CAFÉ PHILOSOPHY

Alsadah’s charming novel blends narrative with matters of the self through the lens of philosophy.

Avril Laviolette is a jaded and tired primary school teacher who nevertheless has a persistent desire to engage her students and positively influence their futures. In the sophisticated, bustling atmosphere of Café de Sophia, she meets a man who goes by the name Plato, who reveals a similar passion for teaching—thus begins their journey to find answers to philosophical questions about how humans acquire personality traits, manners, and speech. Avril, much like the common reader, is not initially familiar with the modes of philosophical probing: All sides of an argument are thoroughly considered, nothing is taken for granted, and the pursuit of a satisfactory conclusion is never abandoned. Through bouts of free indirect discourse, readers gain insights into Avril’s self-doubts and self-revelations. Though Avril verges on being overbearing in her disparagement of herself, she slowly but surely finds her place within the conversations, and readers learn alongside her the virtues of asking questions freely and pursuing self-expression without fear. Alsadah’s prose is straightforward and helpfully elucidating—“The principle of embedding? What the heck is that?” Avril humorously exclaims; “I better google it”—and abstract topics are handled in a clearly comprehensible manner. Readers interested in exploring ideas essential to the human existence are invited to exercise their own analytical thinking and perhaps, like Avril, find illumination in “a philosopher’s journey toward the beauty of knowledge, wisdom, and speech” that “never ends.”

A lighthearted read of meticulous reflection and argumentation, turning the deceptively simple into troves of discovery.