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Fiction. Literature. HTML: Called "remarkable" (The Wall Street Journal) and "an ambitious, colossal debut novel" (Publishers Weekly), Helen DeWitt's The Last Samurai is back in print at last Helen DeWitt's 2000 debut, The Last Samurai, was "destined to become a cult classic" (Miramax). The enterprising publisher sold the rights in twenty countries, so "Why not just, 'destined to become a classic?'" (Garth Risk Hallberg) And why must cultists tell the uninitiated it has nothing to do with Tom Cruise? Sibylla, an American-at-Oxford turned loose on London, finds herself trapped as a single mother after a misguided one-night stand. High-minded principles of child-rearing work disastrously well. J. S. Mill (taught Greek at three) and Yo Yo Ma (Bach at two) claimed the methods would work with any child; when these succeed with the boy Ludo, he causes havoc at school and is home again in a month. (Is he a prodigy, a genius? Readers looking over Ludo's shoulder find themselves easily reading Greek and more.) Lacking male role models for a fatherless boy, Sibylla turns to endless replays of Kurosawa's masterpiece Seven Samurai. But Ludo is obsessed with the one thing he wants and doesn't know: his father's name. At eleven, inspired by his own take on the classic film, he sets out on a secret quest for the father he never knew. He'll be punched, sliced, and threatened with retribution. He may not live to see twelve. Or he may find a real samurai and save a mother who thinks boredom a fate worse than death..… (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member janey47
Not about Japan and only about samurais in the respect that the son uses Seven Samurai as a model for searching for his father.
It's about what makes a worthwhile life or a life worth living.
And it's about the value of granting an individual autonomy over his/her own existence and what, if
And it's about what it means to look for your father, and who is a father, and what is it to have a father.
And it's about brilliance and the limitations of brilliance.
I love this book beyond all reason.
It's about what makes a worthwhile life or a life worth living.
And it's about the value of granting an individual autonomy over his/her own existence and what, if
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anything, we can responsibly do to aid a person who is in distress without compromising their autonomy. And it's about what it means to look for your father, and who is a father, and what is it to have a father.
And it's about brilliance and the limitations of brilliance.
I love this book beyond all reason.
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LibraryThing member lriley
I found this to be an amazing first novel. Helen Dewitt's The Last Samurai is narrated mostly by a young boy Ludo (aka David, Steven) who's mother Sybylla is an American ex-pat ekeing out a living in contemporary London doing odd jobs related to the publishing industry. Ludo is a very precocious
As the novel moves along we see Ludo as well as a young teenager--searching through his mothers papers he discovers his fathers identity. He tracks him down but is disappointed by the man he finds. He beings a new search for a surrogate father. An adventurer, an artist, a Nobel prize winning scientist, an aristocratic gambler etc. He follows them back to their homes claiming to be a son from a past romantic affair. It doesn't always convince and he finds all his prospects to be in some way or another fatally flawed. His last candidate as it happens is already predetermined on a course of suicide. Our young prodigy is more or less left at this point to determine his own course through life.
To conceptualize is one thing--to bring about that conception is another. What makes this book remarkable is that Dewitt dreams big and has the talent and the will to realize it. For me it's a remarkable book from beginning to end. And it's a challenging one in many respects as Dewitt makes clear right from the beginning that human beings are capable of much more than they think--that perhaps too many of us set our sights too low throughout their lives. 3 year old Ludo does not think that knowing Greek or working on Japanese alphabetical characters is a big deal. It may astound all the grownups he runs into but if a 3 year old can do it why can't anybody? And it's something I find true. I can't speak Spanish but I can read it at least somewhat (I'm horribly out of practice right now though) because of a project I gave myself several years ago. Anyway Dewitt has a very finely tuned ear for conversation, inner conversation as well and a very subtle sense for the comedic turn. The prose seems to flow effortlessy and there are no real gaps or inconsistencies in her story. It's an enjoyable read--and certainly recommended by this reviewer.
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young man. Along with the incidentals (books and toys) of a pre school aged boy he is learning to read Homer in the original source language. As well he works obsessively on other languages and complex mathematical and scientific problems. Being a product of a one night stand he worries his mother continually about his paternity. She for her part is not forthcoming. She'd rather forget him. He bugs her and bothers her about all the above as she works at home prepping and typing material for her various sources of income. Economically things are very tight for them--and if I'm getting the picture right--the both of them often ride the London tube around to get away from their home (sometimes stopping at libraries and museums where they don't have to payfor entry) so as to save on the heating bill--young Ludo often making quite an impression on other riders and/or passersby with his mathematical and linguistic skills. At home he and his mother watch Kurosawa's The Seven Samurai incessantly--Ludo using it to improve on his Japanese and as a device to look into the worlds of adulthood and human conflict. An attempt to enter him into the local school system at age 6 turns into a debacle. Being light years ahead of the other kids in practically everything he becomes a disruption to the whole class. As the novel moves along we see Ludo as well as a young teenager--searching through his mothers papers he discovers his fathers identity. He tracks him down but is disappointed by the man he finds. He beings a new search for a surrogate father. An adventurer, an artist, a Nobel prize winning scientist, an aristocratic gambler etc. He follows them back to their homes claiming to be a son from a past romantic affair. It doesn't always convince and he finds all his prospects to be in some way or another fatally flawed. His last candidate as it happens is already predetermined on a course of suicide. Our young prodigy is more or less left at this point to determine his own course through life.
