested that perhaps our entire lives were inside the mind of God. And Alberto says that their lives are inside the mind of Albert Knag, Hilde's father.
  
  At this point the story switches to Hilde's point of view. On June 15, the day she turns fifteen, Hilde receives a birthday gift from her father entitled Sophie's World. She begins to read and is enthralled. We follow the rest of Sophie's story from Hilde's perspective. Hilde becomes certain that Sophie exists, that she is not just a character in a book. Alberto has a plan to escape Albert Knag's mind, and they must finish the philosophy course before that can happen. He teaches Sophie about the Enlightenment and its humane values and about Kant and his unification of empiricist and rationalist thought. Things in Sophie's life have become completely insane but she and Alberto know they must figure out a way to do something. It will have to occur on the night of June 15, when Hilde's father returns home. They learn about the world spirit of Romanticism, Hegel's dialectical view of history, and Kierkegaard's belief that the individual's existence is primary. Meanwhile, Hilde plans a surprise for her father on his return home. They rush through Marx, Darwin, Freud, and Sartre, desperate to come up with a plan to escape even though everything they do is known by Hilde's father. Then at the end of Sophie's World, the book that Hilde is reading, while at a party for Sophie on June 15, Alberto and Sophie disappear. Hilde's father comes home and they talk about the book, and Hilde is sure that Sophie exists somewhere. Meanwhile, Sophie and Alberto have a new existence as spirit. They have escaped from Albert Knag's mind but they are invisible to other people and can walk right through them. Sophie wants to try to interfere in the world of Hilde and her father, and at the end of the book she is learning how to do so.
  作者:[挪威]乔斯坦·贾德 莫光华 译
  一个来自遥远冰雪世界的缠绵悱恻、...
   橙色女孩
  主人公乔治在14岁的某一天,意外地得到了已去世多年的父亲写给他的一封信。信中,父亲向乔治吐露了一个秘密,一个令人感动的爱情故事——70年代末一个深秋的下午,在电车站,父亲撞翻了一个身着橙色衣服的女孩怀抱的满筐橙子。之后他们在一间咖啡馆里再次邂逅,女孩仍然穿着那件橙色衣服,怀里依旧抱着一大袋橙子。正当父亲为他俩再次的偶遇感到诧异时,女孩眼里竟满含泪水地转身而去。父亲木然地伫立在街头,任由她消失在茫茫的人海中......
  橙色女孩(1)
  橙色女孩(2)
  橙色女孩(3)
  橙色女孩(4)
  橙色女孩(5)
  橙色女孩(6)
  橙色女孩(7)
  橙色女孩(8)
  橙色女孩(9)
  橙色女孩(10)
  橙色女孩(11)
  橙色女孩(12)
  橙色女孩(13)
  橙色女孩(14)
  橙色女孩(15)
  橙色女孩(16)
  橙色女孩(17)
  橙色女孩(18)
  橙色女孩(19)
  橙色女孩(20)
  橙色女孩(21)
  橙色女孩(22)
  橙色女孩(23)
  橙色女孩(24)
  橙色女孩(25)
  橙色女孩(26)
  橙色女孩(27)
  橙色女孩(28)
Home>> Culture & Life>>Jostein Gaarder