SOPHIE'S WORLD
(Sofies verden), by Jostein Gaarder (JG), translated from Norwegian into American by Paulette Møller (PM)Guestbook | Guestmap | Discussion forum | Inspired by...
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| CH = chapter, P = page, L = line, C = comment, N = Norwegian, T = (alternative) translation, usually closer to the original text, TTR = Two-Tier Reality (metaphysical system bridging East and West) |
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CHAPTER 28: KIERKEGAARD (PP309-319) |
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| P309 L3: got tired of T: gave up L4: passed T: ran past L5: fixed T: made L10: Here's our brunch C: After four o'clock! L17: I thought you knew that T: But you know that L21: her (T: liver-paste and gherkin) sandwich L27: I was just wondering T: how he would be travelling. They went on eating | ||||||||
| P310 L7: Why all these questions? T: What's this all about? L8: Just small talk T: We have to talk about something L11: touching down T: changing planes L16: I guess you must T: suppose you do L17: voice T: answer/response L18: fixing T: cleaning L19: almost T: has practically L19: got T: gets L21: he doesn't have to T: shouldn't L28: We don't wish to (T: won't let ourselves) be disturbed L34: no effort T: nothing L36: any effort T: anything L37: You might have a point there T: may be right L40: blue (T: flowery summer) dress | ||||||||
| P311 L9: people's wonder T: humanity's dreamland L13: She handed the bottles to Sophie C: Then phrase missing: T: Both were of clear glass L15: read DRINK ME too T: DRINK ME TOO L20: be too late T: be late L23: Sophie called after her C: Then sentence missing: T: Then she was gone L26: too T: TOO L30: pretend-juice T: thought-juice L34: all merged into one T: began to merge L35(cont): Soon it seemed that everything she saw was one person, and that person was Sophie herself C: cf. TTR L37: soul T: mind L38: Curiouser and curiouser C: PM's quote from Alice T: How strange L38: Everything looks like (T: as) it did before, but now it's all one thing. I feel as if everything is one thought T: I see everything as before, but now it's as if everything is connected. I feel that everything is one mind/consciousness | ||||||||
| P312 L1: Hegel - who was critical of (T: squinted at / looked askance at) the individual L3: world reason T: world spirit L6: took T: unscrewed L9: Instantly T: In a second L12: things T: everything Sophie saw L18: felt T: realised L22: there were birds T: the birds were L27: like a deep-sea diver opening his eyes T: rather like diving deep and opening one's eyes L28: straws T: blades L29: tiny T: vivid L29: make its way T: crawling L33: manner T: way L32: bird T: character | ||||||||
| P313 L5: seem the same T: form a unity L27: suspected T: thought L7(cont): The blue bottle is individualism C: Er den det, for Søren! L11: the same T: that L16: That's understandable T: I understand L21: no differences mattered at all T: had any meaning L25: is it the red or the blue bottle that gives the true picture? - Both the red and the blue C: cf. TTR, with its inclusive-OR logic L29: bit narrow in their outlook T: one-sided L35: Hegel had not made much of (T: concerned himself much with) that? L36: scope T: outline L37: indignant T: rebellious L39: Therefore to (T: So for) Kierkegaard, Hegel and the Romantics were tarred with the same brush T: twigs on the same branch / chips off the same block / peas out of the same pod C: But highly individual peas, ikke? L41: mad T: angry | ||||||||
| P314 L1: severe (T: strict) upbringing L1: His religious melancholia was a legacy from his father L2(cont): That sounds ominous T: doesn't sound so good C: Another great mind corrupted by religion L15: vapidness of T: tepidness within L18: Nowadays we (T: Today it's more apposite to) talk of L21: an either/or T: either one or the other L21(cont): It was not good (T: no good) being "rather" (T: "a little") or "to some extent" religious T: Christian L28: noncommittal (T: apathetic) approach L29: knowledge T: reason L30: (Having a) Christian faith meant following a Christian way of life T: in Christ's footsteps L38: did battle with T: attacked L39: uncommitted T: non-committal L41: to great effect T: as an instrument. | ||||||||
| P315 L1: an "existential" thinker ... draws his entire existence into his philosophical reflection(s) C: Meaning? L14: rather than searching for the Truth with a capital T, it is more important to find the kind of truths that are meaningful to the individual's life. It is important to find "the truth for me" C: Yes LL19/21/23/26/35: man T: person / human being N: menneske L19: (Kierkegaard) wrote about the Hegelian (T: type of) professor: L19(cont): While the ponderous (T: pondering/speculating) Sir (T: Herr/Mr) Professor explains the entire mystery of life (T: existence), he has in distraction forgotten his own name (T: what he himself is:) that he is a man, neither more nor less, not a fantastic three-eighths of a paragraph C: Whatever that arithmetical oddity may mean L24: human nature or human beings T: or humanity's being/essence L28: significant T: important L35: Buddha answered by likening the monk (T: by referring) to a man who gets pierced (T: struck) by a poisoned arrow L36(cont): The wounded man would have no theoretical interest in (T: would not ask, out of pure theoretical interest,) what the arrow was made of, what kind of poison it was dipped in, or which direction it came from C: Really? But the man might well have a practical interest in the type of poison used, and he and everyone around him would want to know - for purely practical reasons - where that arrow came from | ||||||||