To conceptualize is one thing--to bring about that conception is another. What makes this book remarkable is that Dewitt dreams big and has the talent and the will to realize it. For me it's a remarkable book from beginning to end. And it's a challenging one in many respects as Dewitt makes clear right from the beginning that human beings are capable of much more than they think--that perhaps too many of us set our sights too low throughout their lives. 3 year old Ludo does not think that knowing Greek or working on Japanese alphabetical characters is a big deal. It may astound all the grownups he runs into but if a 3 year old can do it why can't anybody? And it's something I find true. I can't speak Spanish but I can read it at least somewhat (I'm horribly out of practice right now though) because of a project I gave myself several years ago. Anyway Dewitt has a very finely tuned ear for conversation, inner conversation as well and a very subtle sense for the comedic turn. The prose seems to flow effortlessy and there are no real gaps or inconsistencies in her story. It's an enjoyable read--and certainly recommended by this reviewer.
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LibraryThing member WinterFox
I picked this up mostly because I remember a friend recommending it at some point, and then I left it around for a few months before finally picking it up. And boy, did it not disappoint at all.
The story, basically, is that of a woman trying to raise her intelligent son without a father, and then
Really, though, the book is much more than that. The style is dizzyingly interesting at points, and varies over the course of the book. I didn't like some of it in the earlier parts, particularly with the pacing and interruption of narrative flow, but once it gets going, it's great. The plot is driving, and the working of the themes of interpersonal connectedness, finding the ones most meant for you, and the nature of intelligence are thought-provoking and artistically superb. Structurally, it's very interesting as well, with threads coming in and going out at unexpected points sometimes. It builds very nicely.
I thoroughly enjoyed this, and believe it to really be a great work of fiction. I just have to try to get more people to read it.
The story, basically, is that of a woman trying to raise her intelligent son without a father, and then
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the search by the boy for his father. The name of the book comes from Sibylla, the mother, watching and rewatching Seven Samurai in an attempt to provide male role models for Ludo, the son.Really, though, the book is much more than that. The style is dizzyingly interesting at points, and varies over the course of the book. I didn't like some of it in the earlier parts, particularly with the pacing and interruption of narrative flow, but once it gets going, it's great. The plot is driving, and the working of the themes of interpersonal connectedness, finding the ones most meant for you, and the nature of intelligence are thought-provoking and artistically superb. Structurally, it's very interesting as well, with threads coming in and going out at unexpected points sometimes. It builds very nicely.
I thoroughly enjoyed this, and believe it to really be a great work of fiction. I just have to try to get more people to read it.
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LibraryThing member jddunn
I re-read this partly to figure out if I really love it as much as I thought I did(I do.) and also to sort of figure out why, since it seems to be greater than the sum of its parts somehow. I'm still not exactly sure what the secret is, but I'll take a circuitous stab at it. It incorporates a lot
I think where it really excels is in characterization and in short set-piece storytelling, and most of all in the intersection of those two. The various juvenile-adventure-style tales she tells to introduce and flesh out Ludo's surrogate-father candidates are just wonderful; they work both as character sketches and as adventures and are sad and hopeful and beautiful and true. And the way she skates right on the edge of suspension of disbelief when it comes to drawing out Ludo's character is impressive too. Somehow she manages to make him believable as both an intellectual prodigy and a moral and experiential adolescent, and his constant confused and fumbling attempts to apply the rules of one sphere to the other are touching and ring true to anyone who read dictionaries and did math well before they figured out how to deal with other people.In that vein, it also has a real moral center and moral sense, even if a rather stoic and resigned one. The evolution of Ludo's relationship with his mother(also a well-drawn and unique character and mind), to the point where he's the one who has the capacity to care for her in the end, is well done. Maybe a little cliched in this day and age, but I didn't mind that at all, and perhaps the contrast even works in its favor.
So, yeah, this has lots of pieces that aren't particularly amazing on their own, but combined in an artful and unusual way. It takes lots of the best tricks and elements of postmodern writing and combines them with older-fashioned bildungsroman-y notions of character and moral development and sense of childhood wonder and adventure. It combines a lot of themes, styles, references, and so on that I'm a sucker for, but without pandering or playing connect-the-dots. A masterful job of self-confident-but-not-arrogant authorial restraint and range and imagination.
