A long-awaited Staff Pick, from Matthew!
"The Last Samurai"
By Helen DeWitt
"Everyone I know should read this, but who will? In 1990s London, a poor American mother named Sibylla rides the Tube with her 2-year-old son Ludo. Ludo reads Homer in Greek. He`s also learning Arabic, then more languages, then wild foraging, Gaussian math, aerodynamics, and "Straight, No Chaser"...He`s a fatherless prodigy. For years, mother & son obsess over Akira Kurosawa`s 1954 film "Seven Samurai." By his 12th birthday, the film has inspired Ludo to find and test a father worthy of him.
The thing about this novel is, someone picks it up expecting Tom Cruise, and instead it`s sometimes like an instruction manual for basic Japanese. But it`s not about the elitism of being smart. In fact, the experience of reading it feels pretty anti-elitist. This is a story about ambition. Its meaning, its limits. It doesn`t say, `Only an intellectual gets this.` It asks, `Well, why couldn`t you, yes, YOU, Reader, learn a little Japanese, like little Ludo?` Yes, it is sometimes a little like an instruction manual: one for cultivating ambition in a culture that`s comfortable with a low bar. It`s also a story about stories, and chance, truth, heroes, money, and death. And, it`s constantly funny. Okay, so it`s not my favorite novel. But it`s been a while since I felt this seen by a novel. `The Last Samurai` can see you, too. A good samurai will parry the blow."
~ Matthew
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