Claire Messud
author profile
gender
female
place of birth
Toulon, France
genre
Literature & Fiction
about this author
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avg rating: 2.88
| 8,278 ratings
| 1,839 reviews
| 8 distinct works
|
12 fans
More books by Claire Messud…
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The Emperor's Children by Claire Messud avg rating 2.82 — 6,634 ratings — published 2006 17 editions |
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Bonjour Tristesse: A Novel by Françoise Sagan, Claire Messud, Diane Johnson avg rating 3.61 — 31 ratings — published 1954 47 editions |
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The Last Life: A Novel by Claire Messud avg rating 3.66 — 340 ratings — published 1999 7 editions |
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When the World Was Steady by Claire Messud avg rating 3.01 — 102 ratings — published 1995 8 editions |
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Four Novels by Irène Némirovsky, Claire Messud avg rating 3.25 — 4 ratings — published 2008 2 editions |
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The Hunters by Claire Messud avg rating 3.49 — 80 ratings — published 2001 5 editions |
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Anne Peretz: Paintings [ 2005 ] by Claire Messud avg rating 0.0 — 0 ratings — published 2005 |
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PICADOR SHOTS - The Professor's History by Claire Messud avg rating 0.0 — 0 ratings — published 2006 |
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"Seriously, though, I look at the books on my shelves and it's clear that I read them, back then, but i can't remember ever doing it, and I don't have the first idea what they might be about."
— Claire Messud (The Emperor's Children)
— Claire Messud (The Emperor's Children)
"The apartment was entirely, was only, for her: a wall of books, both read and unread, all of them dear to her not only in themselves, their tender spines, but in the moments or periods they evoked. She had kept some books since college that she had acquired for courses and never read—Fredric Jameson, for example, and Kant’s Critique of Judgment—but which suggested to her that she was, or might be, a person of seriousness, a thinker in some seeping, ubiquitous way; and she had kept, too, a handful of children’s books taken fro her now-dismantled girlhood room, like Charlotte’s Web and the Harriet the Spy novels, that conjured for her an earlier, passionately earnest self, the sober child who read constantly in the back of her parents’ Buick, oblivious to her brother punching her knee, oblivious to her parents’ squabbling, oblivious to the traffic and landscapes pressing upon her from outside the window.
She had, in addition to her books, a modest shelf of tapes and CDs that served a similar, though narrower, function…she was aware that her collection was comprised largely of mainstream choices that reflected—whether popular or classical—not so much an individual spirit as the generic tastes of her times: Madonna, the Eurythmics, Tracy Chapman from her adolescence; Cecilia Bartoli, Anne-Sophie Mutter, Mitsuko Uchida; more recently Moby and the posthumously celebrated folk-singing woman from Washington, DC, who had died of a melanoma in her early thirties, and whose tragic tale attracted Danielle more than her familiar songs.
Her self, then, was represented in her books; her times in her records; and the rest of the room she thought of as a pure, blank slate.
"
— Claire Messud (The Emperor's Children)
She had, in addition to her books, a modest shelf of tapes and CDs that served a similar, though narrower, function…she was aware that her collection was comprised largely of mainstream choices that reflected—whether popular or classical—not so much an individual spirit as the generic tastes of her times: Madonna, the Eurythmics, Tracy Chapman from her adolescence; Cecilia Bartoli, Anne-Sophie Mutter, Mitsuko Uchida; more recently Moby and the posthumously celebrated folk-singing woman from Washington, DC, who had died of a melanoma in her early thirties, and whose tragic tale attracted Danielle more than her familiar songs.
Her self, then, was represented in her books; her times in her records; and the rest of the room she thought of as a pure, blank slate.
"
— Claire Messud (The Emperor's Children)
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