The Last Samurai
A modern classic named to The New York Times' "100 Best Books of the 21st Century"
Sibylla is an American expatriate scraping by as a typist in London. After a regrettable one-night stand, she finds herself raising a son alone in near poverty. What she doesn't expect is that her child will turn out to be extraordinary.
By age two, Ludo is reading. By three, he's devouring Homer in the original Greek. Soon he adds Hebrew, Japanese, Old Norse, and advanced mathematics to his arsenal. Without a father figure, Sibylla turns to an unconventional mentor: Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai, which they watch obsessively together.
But Ludo wants more than languages and films. He wants his father's name.
At eleven, armed with the samurai code he's absorbed from the screen, Ludo sets off on a dangerous quest. He tracks down his biological father, only to find a man unworthy of the title. Undeterred, he begins auditioning replacements, seeking men of genuine excellence who might prove themselves worthy.
What follows is a funny, heartbreaking, and wildly inventive journey through genius, parenthood, and the meaning of heroism.
Interesting Facts
Fifty Failed Attempts: DeWitt completed roughly 50 manuscript attempts before finishing The Last Samurai in 1998. She worked as a dictionary text tagger, copytaker, legal secretary, Dunkin' Donuts employee, and laundry attendant while writing. When she finally quit her job with just £3,000 saved, she told herself she would finish in a month no matter what happened next.
One Month to Finish: After seven years of starting and stopping novels, DeWitt quit her legal secretary job and decided to just sit down and write until her money ran out. She gave herself one month. She finished the book.
Tom Cruise Stole Her Title: The book was originally called The Seventh Samurai, a direct nod to Kurosawa's film at the novel's heart. DeWitt couldn't secure the title rights, so she settled for The Last Samurai. Then in 2003, Hollywood released a Tom Cruise film with that exact name, burying her book's Google results forever.
Subway As a Classroom: In the novel, mother and son ride London's Circle Line for entire days because they cannot afford to heat their apartment. They read Homer in ancient Greek while fellow passengers gawk. DeWitt transformed grinding poverty into an image of radical intellectual freedom.
Vanished for a Decade: The Last Samurai caused a sensation at the 1999 Frankfurt Book Fair, selling rights to 20 countries. It sold over 100,000 copies. Then it fell completely out of print for over a decade after DeWitt's publisher collapsed, nearly disappearing from literary history.
Ludo Reads Greek At Three: The child prodigy protagonist Ludo starts reading at two and reads Homer in the original Greek at three. By six, he has learned Hebrew, Japanese, Old Norse, Inuit, and advanced mathematics. His mother teaches him languages at the rate of one or two per year.
It Teaches You Greek, Literally: The novel is structured so an attentive reader can actually learn the Greek alphabet. Sibylla teaches Ludo letter formations like λετ, μετ, and πετ, which sound like "let," "met," and "pet." One scholar called the book a Rosetta Stone hidden inside a novel.
DeWitt Reads Fifteen Languages: Helen DeWitt reads some 15 languages to various degrees of fluency. The book was translated into 20 languages and caused a sensation at the Frankfurt Book Fair in 1999.
Seven Men, One Quest: At eleven years old, Ludo embarks on a quest to find his father. Inspired by Seven Samurai, he approaches seven potential father figures to test their worthiness. These include two journalists, a painter, a bridge champion, a pianist, and an astronomer.
Quotes
"I got home and I thought I should stop leading so aimless an existence. It is harder than you might think to stop leading an existence, & if you can’t do that the only thing you can do is to introduce an element of purposefulness." - Helen DeWitt
"The master swordsman isn't interested in killing people. He only wants to perfect his art." - Helen DeWitt
"No sooner had I taken the book from the shelf than I had to buy it; no sooner bought than began to read." - Helen DeWitt
"Never rely on anyone but yourself for anything you want out of life." - Helen DeWitt
"It is my duty as a mother to be cheerful. It is my duty as a mother to be cheerful, & so it is clearly my duty to watch a work of genius & abandon Advanced Angling & composition." - Helen DeWitt
"What we needed was not a hero to worship but money. If we had money we could go anywhere. Give us the money and we would be the heroes." - Helen DeWitt
"There is a strange taboo in our society against ending something merely because it is not pleasant— life, love, a conversation, you name it, the etiquette is that you must begin in ignorance & persevere in the face of knowledge, & though I naturally believe that this is profoundly wrong it's not nice to go around constantly offending people." - Helen DeWitt
"There is an obvious difference between someone who works within the technical limitations of his time which are beyond his control and someone who accepts without thinking limitations which are entirely within his own power to set aside." - Helen DeWitt
"There are people who think death a fate worse than boredom." - Helen DeWitt
"I once read somewhere that Sean Connery left school at the age of 13 and later went on to read Proust and Finnegans Wake and I keep expecting to meet an enthusiastic school leaver on the train, the type of person who only ever reads something because it is marvellous (and so hated school). Unfortunately the enthusiastic school leavers are all minding their own business." - Helen DeWitt
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