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of elements that I love in other books: It's a bildungsroman and frame narrative(tons of other things I love.) It teaches me stuff and incorporates info-dumpy type elements, but not in a Neal Stephenson overbearingly expository sort of way... in a way that's integral to the characters and who they are(see Richard Powers.) It uses other cultural touchstones as sort of frameworks on which to hang shared meaning and around which to form identity, but not in a tossed-off and lazily referential sort of way(The difference between say, Murakami and Coupland, or Ghost World and Garden State is what I'm getting at here.) It's got a cracked and rather dry sense of humor. It employs a conversational style and a really distinctive voice(Vonnegut, but that's a double-edged sword because it also becomes what annoys me about him, and I was afraid that would be the case the second time through on this, but it wasn't). It's tangential and jumps around and weaves together narratives, but not to the point of it being ticcy and distracting about it.I think where it really excels is in characterization and in short set-piece storytelling, and most of all in the intersection of those two. The various juvenile-adventure-style tales she tells to introduce and flesh out Ludo's surrogate-father candidates are just wonderful; they work both as character sketches and as adventures and are sad and hopeful and beautiful and true. And the way she skates right on the edge of suspension of disbelief when it comes to drawing out Ludo's character is impressive too. Somehow she manages to make him believable as both an intellectual prodigy and a moral and experiential adolescent, and his constant confused and fumbling attempts to apply the rules of one sphere to the other are touching and ring true to anyone who read dictionaries and did math well before they figured out how to deal with other people.In that vein, it also has a real moral center and moral sense, even if a rather stoic and resigned one. The evolution of Ludo's relationship with his mother(also a well-drawn and unique character and mind), to the point where he's the one who has the capacity to care for her in the end, is well done. Maybe a little cliched in this day and age, but I didn't mind that at all, and perhaps the contrast even works in its favor.
So, yeah, this has lots of pieces that aren't particularly amazing on their own, but combined in an artful and unusual way. It takes lots of the best tricks and elements of postmodern writing and combines them with older-fashioned bildungsroman-y notions of character and moral development and sense of childhood wonder and adventure. It combines a lot of themes, styles, references, and so on that I'm a sucker for, but without pandering or playing connect-the-dots. A masterful job of self-confident-but-not-arrogant authorial restraint and range and imagination.
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LibraryThing member McCaine
Although much has been said already in the glowing reviews this book has justly gotten, I want to add my own voice to the chorus of praise. Helen De Witt's late debut (it's not polite to point out a lady's age but one can say most writers debut quite earlier than she did) is one of the most
The book is about Sybilla, an American single mother eking out an existence in London as a transscriber of old magazines while at the same time trying to deal with having a miraculously smart child, Ludo. Since Ludo lacks a father, she raises him on countless viewings of Akira Kurosawa's masterwork "The Seven Samurai", as well as spending her little income on buying second-hand books on languages, physics, astronomy and other subjects. Ludo masters all these things at a shockingly young age; so much so in fact that his short attempt to attend an actual school is a dismal failure. As he grows up though, Ludo wants to find out who his father is, hoping to find a rolemodel in him as well as a support for his often despondent and potentially suicidal mother, for whom "boredom is a fate worse than death".
The book traces Ludo's quest for his father and the various odd and over the top characters that he considers, while at the same time describing the intense bond between a single mother and her son. De Witt's writing is highly inventive and original and makes maximal use of page layout and changes in pace and style, without this becoming a gimmick like it does with Danielewski. Although the mother Sybilla is unabashedly based on herself, the way De Witt captures the mind of the strong-willed wunderkind is definitely the best characterization in the book, and this alone makes it worth reading. Add to that the solid structure of the book (I don't understand why some reviewers found this meandering, when it's more compact and structured than most famous 19th century novels put together), the inspiring erudition of the various interludes on linguistics, foreign lands, physics, astronomy, and Kurosawa, and finally the unpredictability and novelty of the book as a whole, and you have a definite masterpiece. If it is true that a writer's first book is usually one of their weaker ones, then we have a enormous talent in Helen De Witt.
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entertaining novels I have read in a long time.The book is about Sybilla, an American single mother eking out an existence in London as a transscriber of old magazines while at the same time trying to deal with having a miraculously smart child, Ludo. Since Ludo lacks a father, she raises him on countless viewings of Akira Kurosawa's masterwork "The Seven Samurai", as well as spending her little income on buying second-hand books on languages, physics, astronomy and other subjects. Ludo masters all these things at a shockingly young age; so much so in fact that his short attempt to attend an actual school is a dismal failure. As he grows up though, Ludo wants to find out who his father is, hoping to find a rolemodel in him as well as a support for his often despondent and potentially suicidal mother, for whom "boredom is a fate worse than death".
