The Last Samurai

About the Book

Sibylla, a single mother from a long line of frustrated talents, has unusual ideas about child-rearing. Yo Yo Ma started piano at the age of two; her son starts at three. J.S. Mill learned Greek at three; Ludo starts at four, reading Homer as they travel round and round the Circle Line. A fatherless boy needs male role models; so she plays the film Seven Samurai as a running backdrop to his childhood. While Sibylla types out back copies of Carpworld to pay the rent, Ludo, aged five, moves on to Hebrew, Arabic and Japanese, aerodynamics and edible insects of the world – they might come in handy, if he can just persuade his mother he’s mature enough to know his father’s name …

Helen DeWitt

THE LAST

SAMURAI

Contents

Cover

About the Book

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

About the Author

Acknowledgments

Prologue

Book I

1: Do Samurai Speak Penguin Japanese?

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Interlude

Book II

1: We Never Get Off at Sloane Square for Nebraska Fried Chicken

Chapter 6

2: 99, 98, 97, 96

3: We Never Get Off at Embankment to Go to McDonald’s

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

4: 19, 18, 17

5: We Never Go Anywhere

Chapter 10

6: We Never Do Anything

Chapter 11

7: End of the Line

Book III

1: 1, 2, 3

2: a, b, c

3: 999999⁷= 999993000020999965000034999979000006999999

Book IV

1: Trying to feel sorry for Lord Leighton

2: I know all the words

Chapter 12

3: Funeral Games

4: Steven, age 11

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

5: For David, with best wishes

Chapter 15

Book V

1: A good samurai will parry the blow

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

2: A good samurai will parry the blow

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

3: A good samurai will parry the blow

4: A good samurai will parry the blow

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

5: A good samurai will parry the blow

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

6: A good samurai will parry the blow

7: I’m a genuine samurai

This eBook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

Version 1.0

Epub ISBN 9781446424612

www.randomhouse.co.uk

Published by Vintage 2001

6 8 10 9 7 5

Copyright © Helen DeWitt 2000

The right of Helen DeWitt to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

First published in Great Britain in 2000 by Chatto & Windus

Vintage

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London SW1V 2SA

Random House Australia (Pty) Limited

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New South Wales 2061, Australia

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Random House (Pty) Limited

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The Random House Group Limited Reg. No. 954009

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A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 0 09 928462 6

To

Ann Cotton

THE LAST SAMURAI