Having read "Sophie's World" about a year ago, I approached "The Solitaire Mystery" with much enthusiasm. Jostien Gaarder is an inventive and thought provoking writer, and this novel has confirmed my liking for both his work and his ideas. Whre "Sophie's World" includes some very long pieces on phillosophy, "Solitaire" is far more accessible, with the thoughts woven more neatly into the flow of the story. It doesn't deal witht hinking in anything like the depth that the later book does, but it is far more readily digested.

Gaarder favours children's voices and perceptions, and from his writing it is evident that this is because he feels children can appreciate the world far better than adults do. A child will ask why something is as it is whereas adults soon learn to take for granted, or ignore, to stop thinking or asking questions. By seeing the world through a child's eyes, we are able to elarn far more than we would be usign our own tired perceptions.

The child in "Solitaire" is 12, and called "Hans Thomas" his father is the illegitimate son of a German soldier, his mother has run off to Greece to be a model and he hasn't seen her for eight years. Hans and his father travel through Europe to Greece, stopping along the way for a bit of serious thinking. Then they meet a dwarf who gives Hans a magnifying glass and sends them wildley out of their way, to a town called Dorf, where Hans is ghiven a small book baked into a sticky bun. Using the magnifying glass, he reads the sticky bun book in secret. It tells an amazing tale of a strange island, a man called Frode, a pack of cards and a drink that tastes of everything. As Hans reads, he begins to realise that the book seems to have implications for his own life and that in some ways, he is also a part of the story it unfolds.

The chapters of the novels are named for the cards in the pack. Hans' father c
ollects jokers, thinks of himself as a joker and the card imagery runs through the text. Gaarder uses the cards to comment on the way in which reality is (or might be) structured. It's an interesting concept, and it works well. The paralleles that gaarder is able to draw between cards and time are quite fascinating.

This is a book about awareness, much as "Sophie's world" is, and even contains lines that feature in the later book. Gaarder is very concerned with the idea of getting people to think - to notice that they are alive, that the world around them is a fascinating place, and to stop taking things for granted. The book requires thought, the ideas in it require responses and consideration. It isn't all that easy reading - or at least, if you mean to get anything out of it, it shouldn't be.

The writing is deceptively simple, and you could almost beleive that Gaarder is writing for a young audience, but under those simple words lie layers of meaning and implication which must be unpeeled if the book itself is to be understood. You have to read this book closely and you have to pay attention to it to follow who is telling what to whom - it does all get rather complicated as there are so many stories within stories. This is a very clever text, and I would strongly recomend it to anyone who likes to have something to think about.