A Smorgasbord of Delight

Kant's Little Prussian Head  & Other Reasons Why I Write is truly a gem. I picked it up because of the attractive cover and the title - I mean, who wouldn't want to read a book about Kant's Prussian head? But when I got into it - Kant and his Prussian head have little or nothing to do with it.

The book is both academic and personal. It is my ideal combination. Her essays are intelligent, heartfelt and she rails against forcing utility on learning. It reminded me of something a friend once told me about the difference between pure science and applied science. The "applieds" think that they are the only ones doing something useful. But the concepts they work on were discovered by the "pures". To sit there and think, to create, without thinking about how you will sell something or monetise (hateful word!) something.

In my former job, I had enough of the concept of "monetisation" to last me a lifetime. You couldn't do something because it was fun or interesting. You had to figure out how it could be "monetised". Surely there should have been a clear separation between marketing and editorial?

Apparently not.

Anyway, the first part of the book is her own personal history, her pied-noir father who lost his home and his country with the long drawn out Algerian war, her Canadian bourgeoisie, newly comfortable mother who married her father despite their disparate backgrounds and then regretted, yet didn't regret it. Her aunt who remained unmarried and difficult all her life. A sainted drunk!

The second part is her critiques on the work of certain authors, certain books. I love books like these because they introduce me to people I have never heard of. And their work. I found this part of the book most satisfying. I also took note of some of the authors she spoke about. I might not go out there and seek their books on Kinokuniya. But if I were to stumble on in the secondhand pile littered on the basement floor of Amcorp Mall, I would pick it up and buy it (that's how these books affect me, that's how they change my reading matter).

The authors? Albert Camus. Kamel Daoud. Kazuo Ishiguro. Jane Bowles. Italo Svevo. Teju Cole. Magda Szabo. Rachel Cusk. Saul Friedlander. Yasmine El Rashidi. Valeria Luiselli.

The third part of the book has to do with her critiques on visual art. I remember Jeanette Winterson writing about how difficult it was for someone who had confined themselves to words to move into the visual arts - when it first struck her, she did not have the language with which to deal with her great longing...but Messud seems to do it effortlessly. She delves into the lives of these difficult women and makes them human, makes what they do, even if it would be viewed as horrific by the world at large, human.

The artists? Alice Neel. Marlene Dumas. Sally Mann.

There is a gentleness and self acceptance in all this. Hers is not a book to skim through and put away. Just like Jeanette Winterson's Art Objects was a book I returned to over and over again.

I haven't finished the book yet. I have two essays to go. In between I read Barbara Pym, which acts as relaxation and goes better with lunch and tea. 

Messud is for breakfast.