The book traces Ludo's quest for his father and the various odd and over the top characters that he considers, while at the same time describing the intense bond between a single mother and her son. De Witt's writing is highly inventive and original and makes maximal use of page layout and changes in pace and style, without this becoming a gimmick like it does with Danielewski. Although the mother Sybilla is unabashedly based on herself, the way De Witt captures the mind of the strong-willed wunderkind is definitely the best characterization in the book, and this alone makes it worth reading. Add to that the solid structure of the book (I don't understand why some reviewers found this meandering, when it's more compact and structured than most famous 19th century novels put together), the inspiring erudition of the various interludes on linguistics, foreign lands, physics, astronomy, and Kurosawa, and finally the unpredictability and novelty of the book as a whole, and you have a definite masterpiece. If it is true that a writer's first book is usually one of their weaker ones, then we have a enormous talent in Helen De Witt.
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LibraryThing member hippietrail
Could be destined to become one of my all-time favourites.
LibraryThing member girlunderglass
Recommended for: fellow whizkid-lovers!, fans of the Glass family, people interested in foreign languages, education, and child-rearing, people who like bildungsromans, smartasses.
I have mentioned my obsession with whizkids many times before, although now that I think of it, it was never on this
I want to make one thing clear in case you were wondering: the title coincides with the title of a known Hollywood movie with Tom Cruise in it. That is just an unfortunate accident . The book in fact takes its title from another movie: Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai. The relationship between Seven Samurai and this book is not so straightforward as the back cover would have you believe. Yes, there is the obvious plot connection: Sibylla, Ludo’s mother is worried about her son growing up without a role model since his father is ignorant about his existence, so she decides to play the movie every day for him in order to give him not one but 8 male role models: the seven samurai and Kurosawa himself! But the relationship between book and movie is much more complex than that. There are beliefs and ideologies embedded in the movie that have become part of who Ludo is. There are life lessons to be had from it. There are languages to be learned. There are words of wisdom to be memorized and repeated. There are fictional characters that become real friends. The complexities of the parallel that DeWitt is trying to draw between the two is mostly up to the reader to figure out. I don’t want to say anything more because I don't want to spoil this wonderful novels for anyone. Suffice to say, The Last Samurai ties with I Know This Much Is True for my top reads of 2009. Go read it.
I have mentioned my obsession with whizkids many times before, although now that I think of it, it was never on this
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site. So then you won’t mind if I repeat myself. Here goes. I LOVE WHIZKIDS. There is possibly no subject matter in the world more certain to get my attention. If you happen to mention in passing a movie that has a child prodigy protagonist in it, or a child prodigy secondary character, or possibly even a child prodigy chimney sweeper that only appears for five seconds during the entire movie, chances are I’m gonna watch it. This all started years ago with Salinger’s Glass family, my favourite favourite favourite fictional characters which no one has yet – and probably never will – manage to dethrone. There were many whizkids I fell in love with after that. Stanley Spector from Magnolia, Klaus and Violet from the Series of Unfortunate Events, Dexter from Dexter’s Laboratory, Brain (Pinky & the Brain – although not exactly a “child”), Hermione Granger, Velma, Teddy and Esme and more recently (recently for me) Joshua Waitzkin from Searching for Bobby Fischer. Like I said none of these will probably be able to dethrone Seymour and Zooey Glass from their no.1 spot. But Ludo, age seven, child prodigy and the protagonist of The Last Samurai sure comes in a close second. I loved this boy with all my heart. And though usually when people say they love a kid they only mean it in a “aww he’s so cute” way, I mean it in a “aww he’s so cute and smart and interesting and brilliant and damaged and fantabulous and loveable and heartbreaking and great and can-I-please-please-please-order-one-just-like-him-somewhere?”I want to make one thing clear in case you were wondering: the title coincides with the title of a known Hollywood movie with Tom Cruise in it. That is just an unfortunate accident . The book in fact takes its title from another movie: Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai. The relationship between Seven Samurai and this book is not so straightforward as the back cover would have you believe. Yes, there is the obvious plot connection: Sibylla, Ludo’s mother is worried about her son growing up without a role model since his father is ignorant about his existence, so she decides to play the movie every day for him in order to give him not one but 8 male role models: the seven samurai and Kurosawa himself! But the relationship between book and movie is much more complex than that. There are beliefs and ideologies embedded in the movie that have become part of who Ludo is. There are life lessons to be had from it. There are languages to be learned. There are words of wisdom to be memorized and repeated. There are fictional characters that become real friends. The complexities of the parallel that DeWitt is trying to draw between the two is mostly up to the reader to figure out. I don’t want to say anything more because I don't want to spoil this wonderful novels for anyone. Suffice to say, The Last Samurai ties with I Know This Much Is True for my top reads of 2009. Go read it.
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LibraryThing member chriszodrow
Not THAT story!! A better one. The essential question: what is character and where does it come from? Is it fate, circumstance, parentage or none of the above? What makes a man a man?
