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Kant's Little Prussian Head and Other Reasons Why I Write: An Autobiography in Essays
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About This Book
A glimpse into a beloved novelist's inner world, shaped by family, art, and literature. In her fiction, Claire Messud "has specialized in creating unusual female characters with ferocious, imaginative inner lives" (Ruth Franklin, New York Times Magazine ). Kant's Little Prussian Head and Other Reasons Why I Write opens a window on Messud's own life: a peripatetic upbringing; a warm, complicated family; and, throughout it all, her devotion to art and literature. In twenty-six intimate, brilliant, and funny essays, Messud reflects on a childhood move from her Connecticut home to Australia; the complex relationship between her modern Canadian mother and a fiercely single French Catholic aunt; and a trip to Beirut, where her pied-noir father had once lived, while he was dying. She meditates on contemporary classics from Kazuo Ishiguro, Teju Cole, Rachel Cusk, and Valeria Luiselli; examines three facets of Albert Camus and The Stranger ; and tours her favorite paintings at Boston's Museum of Fine Arts. In the luminous title essay, she explores her drive to write, born of the magic of sharing language and the transformative powers of "a single successful sentence." Together, these essays show the inner workings of a dazzling literary mind. Crafting a vivid portrait of a life in celebration of the power of literature, Messud proves once again "an absolute master storyteller" (Rebecca Carroll, Los Angeles Times ).
Reviews
"Two strong-willed, serious-hearted thinkers hover powerfully over this collection."
"There's usually a moral in her sights, one worth getting to, and there's sometimes a deceptively strong current of feeling beneath a surface of reserve."
"...moving and evocative ..."
"Her faith is quite possibly unrealistic, but couched in Messud's lucid, quietly fiery prose, it's also inspiring ..."
"Powerful and inspirational: Messud is as fine a critic as she is a novelist."
"Messud's personal essays are, by turns, mischievously funny, emotionally wrenching, and elegantly intellectual ..."
"Messud could easily and successfully have collected or composed all of her essays in the autobiographical vein but stretches the promise of the book's subtitle by dividing her anthology into three unequal parts."
"I've never read Jane Bowles, but Messud's description of Two Serious Ladies means I will; her precise diagnosis of the tragedy in Never Let Me Go as the murder of hope means I will be rereading Ishiguro shortly ..."
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