New Review: Rodin's Lover by Heather Webb

Title:  Rodin’s Lover

Author:  Heather Webb (Becoming Josephine)

Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group

Publication date: 1/27/2015

Pages: 320

How Acquired:  Through Publisher

What it’s about:  As a woman, aspiring sculptor Camille Claudel has plenty of critics, especially her ultra-traditional mother. But when Auguste Rodin makes Camille his apprentice—and his muse—their passion inspires groundbreaking works. Yet, Camille’s success is overshadowed by her lover’s rising star, and her obsessions cross the line into madness.

My thoughts:   I initially had trepidations about reading this book. I did a great deal of research on Camille Claudel for the chapter that I wrote in Scandalous Women, and I feel a bit proprietary about her. She was one of several women that I was just obsessed with.  I related to her struggle to be an independent artist, to forge a separate artistic identity from the man that she loved passionately. Her mental breakdown is heartbreaking.  Was she schizophrenic, bi-polar? Or was she even mentally ill at all are just some of the questions that come up when you read about the life of Camille Claudel. I wondered if a single novel could capture the complexity of this tormented genius.  And a genius she was.  All you have to do is look at the photos of her sculptures on line to see her amazing talent.

I’m happy to report that Rodin’s Lover calmed all my fears.  Heather Webb miraculously brings to life the volatile love affair between Rodin, arguably one of the era’s greatest artists and Camille Claudel.  When we first meet Camille, she is eighteen years old and bursting with talent.  Her one aim is to escape her provincial village and become one of the greatest sculptors of all time.  But from the very beginning Camille has to fight tooth and nail to develop her talent.  While her father believes that she will one day bring glory to the family name, her mother believes that Camille is unnatural for wanting to pursue art instead of marriage and children.  When an opportunity arises for Camille to study in Paris, her father insists that they move to Paris.

 

Camille struggles with feelings of loneliness, her devotion to her sculpture has left her with few social skills. Although she shares a studio with two other female students, Camille knows that unlike her, they will eventually marry and give up sculpting.  We don’t really get to see any of Camille’s relationship with her sister Louise, she’s something of a cipher in the book. Her most complex relationship, in a way, is not with Rodin but with her brother Paul.  Both are artists, Paul longs to be a writer. But while Paul is willing to compromise, taking a job in the diplomatic corps while writing on the side, Camille refuses to even countenance taking on pupils.  Even though the money would go a long way towards paying her bills. While Paul finds solace in religion, Camille’s religion is her sculpture. It's what she holds on to, even in her darkest hours.

But then she meets Auguste Rodin. She tries to fight her undeniable attraction to him but she can't ultimately. She senses immediately that their passion will consume them.  Camille believes that she is just as talented as Rodin, and that she will one day to etch her name in history despite society's belief that women can't be artists. However, her ambition and her need to forge an independent identity soon comes between them. And the dark voices in Camille's head grow louder with each passing day,  threatening her ability to work.

Webb’s writing is flawless.  She gets under Camille’s skin, refusing to shy away from the more negative aspects of her personality, her stubbornness, her jealously and her ego. There were times when I was reading the novel that I wanted to shake Camille. In many ways, Camille was her own worst enemy.  Webb gives the reader a glimpse into constant sexism that female artists faced in the 19^th Century, particularly those artists like Camille who refused to limit themselves to scenes of domestic life.  There is a scene late in the book when Rodin and Camille have reunited after a short break when they attend a dinner where they run into one of Rodin’s frenemies who makes it clear that he would love to take Rodin’s place.

Then there is the matter of Rodin’s long-term relationship with Rose Beuret, the mother of his only child.  Despite his love for Camille, he cannot bring himself to break it off with Rose. Camille cannot hide her jealously of Rose. She wants Rodin all to herself.  The book is told through both Camille and Rodin’s point of view which allows the reader to see Camille through someone else’s eyes. She’s particularly good at detailing the struggle that Rodin has between the two women in his life.  Rose, who has been with him since the beginning, and Camille, his passionate muse. Webb also adroitly illustrates the personal toll of being driven by great ambition. Despite Camille’s successes, she’s constantly compared to Rodin, the sensuality of her work which is unheard of in most female artists, costs her commissions. She struggles to maintain her own identity, to not let herself be submerged in Rodin’s.  Despite Rodin’s successes, he still struggles to get his vision across without compromising too much.

