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‘Indolence, interruption, business, and pleasure’: Narratological Rupture in The Last Samurai

Kaia Sherry (author)

Chapter of: Genetic Narratology: Analysing Narrative across Versions(pp. 241–260)

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Title	‘Indolence, interruption, business, and pleasure’
Subtitle	Narratological Rupture in The Last Samurai
Contributor	Kaia Sherry (author)
DOI	https://doi.org/10.11647/obp.0426.14
Landing page	https://www.openbookpublishers.com/books/10.11647/obp.0426/chapters/10.11647/obp.0426.14
License	https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Copyright	Kaia Sherry;
Publisher	Open Book Publishers
Published on	2024-12-17
Long abstract	This chapter is a genetic narratological evaluation of Helen DeWitt’s The Last Samurai (2000), utilising earlier versions of the text saved across fifty-two floppy discs. Focusing on DeWitt’s later additions of a ‘post-postmodernist’ breakage in form, including erratic capitalisation, numerals, and paragraph breaks, the author considers such interruption on the level of narrative and the broader conditions of cultural production. Comprised of two sections, this chapter begins with an assessment of aesthetic and paternal rupture in a draft titled ‘1LIBERAC,’ reflecting on Ludo’s quest to find his father. The second section, referencing the drafts ‘7S3.2’ (in 09-07-96), ‘7S3.2’ (in Backup Liberace) ‘7S3.2c’, ‘7S3.2e’, ‘7S3.3’, and ‘7S3.4’, contends with interruption as transmedial, examining DeWitt’s use of scenes from Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai (1954) as interjection.
Page range	pp. 241–260
Print length	20 pages
Language	English (Original)

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Contributors

Kaia Sherry

(author)

MSt graduate at University of Oxford

Kaia Sherry is a recent MSt graduate from the University of Oxford. Her research focused on 19th-century ephemera and affect, examining the works of illustrators including John Tenniel and Isaac Robert Cruikshank. She is now a recovering academic.

References

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This chapter is a genetic narratological evaluation of Helen DeWitt’s The Last Samurai (2000), utilising earlier versions of the text saved across fifty-two floppy discs. Focusing on DeWitt’s later additions of a ‘post-postmodernist’ breakage in form, including erratic capitalisation, numerals, and paragraph breaks, the author considers such interruption on the level of narrative and the broader conditions of cultural production. Comprised of two sections, this chapter begins with an assessment of aesthetic and paternal rupture in a draft titled ‘1LIBERAC,’ reflecting on Ludo’s quest to find his father. The second section, referencing the drafts ‘7S3.2’ (in 09-07-96), ‘7S3.2’ (in Backup Liberace) ‘7S3.2c’, ‘7S3.2e’, ‘7S3.3’, and ‘7S3.4’, contends with interruption as transmedial, examining DeWitt’s use of scenes from Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai (1954) as interjection.