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14. ‘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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Metadata
Title14. ‘Indolence, interruption, business, and pleasure’
SubtitleNarratological Rupture in The Last Samurai
ContributorKaia Sherry (author)
DOIhttps://doi.org/10.11647/obp.0426.14
Landing pagehttps://www.openbookpublishers.com/books/10.11647/obp.0426/chapters/10.11647/obp.0426.14
Licensehttps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
CopyrightKaia Sherry;
PublisherOpen Book Publishers
Published on2024-12-17
Long abstractThis 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 rangepp. 241–260
Print length20 pages
LanguageEnglish (Original)
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.

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