A review by happy_stomach
Kant's Little Prussian Head and Other Reasons Why I Write: An Autobiography in Essays by Claire Messud

3.0

I give five stars to the autobiographical essays that make up the first part of this volume. I could have read a thousand more pages of Messud’s personal stories spanning generations, countries, and all sorts of privileged, worldly experience. And more stories about her dogs! It was the autobiographical essays that made me curious to learn which books Messud loves and that’s what I took from the second part of the book—I took the “which” but, surprising to me, couldn’t bring myself to care at all about the “whys” she presents in her criticism. Same with with art criticism—I found very little convincing, even for artists like Sally Mann about whom I know a passing amount.