Jostien Gaardner and, 'The Solitaire Mystery'
Thread originally posted on the Aeclectic Tarot Forum on 12 Feb 2005, and now archived in the Forum Library.
| jay_haque |
12 Feb 2005 |
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Just completed 'The Solitaire mystery' by Jostien Gaardner and wow! was it educational and inspiring. The story is about a young boy who sets off on a journey with his dad to find their mother who disappeared into Europe a number of years ago to 'find herself'. The quest turns really odd when the little boy finds a book inside a loaf of bread which tells a metaphysical tale (of sorts) about a father and son who find each other on a magical island inhabited by playing cards who have come to life as humanoids! These living cards are all involved in an intriguing game in which each card (from the King of Diamonds down to the 2 of hearts) has the answer to a piece of the puzzle of life itself. So all these cards walk around doing odd jobs (the jobs are determined by their numbers and their suits) and occasionally letting off a string of words which make no sense.
Then, there is the joker. He is the only one who has no real job and is regarded with suspicion by all the other animated cards. At the end of every four years, the joker comes out of hiding and a ball is held in his honor where all the cards come together and meet with the father (and now the son who has shown up on the island). Here the joker who is aware of the game being played listens to what each card has been uttering, then shuffles and re-arranges the entire pack of humanoids into a sequence and asks them to speak again - and all those sentences collected by each card are now in sync and make complete sense, revealing to the father and the son a vision of the future and insight into the world itself! Not only does their message apply to what happens in the metaphysical story of the book in the loaf of bread, but it also (mysteriously) begins to play a vital role in the main plot of the little boy and the father in reality. And whats really strange is that the joker is alive and animate in EVERY reality (he appears to the boy, validating the story of the island).
Gaardner gives us a sense of each character in the Real reality (the little boy's world) being connected to characters in the card (e.g. the missing mother is quite obviously the queen of hearts). The story works on multiple levels of understanding - something i've rarely seen so well executed in fiction (a close comparison could perhaps be John Fowles).
I've tried to do the whole card part justice but really, if you enjoy philosophy and a grand sense of approaching cards and how they may pertain to an absolute understanding, i HIGHLY RECOMMEND 'The Solitaire Mystery' by this wonderful author!
If anyone else has read this wonderful book, please share more thoughts on Gaardner's approach to the mystery of the cards and the significance of the joker. Enough cannot be said :). Try it.
in harmony
Jay
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| jay_haque |
12 Feb 2005 |
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the book is divided into 5 sections entitled:
spades
clubs
diamonds
hearts
each section has chapters covering the entire suit (Ace to king)
the joker's section/chapter is placed between king of clubs and Ace of diamonds.
The beginning of each chapter shows an image of the playing card with very unusual images e.g. the 7 of diamonds is a book being burnt.
just like the game described in the story on the island, each chapter/card has a single line extracted from the chapter itself and placed directly below the image of the card in italics. Thus Gaardner almost suggests that we play the game of the joker and piece together the pieces of his puzzle lain strewn through the book.
a few examples:
Two of spades:
God is sitting in Heaven laughing because people don't believe in him
three of clubs:
a bit of a threesome...
king of diamonds:
we had to wear a bell around our necks
ten of hearts:
there is a fool walking the Earth who is never ravaged by time
five of diamonds:
the unfortunate thing was that the drink i was given actually tasted sweet and good...
very, very intriguing.
in harmony
Jay
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| Melvis |
12 Feb 2005 |
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I loved this book! I'm so glad you brought it up! I think I need to read it again now... :D
I was very intrigued by the ordering of the year according to suits instead of seasons (if I'm remembering correctly). The way they broke down both the days of the year and a deck of cards was so much fun!
I would highly recommend this book, too. And, in case anyone's wondering, Gaarder also wrote "Sophie's World", a great story involving the history of western philosophy!
Peace,
Melvis
:TSTRE
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| Simone |
12 Feb 2005 |
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I read the book some years ago and had all forgotten about it, but it immediately popped back up in my mind as soon as I read your post!
Wonderful stuff (Jostein Gaarder is one of my favourites authors, but funnily, I only ever owned one book and gave that away - all the others I have borrowed and read...).
I think I know what I will do in the bookstores next week ;)
Thanks for bringing this up, Jay, I think it's just what I needed now :D
Love
Simone
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| SunChariot |
13 Feb 2005 |
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I have that book sitting around my house. I read it about 5 years ago, and loved it. But that was way before I started Tarot ( less that a year ago). I wonder if I would see things in it now that I did not because of my Tarot studies. Now I am really curious to reread it and see. :-)
Thanks for putting the idea in my head. LOL
Bar
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| jay_haque |
14 Feb 2005 |
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So my devious plan to get more people to read Gaardner worked! muahaha *evil laugh*
:)
no seriously though, I'm glad you guys posted and stuff. makes me happy :D
in return, here i shall post a little passage which i enjoyed:
The joker lay on the table wagging his leg as he spoke, his bells tinkling softly.
"Every morning you have gone to work, but you have never been fully awake. Of course you have seen the sun and the moon, the stars in the sky, but you haven't really seen it all. It is different for the Joker because he was put into this world with a flaw; he sees too deeply and too much."
At this point the Queen of Diamonds broke in, "Spit it out then you fool! If you have seen something that we haven't then you must tell us at once!"
"I have seen myself." declared the joker. "I have seen how i crawl between the bushes and the trees in the large garden."
"Can you see yourself from the air?" pipped the two of hearts. "Have your eyes got wings to fly like the birds?"
"In a way, yes. You see, its no good gazing at yourself in a tiny mirror you pull out of your pocket - like the four queens in the village always do. They are so preoccupied with how they look they don't even realize they are living."
"I have never heard anything so cheeky" the Queen of Diamonds blurted out. "How long is this fool going to be allowed to rant and rave?"
"These aren't just words" continued the joker. "I feel it deep inside...I feel i am a shape bursting...bursting with life...a remarkable being...with skin, hair, nails and everything...a wide-awake living puppet...graspable like rubber...joker asks, where does this rubberman come from?"
"Are we going to let him go on?" the king of spades interrupted. The king of hearts nodded his assent.
"We're alive!" the joker announced, and threw his arms out so his bells jangled violently. "We are living in a mystical fairytale beneath the heavens. Odd, says joker, and is forever pinching himself to make sure its true."
"Does it hurt?" the three of hearts twittered.
.....
in harmony
Jay
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| Persha |
14 Feb 2005 |
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I first read "Sophie's World" when I was 15 (!) and it blew me away.
But anyway, I reccomend "Maya" also by Jostein Gaardner, equally mysterious and fascinating as his other work, and including in the background a short chap in a funny costume who was seen sneaking off a ship in a European port many years ago....
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The Jostien Gaardner and, 'The Solitaire Mystery' thread was originally posted on 12 Feb 2005 in the Talking Tarot board, and is now archived in the Forum Library. Read the active threads in Talking Tarot, or read more archived threads.
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