The Solitaire Mystery: A Novel about Family and Destiny

There are very few books which can compel me to suspend my planned daily activities, in order to sit down and read without interruption. This was one of them. Jostein Gaarder is a fantastic author, and I hope that he continues to write. I was introduced to him by my eleventh grade English teacher, who suggested I read Sophie's World written by Gaarder. The Solitaire Mystey like it's predecessor (Sophie's World) is a superbly written work of fiction, with philosophical undertones. It follows the fantastic journey of a boy and his father, searching for the boy's mother. Along the way there are many adventures, and much self discovery. As with many good books, not only does it tell a story, but it also leaves the reader with much to think about. I highly recommend it.

The Solitaire Mystery is more than a book. In the words of Mr. Coreander, a character in The Neverending Story by Michael Ende, "There are many doors to Fantastica, my boy. There are other such magic books. A lot of people read them without noticing. It all depends who gets his hands on such books." I believe that Gaarder truly gives readers a new doorway into `Fantastica', by analogy. He demonstrates how literature can be an art only the imagination can truly understand. After the first time I read this book I had become so immersed into the story, I picked it up again and began reading it again. This is definitely a book to get your hands on. If you desire to read a book that shows the wonders of life, the mystery of adventures, a window into your innermost being, this is the book. I have read Gaarder's Sophie's World and loved it as well. These two books are significantly different and both contain a genuine `must read' story. Gaarder's style of writing is not confusing or hard to follow. But the nature of the story is one that makes the reader think, look inside themselves for understanding, and encourages them to re-evaluate how they see life and all its wonders.The imagination, spirit, soul, and what can be called the `innermost being' takes on many forms, and they all gather strength to take flight from different books in a variety of ways. Read The Solitaire Mystery and see where it takes you.

Firstly, i would like to confess that i am not a philosopher. Better still i know nothing about philosophy. I plucked this book off the shelf at my community library because i've heard of J. Gaarder and his better known Sophie's World (which incidentally i have not read too). Once i started reading this book however, i could not put it down. I was captivated by the twin storyline of Hans Thomas who left Norway with his philosophical father in search of his mother who had "went out into the world to find herself"; and that of Baker Hans, Albert Klages whose mother died when he was a child, Ludwig the German soldier and Frode who found himself stranded on an island with nothing but a pack of cards for company. This is a story-within-a-story in which fantasy and reality, the past and present, are brilliant mixed. I could not put the book down and had to read on chapter after chapter. Interwoven seamlessly throughout the narration are thought-provoking questions about our existence and the mystery of life. To sum up my feelings at the end of it, i was captivated, intrigued and fascinated. This book deserves a second reading and i'm only too sure that i'd enjoy it more.

The Solitaire Mystery is Jostein Gaarder's best book. (though arguably not his greatest, which is probably Sophie's World). Very few books make one want to sit down and re-read them all through again after the first reading, but this is one of them. It is deceptively simple, yet the ideas are so striking that you can't work out why nobody ever pointed them out before. Jostein Gaarder took the theme of Alice in Wonderland to create an entirely new and modern story based around the cards - you'll never look at a playing-card in the same way again. Buy this for your entire family, even for your children or grandchildren. Once you've read it you'll wonder why you never read it before. A classic plot, yet such a very new one. Simple yet incredibly complex, yet an intelligent child could understand it. A novel of ideas that is coherent and striking and memorable. I tried very hard to think of anything I didn't like or found substandard in this book, and... I just couldn't. It is perfection itself. Even rereadings are highly recommended. You discover the smallest details and nuances that passed unremarked the first time around, which link back and forward to past or future events, and only build up an even more coherent picture.

Like a lot of other reviewers, I read the more famous Sophie's World first and found the long philosophy lessons a bit of a slog (and the whole set-up a bit unconvincing... if I found them a slog, would a 14yo girl really have stayed captivated?). When I picked up a remaindered copy of The Solitaire Mystery a few years later, however, I decided within pages that this was by far the better book, and wondered why SW got all the acclaim. The tale within a tale was dealt with much more seamlessly, the card themes were ingenious and imaginative, the storyline had more direction and was more moving, and Hans Thomas was far, far more plausible to me than Sophie. Unlike some other reviewers (who spoke deprecatingly of the "young adult" audience this book is supposedly aimed at), I loved the simplicity and clarity of the storytelling, and found this allowed the deeply emotional issues raised to be discussed in a way which was touching without ever being pretentious or sentimental. A lovely novel.