A heart-breaking and humorous read about identity. "Gnothai seauton" (know thyself) through the eyes of an eleven
A heart-breaking and humorous read about identity. "Gnothai seauton" (know thyself) through the eyes of an eleven
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year-old polymath. Excellent. Show Less
LibraryThing member aliceunderskies
This book gave me one of the more mixed reading experiences in recent memory. There were sections of it that I just LOVED! so much that I wanted to pester everyone I knew with excerpts; other parts were so repetitive and annoying that I almost quit reading. Sweartogod the exact same scene is
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repeated almost word-for-word chapter after chapter in the first part of the book (and I am docking a full star for that dastardly stunt). I realize some might argue this repetition is meant to evoke emotions in the reader that mirror the characters'--but I simply don't care. It's obnoxious. Some of the linguistic pyrotechnics really excited me at first, but by the end I felt that they just served to distract from the plot's more wanting aspects. Not without its charm--certainly containing some fantastic aspects--but the pain & frustration exceeded the payout on this one. Show Less
LibraryThing member JenneB
I loved this.
At first I thought it was the book that the Tom Cruise movie was based on, so I didn't read it because I thought the movie was stupid.
And then I read the synopsis, that says it's about a single mother raising a son who ends up searching for his father, and I thought well, THAT story
BUT it was recommended in a discussion of women writers who are similar to Neal Stephenson, so I thought I would try it out and it is AWESOME.
I like the sense it has that the author is going to tell the story in the way SHE thinks is interesting, and is not going to slow down and wait for people to catch up who can't even read the Greek alphabet for godsake.
At first I thought it was the book that the Tom Cruise movie was based on, so I didn't read it because I thought the movie was stupid.
And then I read the synopsis, that says it's about a single mother raising a son who ends up searching for his father, and I thought well, THAT story
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hasn't been written one million times already, pass.BUT it was recommended in a discussion of women writers who are similar to Neal Stephenson, so I thought I would try it out and it is AWESOME.
I like the sense it has that the author is going to tell the story in the way SHE thinks is interesting, and is not going to slow down and wait for people to catch up who can't even read the Greek alphabet for godsake.
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LibraryThing member Pferdina
Quite complex but excellently conveys the excitement and pleasure of learning. The book is about single mother Sibylla and her young son Ludo who are living in London. Ludo is a genius. Sibylla intends to stimulate him by teaching him a second language at an early age, but this unleashes an
The book is written in an unusual style. The first part is mainly from Sibylla's point of view and it is almost stream-of-consciousness. Apparently, the author has no need for quotation marks to set off dialog. Further along, Ludo's voice is heard more and more until the book is entirely from his point of view and Sibylla becomes less and less involved. It was a bit difficult to get used to this style at first, but afterwards it was very quick-moving and pleasant.
I think the book conveys the real pleasure of learning things. When Sibylla and Ludo are discussing languages or comparing their grammars, the detail is very satisfying. One can be amazed that, not only do the terms for such things exist, but that people know and use them to talk about language. The mathematics and science is weaker, more superficial (such as the references to "learning the periodic table" and recitations of the properties of the elements--atomic number, stable isotopes, boiling point--instead of any actual chemistry) presumably due to the author's own lack of familiarity. At one point there is an error when a minor character is described as sharing a Nobel Prize for Physics with three others; as far as I know, a maximum of three people may share a Prize in any field. However, this is not important to the story and most readers would never notice.
Highly recommended for those who like a good story with interesting characters and who do not mind something a little different.
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unstoppable force which is always hungry for more. After several languages (Arabic, German, Hebrew, Greek...) and a lot of mathematics, he also begins to study sciences. He reads everything. Sibylla fears the effects of growing up without a male role model so introduces Ludo to the classic Japanese film "The Seven Samurai" in the belief that the characters as well as the director will substitute for his absent father. The film provides a unifying theme throughout the book. Later, when Ludo is about ten years old, he becomes interested in meeting his father and the remainder of the book relates his adventures with several candidates as well as what he learns from this project.The book is written in an unusual style. The first part is mainly from Sibylla's point of view and it is almost stream-of-consciousness. Apparently, the author has no need for quotation marks to set off dialog. Further along, Ludo's voice is heard more and more until the book is entirely from his point of view and Sibylla becomes less and less involved. It was a bit difficult to get used to this style at first, but afterwards it was very quick-moving and pleasant.
I think the book conveys the real pleasure of learning things. When Sibylla and Ludo are discussing languages or comparing their grammars, the detail is very satisfying. One can be amazed that, not only do the terms for such things exist, but that people know and use them to talk about language. The mathematics and science is weaker, more superficial (such as the references to "learning the periodic table" and recitations of the properties of the elements--atomic number, stable isotopes, boiling point--instead of any actual chemistry) presumably due to the author's own lack of familiarity. At one point there is an error when a minor character is described as sharing a Nobel Prize for Physics with three others; as far as I know, a maximum of three people may share a Prize in any field. However, this is not important to the story and most readers would never notice.
