Our Dogs is one of about 25 essays in Kant’s Little Prussian Head and Other Reasons Why I Write, and it’s in many ways emblematic — the elegance of it, the challenge of it. Messud isn’t a writer who grabs her subject matter by the throat or pumps her prose full of kinetic energy. She moseys, she circles, she lies in wait. She sighs where others might scream, mists up where others might sob, ponders 'holistic foulness' where others might just run for the cleaner-smelling hills.

She risks coming across as elitist — ouroboros, for those who lack her formidable vocabulary, refers to a snake swallowing its own tail — but her intent is generous.

Even the title of this richly drawn anthology of more than two dozen essays, Kant's Little Prussian Head and Other REasons Why I Write, speaks to the dry wit and arresting spontaneity that permeate her very personal reflections on life, great authors of the past and present, and art in various forms. Although at the peak of her creative power, Messud also seems to be casting an experienced retrospective eye over several decades of critically acclaimed writing.

... an uplifting work: complex, precise and bracing.

Exceptionally astute, artistic, and eviscerating.

The problem is with the claim that this is an autobiography through essays. It isn’t. It’s a compilation of pieces previously published elsewhere — some autobiographical, some critical works on writers and artists. The disappointment of not receiving quite what was promised compounds the frustrations which are common to this kind of anthology.

The book is, in a way, a palimpsest (one of Messud’s favorite images, which occurs six times in this collection) whose sections explore how life experiences, relationships, and art and literature inform our efforts to connect—to understand and be understood.

Messud sets the tone in her impassioned introduction, proclaiming the importance of literature 'in a period which can feel like the dawn of a new Dark Ages'.

...moving and evocative.