Book Group: Helen DeWitt's "The Last Samurai" - Discussion Thread

I liked it a lot. In some ways I wish I had finished in 3-4 days and then spend time re-reading it. But I will revive this.

Just on the w/e I finished reading this novel I came across this story. Quite a coincidence.

The father of the boy has said that his son is no genius. The thing is he wasn't afraid to make him curious, to teach him (or get him to learn) as much as he could. A bit like S in this book, she does not think she is pushing her child too fast too young. Very much a 'how much work you do' approach.

The father also said something like that the main thing is to get kids reading by two years of age. Seemed like half of the equation.

This kid is also learning French and Russian and has written some sort of reference book on Shakespeare, btw.

Yeah, I enjoyed/am enjoying this as well - the only reason I haven't finished is that my life is in a state of advanced chaos at the moment, just in terms of material possessions being strewn about various places, which means that I haven't had the book on me. Anyone read any of the Your Name Here stuff?

i read YNH a while ago but sadly lost the pdf in a grand hd crash - i remember enjoying it, though.

i remember that there was this bit about language learning that I disagreed with - the narration in YNH collapses the distance between 'learning to read a script' and 'being able to read a language', in rather the same way that, in TLS, Sibylla handwaves away the period between 'teaching Ludo the greek for 'of the king'' and 'Ludo understands greek grammar and only needs to ask about vocabulary'.

i guess it jarred because in so many other ways the book and the narration is so meticulous, especially the book is meticulous in awkward and despairing things, and then this bit which is kind of about the hope of further human understanding is so vaguely drawn.

(but as aforesaid i haven't looked at ynh for years, so it's poss i'm filling in gaps from imagination not memory)

I have the PDF of YNH and since it seems stuck in publishing he'll I would gladly send it to people, provided on honor that they toss DeWitt 4 or 5 bucks on paypal or whatever she was charging for it.

I didn't do this - but did people enjoy this? Maybe it would be good to have a bookclub here where read longform short stories and then talk about them? I would like to do this.

Yeah I enjoyed it, shame it petered out at the end.

Yeah - I thought maybe we could do one a week? Then if you missed a week's story, no big deal, just read the next one? I don't know.

I was going to nominate Junot Diaz's Drown one time if book club is to become a thing. That might fit what you're looking for. It wouldn't need a week per story though, they're pretty short.

just finished this the other day. wasn't really a fan of how she structured the second half after samurai confrontations.

however I have decided that I should watch seven samurai pretty soon.

The thing I liked about the week-a-story idea is that you could read it on like Wednesday and then catch up with the discussion? Because reading stuff in sync with other people is hard. I think shorter is better really - c.f. the listening clubs (rip) where people were asking for 2 listens of 2 albums a week, plus buying/download time - that's clearly too much commitment, but a 40 page-or-less story probably wouldn't be, especially if it was online somewhere to begin with.

I see what you mean. The listening clubs got a bit ridiculous - the funk one was pumping out four albums a week, with no discussion - hardly seems like a club if there's no interaction.

I reckon your idea should work, but it'll take a ringleader pushing it forward I think - these things can peter out a bit. I'd be up for participating anyway - haven't read much in the way of stories for a long time.

Do you think it would be better to start it here, or on ile? Or does it not make any difference in the SNA era?

Its natural home is here I think. But be sparing imo, give it month or two's lead-in - people have to buy books, clear time, etc.

How about picking off from where we left off? Both myself and roxymuzak registered an interest in starting this again.

Suggested seasonal.

Check here again round mid-week to see if there is any interest with a view to getting a nominations thread going (if anyone wants to go ahead then by all means).

Then a poll. Then reading.

i'm in.

Yeah, I'm interested too. And I'd like to go ahead and nominate Egan's "Good Squad" which was mentioned in some other thread. But ... are we nominating here or do you want to do a separate nominations thread? Either way I'd like to throw in the Egan and I'll try to come up with other ideas for candidates. Do we want to stick to contemporary literary stuff? or maybe do a classic? My only thought is that I'd like to have it be not too long. Maybe 350 pgs or less, just because I have a ton of other reading to do (I'm in school).

Anyone in New York/Boston been/going to see her book tour for Lightning Rods?

she's got a new story out - http://recommendedreading.tumblr.com/post/29475857392/helen-dewitt-recovery

Yikes. Rural retreat did not go well.

yeah, that sounded bad. saw hints for a while but not the details.

