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
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
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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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A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 0 09 928462 6
To
Ann Cotton
THE LAST SAMURAI
