The Samurai

I'll admit that I adore a good novel about academic life, as many English majors who've gone on to other things tend to do. And a novel that promises a view into a historical moment--particularly one relevant to my studies--is one I can't miss. Thus, I had to read Julia Kristeva's The Samurai, a novel written by a preeminent theorist that includes fictionalized portraits of her contemporary intellectuals. While the novel lived up to its promise, the view into the world was one of the sensual and exalted world in which the characters lived, but it lacked something of the human ordinariness that even the most elite experience. I'd recommend this for readers interested in the milieu, but I'll add the caveat that, as a novel, the work left show more me cold. show less

La lingüista Olga Morena, llega a París en 1966, en un avión Tupolev procedente de un país de Europa del Este. Nieva en la capital francesa, y Olga Morena tiene poco dinero, mucha hambre y unas ganas enormes de vivir. El sol comenzará a brillar para ella cuando entre en contacto con un círculo de universitarios que le explicarán que la revolución no es lo que ha vivido en el Este. La revolución saldrá de sus cabezas como Minerva de la de Júpiter, y sus semillas están en Mao, Freud, Nietzsche, el estructuralismo, el sexo libre y la literatura maldita.

Linguiste reconnue, Kristeva aurait mieux fait de se cantonner à ses recherches; personnages stéréotypés, aucune perspective nouvelle, style lourd et ennuyeux