Thursday, October 25, 2012

2012 book 301

Helen DeWitt's The Last Samurai
I have been meaning to read this book for a couple of years now, but almost wish I'd read it much earlier, because the (awesome) first chunk involves a young woman from an eccentric family who somewhat inadvertently teaches her small son several languages, including Hebrew and Greek, and there are some interesting grammatical conversations I'd have loved even more when I was in grad school. (I still loved them a lot.) Unfortunately I was less into the second half, when the son, now 11, goes on a bizarre quest inspired by The Seven Samurai. I'm sure it's all very meaningful but I didn't get as much out of it. B/B+.

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