The Last Samurai - Couverture souple

De Witt, Helen

Couverture souple

ISBN 10 : 0786887001 ISBN 13 : 9780786887002

Editeur : Miramax, 2002

Synopsis

Book by De Witt Helen

A propos du livre

Présentation de l'éditeur

Helen DeWitt's extraordinary debut, The Last Samurai, centers on the relationship between Sibylla, a single mother of precocious and rigorous intelligence, and her son, who, owing to his mother's singular attitude to education, develops into a prodigy of learning. Ludo reads Homer in the original Greek at 4 before moving on to Hebrew, Japanese, Old Norse, and Inuit; studying advanced mathematical techniques (Fourier analysis and Laplace transformations); and, as the title hints, endlessly watching and analyzing Akira Kurosawa's masterpiece, The Seven Samurai. But the one question that eludes an answer is that of the name of his father: Sibylla believes the film obliquely provides the male role models that Ludo's genetic father cannot, and refuses to be drawn on the question of paternal identity. The child thinks differently, however, and eventually sets out on a search, one that leads him beyond the certainties of acquired knowledge into the complex and messy world of adults.

The novel draws on themes topical and perennial--the hothousing of children, the familiar literary trope of the quest for the (absent) father--and as such, divides itself into two halves: the first describes Ludo's education, the second follows him in his search for his father and father figures. The first stresses a sacred, Apollonian pursuit of logic, precise (if wayward) erudition, and the erratic and endlessly fascinating architecture of languages, while the second moves this knowledge into the world of emotion, human ambitions, and their attendant frustrations and failures.

The Last Samurai is about the pleasure of ideas, the rich varieties of human thought, the possibilities that life offers us, and, ultimately, the balance between the structures we make of the world and the chaos that it proffers in return. Stylistically, the novel mirrors this ambivalence: DeWitt's remarkable prose follows the shifts and breaks of human consciousness and memory, capturing the intrusions of unspoken thought that punctuate conversation while providing tantalizing disquisitions on, for example, Japanese grammar or the physics of aerodynamics. It is remarkable, profound, and often very funny. Arigato DeWitt-sensei. --Burhan Tufail

Revue de presse

"A triumph – a genuinely new story, a genuinely new form" (A. S. Byatt New Yorker)

"An exhilaratingly literate and playful first novel by a fresh, electrifying talent. DeWitt goes to the top of the class...her adventurousness spins out on an epic scale" (New York Times)

"A brilliant debut novel...keeps things moving at an exhilarating clip... DeWitt is formidably intelligent but engagingly witty" (Washington Post)

"The Last Samurai is an original work of brilliance about, in part, the limits of brilliance. And in literature as in life, DeWitt understands that what we like most of all is a good yarn" (Time)

"Destined to become a classic" (Garth Risk Hallberg)

"A brilliant and sad book... The funniest book I’ve read in years." (Spectator)

"Helen DeWitt is a real find – I loved this book" (Independent on Sunday)

"It is exciting for the future of the novel that a writer can do all the basic things readers need – from Peter Pan to the Odyssey, from Bleak House to The Crying of Lot 49 – and do something new with the form of the tale itself" (New Yorker)

"A delightful and original novel – expansive and intelligent writing" (Daily Telegraph)

"DeWitt pushes against the limitations of the novel as a form; reading her, one wants to push against the limitations of one’s own brain" (Paris Review)

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: Miramax
• Date d'édition: 2002
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 0786887001
• ISBN 13: 9780786887002
• Reliure: Broché
• Nombre de pages: 544
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible
• Personne responsable: non disponible