I was looking forward to this book but after reading to page 90 I can only agree with the Review by Jennifer Beth that the book was basically unreadable – to be fair I have kept it and want to return to it.

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 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. ( )

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 a hoot as well. ( )

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 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.

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 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. ( )