| P316 L2: philosophize T: speculate L3: No, of course not T: I see L4: K. also said that truth is "subjective" ... He meant that the really important truths are personal. Only these truths are "true (T: a truth) for me" L9: question ... whether Christianity is true C: Meaning? L10(cont): This is not a question one can relate to theoretically or academically C: Or objectively. It is 'true' (subjectively) for K., but that does not make it 'true' for anyone else L11: it is (a) question of life and death C: for a religious person L15: understandable T: I see/understand L16: If you fall into the water ... it is neither "interesting" nor "uninteresting" whether there are alligators (C: except possibly for spectators?) L21: whether God exists C: A question of individual faith: no worshippers, no God L22: man T: person L24: Things we can know through reason, or knowledge, are according to K. totally unimportant C: Totally?! More of K.'s passionate black-and-white thinking L27: Eight plus four is twelve. We can be absolutely certain of this C: As long as we do not change the rules of arithmetic or the meanings of the words. But the Norwegian text's "8 + 4 = 12" is true only in base ten arithmetic L29: But ... is it something we will lie pondering over when we are dying? Not at all C: Well, there was this old chap, see, and after a long and busy life he was lying on his deathbed, wondering what to leave to each of his children. He remembered clearly that he had eight sons, and he was pretty sure he had four daughters, but for the life of him he couldn't remember how many children he had altogether. Oh, how he wished he had done his arithmetic homework when he was a lad! L31(cont): Truths like those (8 + 4 = 12) can be both "objective" and "general", but they are nevertheless (T: therefore also) totally (C: ?!) immaterial to each man's (T: the individual's) existence C: The old man's name? Oh, Churchill or something like that ... Wait a minute ... yes, Churchyard, that was it, Churchyard ... Poor old chap! L34: You can never know whether a person forgives (T: has forgiven) you when you wrong them T: have done something wrong L36: Neither can you know T: be sure L39: You don't think about the law of cause and effect ... when you are in the middle of your first kiss C: No, but how about the second? The budding philosopher will inevitably be distracted by the question of whether the first kiss was the cause of the second kiss or whether the second just happened to follow the first as night follows day, or eggs follow bacon. You can always tell a real philosopher by the trail of angry and frustrated females he leaves behind him in his pursuit of Ultimate Truth. | ||||||||
| P317 L1: Faith is the most important factor in (T: First and foremost, faith is important when it comes to) religious questions L1(cont): K.: If I am capable of grasping God objectively, I do not believe, C: Is K. capable of grasping objectively that 8 + 4 = 12? If so, does he not believe that 8 + 4 = 12? L3(cont): but precisely because I cannot do this, I must believe C: Or disbelieve L3(cont): If I wish to preserve myself in faith (T: my faith), I must constantly be intent upon holding fast the objective uncertainty, so as to remain out upon the deep, over seventy thousand fathoms of water (C: Why 70,000?), still (T: and yet) preserving my faith L9: him T: the concept of God L10: you suffer ... a loss of religious passion T: fervour C: And without religious fervour, no one would ever have got burnt at the stake L11(cont): Because what matters is not whether Christianity is true (C: Oh!), but whether it is true for you C: A radical attitude! K.'s passion promotes 'black or white' thinking - in 'exclusive-OR logic' L16: I believe because it is irrational C: 'Because'?! Did K. believe that 3 + 6 = 8? L20: looked at T: seen L20: existential T: existence L24: trenchant T: whole L24: individual T: person L28: believes in T: supports L30: I wonder what K. would have said (T: i.e. critically, with 'bones to pick' or (N) 'hens to pluck' or (C) 'fish to fillet') to Joanna's parents L32: K.: The crowd is the untruth C: The majority is always wrong - well, usually L33: K.: The truth is always in the minority C: Nearly always L35: Barbie doll C: Joanna's mother L35: theory T: teaching L38: Pardon me? T: What did you say? L39: K. believed (T: held) that there were three different forms of life T: ways of living LL40-42: stage T: level | ||||||||
| P318 L3: anxious T: curious L6: satisfying T: lovely L9: bad T: negative L11: aesthete, since there is more to it than (T: aesthete. For it is not only a matter of) pure sensory enjoyment. A person T: enjoyment: a person L12: reflective T: playful/pleasure-seeking L13: his T: the L15: reflective T: observational L16: vanity has taken over T: rules L19: Do you know anyone like that? T: Do you recognise yourself? L21: completely T: entirely L22: sickly T: sticky/sentimental L26: Keep going, then T: Go on L31: and can now (T: now the aesthete can) elect L33: either/or T: either one or the other L35: It's a little like deciding to quit (T: cutting out) drinking or doing (T: using) drugs L37: can be somewhat reminiscent T: reminds one L39: approach T: way of life L42: Dostoevsky's great novel Crime and Punishment T: novel about Raskolnikov | ||||||||
| P319 L1: The best you can do is choose (T: So in the best case, one chooses) a different form (T: way) of life L2: you will begin T: one begins L2: stage T: level L3: characterized T: marked L4: approach T: way of life L4: You try to live by the law of morals C: 'the'? There are many "laws of morals" or "moral laws", all of them subjective L6: The important thing is not what you may think is precisely right or (T: and) wrong. What matters is that you choose to have an opinion at all on (T: choose to take into account) what is right or (T: and) wrong C: Surely both are important, both matter C: Most people do so choose L11: K. never claimed that the ethical stage was satisfactory T: According to K., the ethical level is not satisfactory either L13: dedicated T: conscientious L14: reflective T: pleasure-seeking L16: They take the (T: great) "jump into the abyss" of Faith's "seventy thousand fathoms" C: Is Faith ever fathomable? L19: jump into the open arms (T: fall into the hands) of the living God L27: I must run T: have to hurry home. | ||||||||