Like any other of Jostein's narration, this one also is a little different. What happens is this boy Georg, gets a letter addressed to him from his father, who has died eleven yrs ago when Georg was 4, stuffed in some old furniture. His father had written this letter during his last days of illness hoping that when his boy grows up & reads it he'l be able to understand all that he wanted to speak to him before he died..In a way he wrote the letter to the future..
That letter has a story of an orange girl..which is nothing but the story of his [father's] life. How he met his wife [who is the orange girl] & how their wonderful life began & how they found each day a magical beautiful journey. Also the father during his time is very fascinated by the universe, galaxies, stars etc & mans success in this area.
However with all this father has a puzzle or rather a question for the boy to answer to himself.
If there was some higher power who gave you the choice. Choice whether you wanted to go & live life on earth at some point. You would not know when you wil be born or when you will die. All you know is if you are coming in this world, you will also have to leave it & go away from everything. Things can be so nice here that its terrible painful to think that at some point, days will run out. With the awareness that you could at any time be pulled back from earth, in the middle of your greatest happiness, would you have chosen such a life or would you have refused to join in the game because you didnt like the rules??
In choosing to live you also choose to die :)
I like gaarder's novels too
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