Very nice interview/discussion

Happened upon it after reading Will Self on how serious fiction is a minority interest now but my eyes just stopped as I skimmed ahead to a discussion of McLuhan. I only know 3rd/4th hand versions of his ideas and I suppose those two things merged a bit...how fiction that isn't at all worthwhile is made today because those energies have gone to other things: TV (the discussion of Brit comedy in the DeWitt piece), film (more the case in France, see Margerite Duras who is like the mid-point between these tendencies).

OTOH wrt to Self I saw that as excuse making for how badly this generation have done - not that I would know. I have v little interest in British fiction, and his article which is why I barely read it.

After all that I find the DeWitt interview awesome - love how they are saying at times 'you know, just stop reading contemporary fiction', even if some of it is good do you need it? Funny too bcz DFW (who they talk about) doesn't interest me at all! It does sound like the sort of thing Will Self is saying, but here its cast in a much more stimulating manner.

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v36/n16/helen-dewitt/diary

that sounds shitty

was some of this public before? i had a weird sense of deja vu reading it

on her site maybe?

A blog entry on this was linked here.

Started Lightning Rods in the morning, saw this in the afternoon, then onto another few chapters of LR...just an odd day. xp

blog entries/bits on twitter - yeah really shitty. I'm not sure I'd still be there, tho I can understand her wish not to be threatened out of her home, and the financial and other practical reasons for not doing so. I imagine it's hard even in periods of repose not to find the association of place with events too strong to not be mentally overwhelmed by them, and the purblind stupidity of the law must only aggravate those feelings. just hope she can start feeling safe, and start writing again, tho it doesn't look like she's going to be feeling safe any time soon.

http://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2015/09/03/helen-dewitt/tashu-duset-sekar/

So ties in to The Last Samurai.

On a few bits and pieces and great as usual with it.

whoops, sorry, meant this to go in this thread, missed it in my search because of the quote marks

http://lithub.com/seven-ways-to-hand-sell-a-lost-modern-masterpiece/

and podcast interview mentioned here:

http://paperpools.blogspot.co.uk/2016/05/podcast-with-scott-gosnell.html?m=1

http://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2016/06/08/helen-dewitt-on-the-last-samurai/

http://evergreenreview.com/read/sexual-codes-of-the-europeans/

god that's a beautiful website

it’s a really wonderful piece of writing as well. utterly piquant.

Sweet baby jesus that hit the spot tonight. Maybe the first piece of writing by Helen I have really fallen hard for since The Last Samurai

i really enjoyed this. finished it last week. i missed the mom's voice though. would have liked to know more about her. it switches from mom to kid pretty quickly. or it felt like it did to me. there was obviously the long first section all in mom-voice. i love how readable she made the structure of the book. that takes some work right there. could have been a mess or precious or whatever. but it really keeps you going. brainy page-turners are my fave kind of page-turners.

curious about lightning rods. people don't seem to like it half as much.

Last Samurai is the best

lightning rods is amazing. her style and tone manages to be very controlled, rich, and capable of great flexibility and humour (her ability to write very well without punctuation, that you mentioned elsewhere scott, is a sign of that). the sexual codes of the europeans posted just above is also brilliant. she must write more.

Lightning Rods is great. And more topical than ever, tbh.

New and near you soon: https://www.ndbooks.com/book/some-trick/

New and near you soon: https://www.ndbooks.com/book/some-trick🕸/

Should all be getting reviewer-early copies anyway, we've all done good work on this thread.

Yes. So excited to see this. Although I still wish that YOUR NAME HERE would get a proper release.

Amazon says this is 13 stories. I assume short stories. If so, I’m curious whether this collects her short stories that have already been published but in difficult to access literary journals, etc, or whether this is all new material.

i did write to hdw about your name here and she responded giving a number of reasons why it wasn’t available. publisher reluctance in various forms - “too adventurous for a mainstream publisher” was what she was told, infuriatingly.

she did also say it was a collaboration and that people never read it as such, but as a piece by her, which she didn’t want. also, she said if she had known how it wd turn out she probably wouldn’t have done it in the first place.

it sounds - as often with her - there’s a lot of complexity. i wish her life was easier! sounds like she had a bad year last year as well (from her most recent blog post).

"Novelist Helen DeWitt describes her new book, Some Trick, as a story collection preoccupied with 'the cussedness of talent.' Below, the author of The Last Samurai and Lightning Rods recommends books that illuminate the workings of singular minds."

only read three of these, the tufte, and transfiguration of the commonplace, which is wonderful, and against the gods, which is also excellent.