Anyone who is interested in la Belle Époque Paris will find much to enjoy in Rodin’s Lover.  I don't think I'm giving anything away by saying that the love story doesn't end happily for many reasons. There is not false moment in this novel, a moment that I could have pointed to as out of character for what I know of Camille from my own research. Unlike the movie Camille Claudel, Webb never blames Rodin for Camille's misfortunes. You never get the sense that he's actively using her. In away, they are using each other but not in a negative way.  There are hints in the book that Camille may have inherited her mental instability from her mother. Webb builds Camille's madness slowly, from just little things like her uncontrollable temper and her jealously, eventually escalating to paranoia and the voice inside her head. In the end, this book is heart-breaking in it's portrayal of one of the art history's most fascinating and complex women.

New Books about Marie Antoinette

Anyone who has read this blog over the years knows how I feel about Marie Antoinette.  I've been fascinated with the doomed Queen ever since I discovered that she and I share a birthday.  Over the years, I have amassed a wealth of books about Marie.  One year, I even went to see Sophia Coppola's film Marie Antoinette for our birthday. If there is a movie or a book that has even the slightest connection to Marie Antoinette, I will read it.  This has led me to the mostly wretched film The Affair of the Necklace with Hilary Swank as well as the YA novel Marie Antoinette, Serial Killer which came out almost two years ago.  After two hundred years, you would think that the subject of her life had been exhausted, but you would be wrong! Two new books are coming out about Marie Antoinette next year. And good news, Sony Pictures has bought the rights to Juliet Grey's novel Becoming Marie Antoinette, which will hopefully be coming to a theatre near you in the next few years.  Which brings me to another question: Who would you like to see play a young Marie Antoinette? I have a feeling, if the film gets made, that Lily Collins who plays Lady Rose on Downton Abbey will get the call.

A Day with Marie Antoinette: An Intimate Portrait of Her Life at Versailles - Helene Delalex (Author) and Francis Hammond (Photographer) - June 6, 2015.

The description on Amazon.co.uk - This beautifully illustrated book sheds new light on the personal life of Marie Antoinette and reveals hidden aspects of her Versailles. Marie Antoinette was a mirror of her time. Never before has a queen been so passionately admired and adulated, then hunted, vilified, and defamed. From the young queen playing a shepherdess on stage, unaware of the turmoil in the capital, to France’s "martyr queen," the author demystifies the legend, unveiling the woman behind the queen, and the wife and mother behind the sovereign.By tracing her footsteps through Versailles, discovering her voice through her letters, and encountering little-known works in her private art collection, the reader gains new insight on the tragically brief life of a passionate, sensitive, dramatic, and captivating woman. Organized chronologically, with lavish new photography and a wealth of unpublished material, this is a nuanced portrait of Marie Antoinette and her Versailles.

This book is definitely on my wish list. 

Of course, you can't talk about Marie Antoinette and Versailles without talking about clothing. Another new book is Fashion Victims: Dress at the Court of  Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette.  I have to thank Melanie over at Madame Guillotine for alerting me about this book.  It looks lavish, filled with lots of pictures, more of a coffee table book than a straight history. 

Here is the description over at Amazon.co.uk:

This engrossing book chronicles one of the most exciting, controversial, and extravagant periods in the history of fashion: the reign of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette in 18th-century France. Kimberly Chrisman-Campbell offers a carefully researched glimpse into the turbulent era's sophisticated and largely female-dominated fashion industry, which produced courtly finery as well as promoted a thriving secondhand clothing market outside the royal circle. She discusses in depth the exceptionally imaginative and uninhibited styles of the period immediately before the French Revolution, and also explores fashion's surprising influence on the course of the Revolution itself. The absorbing narrative demonstrates fashion's crucial role as a visible and versatile medium for social commentary, and shows the glittering surface of 18th-century high society as well as its seedy underbelly. Fashion Victims presents a compelling anthology of trends, manners, and personalities from the era, accompanied by gorgeous fashion plates, portraits, and photographs of rare surviving garments. Drawing upon documentary evidence, previously unpublished archival sources, and new information about aristocrats, politicians, and celebrities, this book is an unmatched study of French fashion in the late 18th century, providing astonishing insight, a gripping story, and stylish inspiration.

This one comes out in March just in time for to be bought with my tax-refund! 

 Melanie also mentioned one last book about Marie Antoinette entitled La mode a la cour de Marie Antoinette.  This one is entirely in French, but Melanie has said that there are tons of gorgeous photos to look at in the book.  And who knows, it might be that excuse to break out ye olde French dictionary that is lurking somewhere in my apartment. Or to take a French class. I studied French for ten years, starting in third grade through college, so I read it much better than I speak it.  Funny, how reading skills stay but not the speaking! The cover of this book is absolutely gorgeous.  This one came out last October.