Highly recommended for those who like a good story with interesting characters and who do not mind something a little different.
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LibraryThing member booksbooks11
I wasn't going to review this but none of the other reviews really said what I want say. I was disappointed by the book in a few ways. FIrstly it's quite disjointed, the first half set in America about her parents and so on is almost a different book from the later half in England. I did enjoy
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toying with the idea of such a child genius and although it was taken rather too far to be realistic I think that was part of the point of it. Not being particuarly multilingual myself I did wonder about all the harping on about different languages, was DeWitt trying to display something of that genius herself and trying a little too hard for me. It may have taken me a while to twig to the enivitiability of the seven fathers but I really did groan with dismay and started flicking pages after about number four. The fathers got more and more fanciful and less connected to the real world, so I became less interested in the book. I nearly gave up at this point but being nearly at the end made it through, it was worth it but mainly because it filled most of a boring plane trip. Show Less
LibraryThing member cestovatela
A boy genius raised in isolation by his genius mother sets off to find his absentee father. The young protagonist's journey from one potential parent to another are entertaining and I enjoyed the twist at the end, but on the whole, the book didn't quite come together.
LibraryThing member posthumose
A boy tries to discover the identity of his father by researching the lives scientists and artists and their works when his intellectual mother refuses him any information. The mother's obssession with a Kurosawa film explains the title, NOT the recent Cruise movie. A masterpiece of originality and
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a hoot as well. Show Less
LibraryThing member DinadansFriend
I found the book to be a contemporary quest novel, with no swordplay but reasonable character development. Perhaps the book would be some help when one is dealing with a "Gifted" child in a single parent setting. It didn't really come to grips with the situation as regards the absent father.
LibraryThing member NativeRoses
For its playful, steady, angst-attuned intelligence and its utter conceptual exceptionality.
—Sven Birkerts
—Sven Birkerts
LibraryThing member veranasi
This is a book about feeling lost. It's about anxieties of child prodigies, but it's actually mostly about feeling pressured as a human being. Watching Ludo interact with possible candidates for fatherhood strikes at the very heart of "paternity as fiction." Many of the reviews of the book mention
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the relationship of the son and mother, and that's fair, but it's also about the absence and presence of fathers and the power parental expectations, whether that paternal influence is parental, social, or academic. Show Less
LibraryThing member BibliophageOnCoffee
This book made me laugh out loud AND feel too stupid to be alive. A rare combination indeed!
LibraryThing member rmaitzen
I absolutely loved reading this book, even though at almost every point in it I realized that in order to appreciate it fully, I would need not just to reread it (probably many times), but to undertake a whole new education. It's surprising how little that sense of inadequacy and, occasionally,
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disorientation hampered the sheer pleasure of the reading. Show Less
LibraryThing member nancyfreund
If only I could bring a small reference library with it, this would be among my top choices for the desert island endless getaway. Maybe even without the small reference library.
Or another fantasy... exceedingly long dinner with Helen DeWitt, Jonathan Safran Foer, J.K. Rowling, and Haruki
Or another fantasy... exceedingly long dinner with Helen DeWitt, Jonathan Safran Foer, J.K. Rowling, and Haruki
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Murakami... plus a couple great friends who are never too shy to say: wait, I don't get that. Show Less
LibraryThing member reganrule
A fantastic, challenging and (perhaps) inspiring book, The Last Samurai was first published in 2001 and re-released this year by Dalkey. Sibylla, an American linguist in London, becomes pregnant after a tedious one-night stand. The resultant child, Ludo, shows all the signs of genius--he knows
This debut novel is edifying on many levels and darkly hilarious.
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English and Greek by 3 years old, then picks up Hebrew, Arabic, etc., while advancing in his studies in aerodynamics, complex math, etc. His voraciousness taxes Sibylla, who can barely meet their bills with all of Ludo's questioning. She cares nothing for Ludo's father, but acknowledges that her son is in need of a father figure. To that end, they begin watching Kurosawa's Seven Samurais religiously. Eventually, Ludo (age 11), drawn by the mystery of his father's identity, goes in search of him, but instead finds himself interviewing a variety of better fits for the job of father/sensei/samurai guide. This debut novel is edifying on many levels and darkly hilarious.
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LibraryThing member jostie13
I thought I was going to like this book a lot more than I did. There were bits I found engaging, especially the shift from Sibylla’s perspective finally to Ludo’s. On the whole, though, I found the novel to be ineffective, largely related to the superficial treatment of Ludo’s psyche. I
I am hoping tonight at book club I will learn that maybe I just missed some huge clever turn in story.
