The Solitaire Mystery: a novel about family and destiny (Paperback)

by Jostein Gaarder (Author) "THE GREAT JOURNEY TO the homeland of the philosophers began in Arendal, an old shipping town on the south coast of Norway..." (more)
Key Phrases: shaven girl, pear soda, magic funnel, Baker Hans, Hans Thomas, Rainbow Soda (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
Jostein Gaarder had an unlikely international success with Sophie's World, a novelized exploration of western philosophy through the eyes of a young girl. This is an earlier work, translated from the Norwegian by Sarah Jane Hails. This fable-like story dabbles in philosophy too, though more lightly. It tells of a Norwegian boy traveling across Europe with his calm and reflective father in search of his long lost mother. The boy finds a tiny manuscript that reveals the secret of a magic deck of cards that can tell the future. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly
Admirers of Gaarder's first translated work, the bestselling Sophie's World, will be familiar with this Norwegian ex-philosophy teacher's talent for transforming what is essentially a vigorous round of mental aerobics into unpredictable, absorbing fun. This novel, which was published in Norway before Sophie's World, is another offbeat delight, ontology masquerading as an ingeniously constructed fairy tale. It tells the story of the 12-year-old Hans Thomas, who is driving with his father from Norway to Greece in a quest to retrieve his errant mother. The plot thickens when a midget at a gas station on the Swiss border slips Hans Thomas a miniature magnifying glass, and then the next evening, on a stop in Dorf, a kindly old baker presents him with a correspondingly tiny book and swears him to secrecy. As Hans Thomas sneaks looks at the book, between sightseeing and philosophizing with his father on their trip south, it gradually unfurls a strange story of a shipwrecked sailor and his rather unusual game of solitaire?a story that has puzzling links with Hans Thomas's own life. By the time the mystery is resolved, Hans Thomas and his family learn important lessons about themselves and their past, as Gaarder walks the reader through a complex inquiry into the nature of being and destiny. Less light-footed than Sophie's World, this work relies on fantastical symbolism for its central allegory; some readers will find a plot that hinges on such elements as a magic vanishing island and sparkling Rainbow Soda too corny for their tastes. Others, however, will deem it enchanting, especially since all the whimsy is balanced by deft portraits of Hans Thomas and his gruff, good-hearted father.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Berkley Trade (November 1, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 042515999X
• ISBN-13: 978-0425159996
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.1 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (117 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #308,886 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

40 of 43 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A modern classic and an adult fairy tale, January 27, 2000

By	Daniel (Reading, UK) - See all my reviews

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.

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A quest for undertanding, May 27, 2003

By	Stacey M Jones (Conway, Ark.) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

In a story within a story, "The Solitaire Mystery" by Jostein Gaarder follows a sailor who gets shipwrecked on an island and finds another man there, also a cast away, who had been lost there 52 years before. The older man lives on the island with 53 strange little people, who on a certain celebratory day, prepare a sentence for a grand story. No one knows the sentences of the others (they can barely remember their own), and the "court jester" among them arranges them so the story is coherent, representative of the past and present and also so it prophesizes the future.

All this is read by a 12-year-old boy, Hans Thomas, who is traveling from Norway with his father by car to Greece, where Hans Thomas's mother is living. She had left the family eight years before to become a model and neither Hans Thomas nor his father, an arm-chair philosopher, has heard from her since. Hans has a problem with his remaining parent, too. He drinks too much, and gets drunk regularly on the journey south.

But when a funny little man gives Hans Thomas a strange magnifying glass, and a baker in Dorf gives him a correspondingly tiny book baked into a sticky bun, Hans is the connection between the two stories, living out his quest to go get his "Mommy" in Greece, and spending time reading the story of the mysterious island and the strange people who inhabit it. There are obvious connections between Hans Thomas's journey, his problems in life and who he is with the sticky-bun book's plot, which is very complex, with many seemingly disparate aspects and facets.

As the story progresses, the themes of the essence of being, of God's role in the world, destiny and the joy of being alive/the beauty of the world resonate in both stories. Gaarder, a former philosophy teacher in Norway, concentrates on these aspects of philosophy, using both stories to illustrate his themes and intrigue his reader.

While I read that this is a young adult book, I found it quite engaging, particularly once I was able to devote enough time to it at one sitting to be swept up in the plot. For some time it alternates chapters between Hans's journey and the journey in the sticky-bun book, at which point the relationships between them become apparent and compelling. I also read a lot of comparison's to Gaarder's well known novel "Sophie's World," which I've also read. I think the comparison, while natural, isn't necessarily that helpful. "Sophie's World" was translated from the Norwegian into English first, but was written after "Solitaire" and is different; While both deal with philosophical themes and young adults, "Sophie's World" is a kind of brief history of philosophy. "The Solitaire Mystery" concentrates on the above-mentioned themes in a way that is fulfilling to any age of reader; the themes make the philosophical issues a support for a riveting plot.

I recommend this novel. It's fun and fantastic, but leaves you feeling pleasantly full of ideas and reactions, as well as appreciative of the life we get to live.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Read it and see where the adventure takes you., January 22, 2003

By	"dieunendlichegeschichte" (Denver, CO) - See all my reviews

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.