The Solitaire Mystery

Friday night, Dave opened a new book. Monday morning, he closed it again, finished.

The Solitaire Mystery by Jostein Gaarder.

A strange little book, with a plot that was truely bizarre.

The book is writen from the view of Hans Thomas, a boy whose mother left him 8 years ago. Hans and his father discover the mother is now a famous model in Athens and they decide to drive across Europe to find her and bring her back.

Along the way, they ask a dwarf for directions. He gives Hans a magnifying glass and points the pair in the direction of the village Dorf. There the magnifying glass comes in handy, when a nice old baker gives Hans an incredibly small book, which he conceals in a sticky-bun. For the remainder of the journey, Hans reads the small book whenever possible. It contains a wonderous story of a magical Island, filled with a pack of cards that had come alive in dwarf form, goldfish and the greatest drink ever created, Rainbow Fizz. It also contains a prophecy from 150 years ago which predicts the life of Hans with frightening accuracy.

Unlike most novels, however, the plot itself was of little real importance. Jostein Gaarder, before becoming a world famous novellist, taught high school philosophy and contributed to several textbooks on philosophy and theology. Not surprisingly therefore, the real focus of the book was it's philosophic discussions. The plot was simply a pleasent background to which to set the discussions around. It discussed everything from the meaning of life to the dangers of drugs and alcohol. Dave couldn't get enough.

Hans father tells Hans to imagine a planet filled with intelligent life forms. Life forms who could walk, talk, build houses, create complex machinary. Undoubtibly, the discovery of such a planet would be the most sensational scientific discovery the world had ever known. But such a planet HAS been discovered. It's called "Earth".

Why do we fail to amaze ourselves?