So there you have it, 3 new books about Marie Antoinette, to break your wallet!

Vanessa and Her Sister - A Scandalous Review

Vanessa and Her Sister – Priya Parmar

Print Length: 368 pages

Publisher: Ballantine Books (December 30, 2014)

Acquired through:  Net Galley

My thoughts:  I read Priya Parmar’s first book EXIT THE ACTRESS when it came out in 2011, and was bowled over by her talent.  Yes, I had a few quibbles with her portrayal of Nell Gwynn (I had a hard time believing that she was illiterate and somehow never learned to read during her years as an actress. I found that a little far-fetched), but I thought the book was an excellent peek backstage at what it was like to be an actress during the Restoration.  You could just smell the greasepaint and the unwashed flesh!

When I saw on Net Galley that she had written a new novel about Vanessa Bell and her sister Virginia Woolf, I immediately requested it.  Most of what I know about the Bloomsbury Group has been gained through watching films like Carrington (Emma Thompson brilliant as always as Dora Carrington and Jonathan Pryce as Lytton Strachey) and The Hours, as well as reading brief biographies of the artists and writers who populated the group.  I find them endlessly fascinating, in the same way that I find the radicals and artists who lived in Greenwich Village at the time fascinating. So this book was definitely going to be on my TBR pile.  I finally downloaded it this past week and just devoured it over the weekend. 

The book opens in 1905, Vanessa and her siblings have just sold their childhood home and moved to Bloomsbury which was the equivalent of moving to Williamsburg before it became hip. Their father has just died, and Virginia has recently recovered from a breakdown that almost shattered the family. The book is told mainly through Vanessa’s journal, interspersed with letters from Virginia to her friend Violet, Lytton Strachey to Leonard Woolf who is in Ceylon (Sri Lanka) and letters from Roger Fry to his mother.  This choice makes the book feel very personal and intimate as if the reader found an old box of family mementos in the attic.  It’s the perfect book to read on a rainy day with a hot cup tea beside you as you dip into the lives of Vanessa, and her siblings.

Although one could categorize the Stephen family as upper middle class, they have deep roots in the literary and artistic community.  Their late mother was the niece of Julia Margaret Cameron, their father’s first wife was the daughter of William Makepeace Thackeray.  Their father, Leslie Stephen, was English author, critic and mountaineer! Reading this book reminded me of the time that I went to visit 18 Stafford Terrace which is the home of a Punch cartoonist who is like the great grandfather of Lord Snowden.  I could just see Vanessa and Virginia racing up and down the stairs. 

There is an overwhelming sense of loss in the book, of the family members (their mother and older sister Stella, their father) who have passed on.  Although the book is narrated mainly by Vanessa, there are times when Virginia Stephen threatens to take over the book, just as in real life she threatened to take over her sisters.  Her prickly personality, at times loving, other times needy, her charm and her brilliance come across in the book.  She’s that friend who you love but you need take mini-vacations from if only to save your own sanity.  It would too easy to cut Virginia some slack by pointing out “Well, she’s mentally ill, she doesn’t know what she’s doing.”  Parmar never excuses Virginia’s behavior. By the end of the book, I was #TeamVanessa all the way.  I cheered her for freeing herself from a marriage that was not fulfilling her, with a husband who could so nonchalantly fall under her sister’s spell.  Particularly after he had spent such a long time wooing Vanessa and trying to get her to marry him. I confess I wanted to smack Clive Bell many times over the course of the novel. Talk about misrepresenting who you are! He completely blindsides Vanessa with this actions.  One of my favorite characters in the book was Lytton Strachey, as he was in the film Carrington. What I found amazing, and it's one of the things that I had forgotten, was just how incestuous a group they were. It seems like everyone in the book, at some point or another, slept with Duncan Grant.  He is the one character that I never felt that we got to know in the book.  He sort of danced on the periphery, breaking hearts left and right. 

I never wanted this book to end, as each page led me to the last page, I kept hoping that miraculously the book would continue. Parmar’s writing is so evocative of the period and the emotions of the characters.  Vanessa and Virginia, their friends and family, felt like real, living, breathing people.  Not just characters from a biography or a history book.  I can’t tell you how many times I fell down the rabbit hole of Wikipedia while reading this book because I kept wanting to know more.

If your friends want to try historical fiction, but they don’t know who to read, I would suggest giving them Parmar’s book as an example of the best of what historical fiction has to offer.  I can’t wait to read Parmar’s next book. I just hope we don’t have to wait three years to do so.