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couldn’t help comparing it to “Geek Love,” another novel that examines ideas of genius and extraordinary ability and expectation within family life. “Geek Love” packs a such a punch in part because Oly’s psychology is so finely and tragically fleshed out. This was the gaping hole in this book for me: the lack of development of Ludo’s character made it difficult to feel invested in his search for identity. And if Ludo’s absence of character was the point, that story was not presented in a compelling or new way. I was bored for much of the book.I am hoping tonight at book club I will learn that maybe I just missed some huge clever turn in story.
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LibraryThing member berthirsch
The Last Samurai by Helen DeWitt
Hands down this is one of the best novels I have read in several years. Helen DeWitt has written a tour de force, a brilliant, funny, sometimes tragic tale about a single mother and her precocious young son, Ludo, whom she also endearingly calls The Phenomenon.
The
Sybill often comments on Ludo’s facile mind and her view of education:
“there was no shame in ignorance but in the refusal to learn.”
“He [Ludo] is capable of logical thought…it makes him appear exceptionally intelligent. The fact is that most people are illogical out of habit rather than stupidity; they could probably be rational quite easily if they were properly taught.”
Frustrated by her own life journey: “how cruel that we must wake each time to answer to the same name, revive the same memories, take up the same habits and stupidities that we shouldered the day before and lay down to sleep”; she often lets Ludo explore the city by himself believing that experience and instilled confidence are important aspects of education.
Sybill, obsessed with the Kurosawa film, Seven Samurai, continuously watches the film with Ludo, hoping he will find ideal male role models amongst the depicted samurai fighters.
Ludo continuously inquires as to “who is my father” to which his mom does not reply yet he eventually finds a hidden envelope marked “not to be opened until my death” and discovers that his father was a travel writer. Not knowing his name Ludo takes off on a crash course reading of travel writers imagining that Thor Hyderthol or Bruce Chatwin might be the man he is looking for.
Ludo finally discovers his father is Val Peters, a travel writer of mediocre talent whom he visits one day under the guise of collecting for charity. Invited in they have a brief yet moving encounter about books, languages, education, Ludo leaving with 2 autographed books but choosing not to inform him that he is his son.
Ludo concludes that he will hunt out his own father, he’ll pick one who lives up to the standards of a samurai, one who demonstrates courage, guile, compassion and humanity. A series of men are chosen each with an unusual backstory: an Oxford trained linguist who searches the globe for distinct forgotten dialects; a Nobel Award winning astronomer with a TV show on which is a boy, a mathematical savant, he discovered in the Amazon jungles; a world famous painter who made his mark diving in a bathysphere so he might discover and then depict the genuine blue colors of the deep sea; a professional gambler, bridge player and
bon vivant whose game skills sees right through Ludo’s ruse.
Indeed all unusual men:
“People who generalize about people are dismissed as superficial. It’s only when you’ve known large numbers of people that you can spot the unusual ones-when you look at each one as if you’d never seen one before, they all look alike”.
Ludo’s search for the hero father figure appears in a section of the book entitled. “A Good Samurai Will Parry the Blow”. As Ludo approaches each famous man he steels himself by repeating a line form the Kurosawa movie, “I drew my bamboo sword and raised it, I drew it back in a sweeping motion…” summoning the courage to say the line “I am your son”. Curiously most of the men believe him, each one having had a tryst encounter, a memorable night, an affair which could have easily produced a son. Due to their own wishes to have a son and Ludo’s unusual level of intelligence and cleverness they believe it is so. Astonished, Ludo then has to convince each man that indeed they are not his biological father.
Near the end of the book he encounters a famous journalist who after years of captivity and torture has safely returned to England On the cusp of taking his life, Ludo engages him in discussion about Sybill’s struggles with suicidal thoughts, with The Samaritans a group that helps people in distress. Red Devlin though is haunted with trauma wishing that “the world would be quite a pretty place if the only people tormented by atrocities were those who committed them”.
If I could, I would give The Last Samurai 6 stars! One of the best novels I have ever read. A book about a genius created by a brilliant, witty writer. A book spewing imagination, intelligence, humor and tragedy.
In DeWitt’s own words, her Afterword, she asserts that perhaps Ludo was not a genius, “that like JS Mill thought that he had no special aptitude or intelligence, only the advantage of an unusual education; we still don’t know whether he was unduly modest.”
She wrote a story about a fatherless boy, a clever little guy whose mother exposed him to dozens of languages and books on mathematics, physics and the humanities. She writes, “its much harder to imagine what one might have been with better chances, greater challenges. Since there is no age at which the opportunities offered Ludo are the norm, we don’t know whether he was a genius or not-only that he is an oddity in a society with very low expectations.”
Hands down this is one of the best novels I have read in several years. Helen DeWitt has written a tour de force, a brilliant, funny, sometimes tragic tale about a single mother and her precocious young son, Ludo, whom she also endearingly calls The Phenomenon.
