In this novel, the main character is on a road trip with his father from Norway to Greece to find his mother. On the way, they stay overnight in a little town called Dorf, where the boy find a little book inside some rolls he buys from the bakery. The little book contains a story within a story within a story (all together contained within the actual book) about a baker several generations previous who was marooned on an island, and, in almost psychotic desperation,
begins to see his playing cards as alive. This reminds me of Alice in Wonderland not only because of the phenomenon of living cards, but also because of the uncertainty both convey about reality. Just as Alice wonder at the end of Through the Looking Glass whether the Red King was in her dream or she was in his, the baker in The Solitaire Mystery does not know what is real and what is due to his delusions.
In his experience, the baker also receives some sort of liquid drug that must be a kind of halluc
inogen.
Leftovers of this drug are preserved, always tempting future bakers and helping shape their story. A quite
obvious parallel can be drawn here between the drug (unfortunately it has been a few years since I last
read the book, so I don't remember all specific names or details) and the various liquids and items that
Alice ingests to change her size. It might be argues, even, that what Alice taken in may not only change her
size, but also her perceptions of her experiences, thus also serving as types of hallucinogens.Furthermore, The Solitaire Mystery is not merely a plot novel. It introduces a lot of ideas about the structure of a deck of cards, even creating an entire calendar, with each card representing one week. The extra day of the year (or two days in leap years) is the day of the Joker card. Though the Joker, who is eventually able to leave the deck, it shunned as an outsider, this is a day of festivities. The Joker in The Solitaire Mystery is a metaphorical representation of a philosopher among shallow people.
How does this relate to Alice in Wonderland? As is evident in The Annotated Alice, there is much more structure and underlying meaning to Carroll's work than is evident on the surface. Parallels to physics, astronomy, logic, and semantics can be drawn.
Thus, both Carroll and Gaarder created creative stories that are interesting on the level of plot, but are much more significant upon closer interpretation. Both play off of the logical structure of a deck of cards, or, in Through the Looking Glass, a chess game. Finally, both include elements of dreaming and/or hallucination, which, when paired with the intertwining of various levels of narrative and perspective, raise significant questions about reality both for the characters and the reader.