The Last Samurai (2000)

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 Murakami... plus a couple great friends who are never too shy to say: wait, I don't get that. ( )

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 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. ( )

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 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. ( )

Not THAT story!! 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 year-old polymath. Excellent. ( )

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 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. ( )