Prior to reading The Ringmaster’s Daughter, I had read
two other Jostein Gaardner books, Sophie’s
World and The Solitaire Mystery.
I enjoyed the latter because of its whimsicality and strangeness, and I was
bored to tears by the former, to the point that I could not even finish it.
The Ringmaster’s Daughter is narrated by the protagonist Petter, a precocious
and vain child and fantasist. It tells of Petter’s life story, how he grew up
in a weird fantasy world of his own imagination, how he believed himself to be
better than his peers and parents, and describes his somewhat obsessive
relationship with his mother. His imagination becomes vital to his living, as
after his lover Maria leaves him, carrying his child, he turns his imagination
into a profitable business, selling stories to struggling writers. After many
years of this profitable business, rumors begin to spread in the publishing
industry of a “Spider” who sells ideas to everyone. Petter is warned that his
life may be in jeopardy and he flees, eventually falling for a younger woman
named Beate whom he later realizes is his own daughter.
