An intellectual tour-de-force, playful, multilayered, and wonderfully readable, The Seventh Samurai is full of stories of remarkable exploits, tables of Japanese grammar, snatches of Greek poetry, passages of Icelandic legend, and ingenious math problems. It is also the tale of a six-year-old child prodigy’s search for a father, or even a man heroic enough to be his father, gradually revealing a new and unexpected dimension of love. The Library Journal DeWitt’s first novel revolves around Sibylla, an American displaced in London, and her young son Ludo, both geniuses. Sibylla earns a bare living typing for mundane periodicals like Carpworld and International Cricketer, grudgingly squeezing her assignments between viewings of Kurosawa’s classic film, Seven Samurai. Ludo, who has been reared on this film, decides to use the challenges it presents to find his own mysterious father. When he is disappointed with the real thing, he searches for a more acceptable candidate. The last half of the book is very readable and beautifully written, as Ludo discovers that perhaps the perfect father is nonexistent. Overall, however, the excessive display of erudition obstructs DeWitt’s wonderful use of language and imagination. From Publishers Weekly DeWitt’s ambitious, colossal debut novel tells the story of a young genius, his worldly alienation and his eccentric mother, Sibylla Newman, an American living in London after dropping out of Oxford. Her son, Ludovic (Ludo), the product of a one-night stand, could read English, French and Greek by the age of four. His incredible intellectual ability is matched only by his insatiable curiosity, and Sibylla attempts to guide her son’s education while scraping by on typing jobs. To avoid the cold, they ride the Underground on the Circle Line train daily, traveling around London as Ludo reads the Odyssey, learns Japanese and masters mathematics and science. Sybilla uses her favorite film, Akira Kurosawa’s classic Seven Samurai, as a makeshift guide for her son’s moral development. As Ludo matures and takes over the story’s narration, Sibylla is revealed as less than forthcoming on certain topics, most importantly the identity of Ludo’s father. Knowing only that his male parent is a travel writer, Ludo searches through volumes of adventure stories, but he is unsuccessful until he happens upon a folder containing his father’s name hidden in a sealed envelope. He arranges to meet the man, pretending to be a fan. The funny, bittersweet encounter ends with a gravely disappointed Ludo, unable to confront his father with his identity. Afterward, the sad 11-year-old resumes his search for his ideal parent figure. Using a test modeled after a scene in Seven Samurai, he seeks out five different men, claiming he is the son of each. While energetic and relentlessly unpredictable, the novel often becomes belabored with its own inventiveness, but the bizarre relationship between Sibylla an