The
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Last Samurai follows the education and adventures of Ludo. His mother Sibylla meagerly supports the both, typing out copy for popular hobby magazines of mostly obscure pursuits. Home schooled, modeled after JS Mill and Yo Yo Ma , Ludo, by the age of 4, is familiar reading in both Greek and Latin and by the age of 11 has added Hebrew, Arabic, French, Japanese and several other languages. He and his mom spend most days on the London tube’s Circle Line, with shopping bags of esoteric texts in mathematics, physics and the humanities. People are often mystified by Ludo’s fund of knowledge and his clever conversations. Sybill often comments on Ludo’s facile mind and her view of education:
“there was no shame in ignorance but in the refusal to learn.”
“He [Ludo] is capable of logical thought…it makes him appear exceptionally intelligent. The fact is that most people are illogical out of habit rather than stupidity; they could probably be rational quite easily if they were properly taught.”
Frustrated by her own life journey: “how cruel that we must wake each time to answer to the same name, revive the same memories, take up the same habits and stupidities that we shouldered the day before and lay down to sleep”; she often lets Ludo explore the city by himself believing that experience and instilled confidence are important aspects of education.
Sybill, obsessed with the Kurosawa film, Seven Samurai, continuously watches the film with Ludo, hoping he will find ideal male role models amongst the depicted samurai fighters.
Ludo continuously inquires as to “who is my father” to which his mom does not reply yet he eventually finds a hidden envelope marked “not to be opened until my death” and discovers that his father was a travel writer. Not knowing his name Ludo takes off on a crash course reading of travel writers imagining that Thor Hyderthol or Bruce Chatwin might be the man he is looking for.
Ludo finally discovers his father is Val Peters, a travel writer of mediocre talent whom he visits one day under the guise of collecting for charity. Invited in they have a brief yet moving encounter about books, languages, education, Ludo leaving with 2 autographed books but choosing not to inform him that he is his son.
Ludo concludes that he will hunt out his own father, he’ll pick one who lives up to the standards of a samurai, one who demonstrates courage, guile, compassion and humanity. A series of men are chosen each with an unusual backstory: an Oxford trained linguist who searches the globe for distinct forgotten dialects; a Nobel Award winning astronomer with a TV show on which is a boy, a mathematical savant, he discovered in the Amazon jungles; a world famous painter who made his mark diving in a bathysphere so he might discover and then depict the genuine blue colors of the deep sea; a professional gambler, bridge player and
bon vivant whose game skills sees right through Ludo’s ruse.
Indeed all unusual men:
“People who generalize about people are dismissed as superficial. It’s only when you’ve known large numbers of people that you can spot the unusual ones-when you look at each one as if you’d never seen one before, they all look alike”.
Ludo’s search for the hero father figure appears in a section of the book entitled. “A Good Samurai Will Parry the Blow”. As Ludo approaches each famous man he steels himself by repeating a line form the Kurosawa movie, “I drew my bamboo sword and raised it, I drew it back in a sweeping motion…” summoning the courage to say the line “I am your son”. Curiously most of the men believe him, each one having had a tryst encounter, a memorable night, an affair which could have easily produced a son. Due to their own wishes to have a son and Ludo’s unusual level of intelligence and cleverness they believe it is so. Astonished, Ludo then has to convince each man that indeed they are not his biological father.
Near the end of the book he encounters a famous journalist who after years of captivity and torture has safely returned to England On the cusp of taking his life, Ludo engages him in discussion about Sybill’s struggles with suicidal thoughts, with The Samaritans a group that helps people in distress. Red Devlin though is haunted with trauma wishing that “the world would be quite a pretty place if the only people tormented by atrocities were those who committed them”.
If I could, I would give The Last Samurai 6 stars! One of the best novels I have ever read. A book about a genius created by a brilliant, witty writer. A book spewing imagination, intelligence, humor and tragedy.
In DeWitt’s own words, her Afterword, she asserts that perhaps Ludo was not a genius, “that like JS Mill thought that he had no special aptitude or intelligence, only the advantage of an unusual education; we still don’t know whether he was unduly modest.”
She wrote a story about a fatherless boy, a clever little guy whose mother exposed him to dozens of languages and books on mathematics, physics and the humanities. She writes, “its much harder to imagine what one might have been with better chances, greater challenges. Since there is no age at which the opportunities offered Ludo are the norm, we don’t know whether he was a genius or not-only that he is an oddity in a society with very low expectations.”
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LibraryThing member dbsovereign
A very intelligent boy looks for (or perhaps just wonders about) his father (or is he looking for a real-life hero he can emulate?) and meets some interesting characters along the way. With a single mother who does not treat her child as a child. The stories within the stories are what really make
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this book worthwhile! Show Less
LibraryThing member dlubell
a superb work of scholarship which no home should be without
Awards
Women's Prize for Fiction (Longlist — 2001)
Dublin Literary Award (Shortlist — 2002)
LA Times Book Prize (Finalist — 2000)
Notable Books List (2001)
The Great American Novels (2000)