{"product_id":"the-last-samurai-reread-rereadings-9780231185820","title":"The Last Samurai Reread Rereadings","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLee Konstantinou combines a riveting reading of \u003ci\u003eThe Last Samurai\u003c\/i\u003e with a behind-the-scenes look at Helen DeWitt’s fraught experiences with corporate publishing. He shows how interpreting the ambition and richness of DeWitt’s work in light of her struggles with literary institutions provides a potent social critique.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFinally! I have been waiting for years for someone to give \u003ci\u003eThe Last Samurai\u003c\/i\u003e, the most inventive and delightful novel of the twenty-first century,\u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003ethe critical attention it deserves. Lee Konstantinou has done it, and he has done it with amazing insight, clarity, and humor. His book will remain close at hand every time I reread and teach \u003ci\u003eThe Last Samurai\u003c\/i\u003e. -- Merve Emre, University of Oxford and contributing writer at the \u003ci\u003eNew Yorker\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKonstantinou brings an entirely fresh perspective to this challenging novel. His rereading of \u003ci\u003eThe \u003c\/i\u003e\u003ci\u003eLast Samurai\u003c\/i\u003e draws powerful insights from sociological field theory while tempering the rigidities of that model with dazzling displays of interpretive finesse and a book historian’s nose for the quirky particulars of the case—the vivid, surprising details that may be found at the heart of every great literary-production story. -- James English, University of Pennsylvania\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Last Samurai Reread\u003c\/i\u003e is a fascinating study of a novel whose remarkable origin story Lee Konstantinou brilliantly approaches as a story of our time. From his inspired decision to regard the book’s center of interest as less its Precocious Child than its Precarious Mother, to the way in which this ramifies outward into a meditation on aesthetic education in a late-capitalist era of crumbling infrastructure and increasing income inequality, Konstantinou’s compelling reading of DeWitt’s novel does something that the latter does explicitly: revive our imagination of a world in which nonalienated intellectual production might be a possibility for everyone. -- Sianne Ngai, author of \u003ci\u003eTheory of the Gimmick: Aesthetic Judgment and Capitalist Form\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFans of the novel shouldn’t miss this. * Publishers Weekly *\u003cbr\u003e[An] accessible and thought-provoking study . . . [Konstantinou’s] nimble reporting and analysis enrich our understanding of DeWitt’s achievement while sketching a fascinating and cautionary portrait of the US publishing world. -- Heather Cass White * Times Literary Supplement *\u003cbr\u003eHelen DeWitt’s great novel has received a much-needed strong and comprehensive reading. If you are a fan of DeWitt’s novel, as I am, you should read this book. -- Jay Innis Murray * Talking Big *\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Last Samurai Reread\u003c\/i\u003e is an enjoyable -- and often eye-opening -- companion volume to the novel. -- M.A. Orthofer * The Complete Review *\u003cbr\u003eAstute and sympathetic. -- David Trotter * London Review of Books *\u003cbr\u003eKonstantinou’s nuanced account of [\u003ci\u003eThe Last Samurai\u003c\/i\u003e’s] path to publication, and its attempt to challenge the unquestioned standards of contemporary fiction, is compelling and consistently enlightening. -- Jonathan Foltz * American Literary History *\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTable of Contents\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePreface: \u003ci\u003eThe Last Samurai\u003c\/i\u003e, Unread\u003cbr\u003e1. A Little Potboiler\u003cbr\u003e2. Helen DeWitt’s Aesthetic Education\u003cbr\u003e3. Synergy Is Crap\u003cbr\u003e4. Fuck \u003ci\u003eThe Chicago Manual of Style\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e5. The Best Book of the Forty-Fifth Century\u003cbr\u003eCoda: Through a Hole in the Wall\u003cbr\u003eAcknowledgments\u003cbr\u003eNotes\u003cbr\u003eIndex","brand":"Columbia University Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":49524654899543,"sku":"9780231185820","price":47.5,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9780231185820.jpg?v=1731857631","url":"https:\/\/bookcurl.com\/products\/the-last-samurai-reread-rereadings-9780231185820","provider":"Book Curl","version":"1.0","type":"link"}