Rodin's Lover by Heather Webb

Please join Heather Webb as she tours the blogosphere with HF Virtual Book Tours for Rodin's Lover, from January 19-February 13.

Publication Date: January 27, 2015

Plume

Formats: eBook, Paperback

Pages: 320

Genre: Historical Fiction

A mesmerizing tale of art and passion in Belle Époque France.

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.

Rodin’s Lover brings to life the volatile love affair between one of the era’s greatest artists and a woman entwined in a tragic dilemma she cannot escape.

*****REVIEW*****

I had heard the name Camille Claudel before reading Rodin’s Lover, but knew nothing about her.  Women artists interest me, but I had never previously read anything about a sculptor.   This means that I was completely uneducated about the methods and traditions of sculpture.  So I learned a great deal from this book about Camille Claudel, Auguste Rodin and sculpture in general.   Yet I felt that the Wikipedia article on Camille Claudel caused me to understand the general outline of her life better than Heather Webb’s novel, much of which is written from Claudel’s own perspective.

To say that Claudel was an unreliable narrator is to put it rather mildly.  She was diagnosed with schizophrenia.  Schizophrenia covers a great many types of mental disease.  I consider it a vague catch-all diagnosis.  Camille Claudel had bouts of severe paranoia.  I noticed in the novel that she became much worse later in her life, and that hormones appeared to have an influence.  I know that hormone fluctuation is an important factor in the lives of bipolar women.  It seems likely, for example, that hormonal changes in the aftermath of pregnancy were probably the primary cause of the suicide of Chinese American writer Iris Chang. I wondered if women’s hormones had a similar effect on schizophrenia.  So I ran a search on schizophrenia and estrogen, and found the Wikipedia article that I’ve linked here.  The article does confirm the idea that lower levels of estrogen aggravate the condition.  

Yet Claudel was a brilliant sculptor.  There is a sample of Camille Claudel’s work and work by Rodin that the author of the article linked thought was influenced by Claudel at The Art of Camille Claudel and Auguste Rodin.  You can click on the images to get a larger version.  I really liked The Waltz which was considered indecent in Webb’s novel, so she created a clothed version which is the one that survives. 

I appreciated Camille Claudel’s conflict between love and independence from a feminist perspective.  It was not paranoid to want to have her own identity as an artist and not be considered an imitator of Rodin.    This is a problem that many people in the arts have had.  Literary critic Harold Bloom called it “the anxiety of influence”.    I felt that Heather Webb was portraying it as part of her pathology because she wavered so much between being primarily focused on art and being primarily focused on her relationship with Rodin.  She was continually breaking up with him, but I didn’t think it was always due to mental instability.    There were some legitimate reasons why being with Rodin wasn’t the best thing for her.  He helped her to get commissions and exhibit space, but Webb also shows him as having engaged in some stalker type behavior which was the real basis for her later paranoia about Rodin spying on her.   The lines between Claudel’s feminism and Claudel’s insanity seemed blurred in Rodin’s Lover, and it made reading this emotionally intense book an uncomfortable experience for me.

 I found Rodin's Lover to be highly reminiscent of I Always Loved You by Robin Oliveira  about the ambivalent relationship between artists Mary Cassatt and Edgar Degas. I reviewed it on Book Babe here.  I wish that Camille Claudel and Mary Cassatt could have met.  I think they would have understood and supported each other as woman artists.

I received this book from the publisher via both First to Read and Net Galley in return for this honest review.

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About the Author

Heather Webb grew up a military brat and naturally became obsessed with travel, culture, and languages. She put her degrees to good use teaching high school French for nearly a decade before turning to full time novel writing and freelance editing. Her debut, BECOMING JOSEPHINE, released January 2014 from Plume/Penguin. Her forthcoming novel, RODIN'S LOVER, will release in winter of 2015.

When not writing, Heather flexes her foodie skills or looks for excuses to head to the other side of the world.

For more information, please visit Heather's website. She loves to chitchat on Twitter with new reader friends or writers (@msheatherwebb), on Facebook, or via her blog. Stop on by!

Rodin's Lover Blog Tour Schedule

Monday, January 19

Review & Giveaway at Let Them Read Books

Review & Interview at With Her Nose Stuck in a Book

Tuesday, January 20

Review at Broken Teepee

Spotlight at Boom Baby Reviews

Wednesday, January 21

Review at Oh, for the Hook of a Book!

Thursday, January 22

Review at History From a Woman's Perspective

Interview at Oh, for the Hook of a Book!

Friday, January 23

Review at Teddy Rose Book Reviews Plus More

Monday, January 26

Review at Poof Books

Review at Ageless Pages Reviews

Tuesday, January 27

Review at Library Educated

Spotlight at The Lit Bitch

Wednesday, January 28

Review & Giveaway at Peeking Between the Pages

Thursday, January 29

Review at Book Babe

Review at The Book Binder's Daughter

Friday, January 30

Review at Book Drunkard

Monday, February 2

Review at Unabridged Chick

Tuesday, February 3

Review at Caroline Wilson Writes

Interview at Unabridged Chick

Wednesday, February 4

Review at Brooke Blogs

Thursday, February 5

Review at A Book Geek

Friday, February 6

Review at The True Book Addict

Monday, February 9

Review at A Literary Vacation

Review at CelticLady's Reviews

Tuesday, February 10

Spotlight at Historical Fiction Connection

Wednesday, February 11

Review at 100 Pages a Day - Stephanie's Book Reviews

Thursday, February 12

Review at Flashlight Commentary

Spotlight at Historical Readings & Reviews

Friday, February 13

Review at The Maiden's Court

I Always Loved You: A Difficult Relationship Between Artists

I really liked the portrayal of American Impressionist painter Mary Cassatt in City of Darkness and Light, a Molly Murphy mystery by Rhys Bowen, which I reviewed for Book Babe here.  When I did research for that review, I discovered that Mary Cassatt was a feminist.  That’s why I was intrigued by I Always Loved You by Robin Oliveira, a novel that focuses on Mary Cassatt’s relationship with the Impressionist painter Edgar Degas.   

                                                 

                                                                                                         

The Mary Cassatt that I encountered in Robin Oliveira’s novel contrasts with the one that I saw in Rhys Bowen’s mystery.  One reason is that the mystery took place in 1905 when her circumstances were quite different than they were earlier in her life.  Mary Cassatt was financially dependent on her father, Robert Cassatt, when she first arrived in Paris.   Her father took even more control over her life when he and the rest of Mary Cassatt’s family moved to Paris in 1877.  She had to move in with her family and had to account for every expense.   Being a feminist and standing up for your rights is much more difficult when you are dependent on someone else, but Mary did manage to change her father’s opinion about her painting career in Oliveira’s novel.  Her financial independence later in her life, after the death of her parents, is probably due to her father’s shift in attitude.  She inherited enough money to live on her own and continue to paint.

 I was pleased by Mary’s professional evolution over the course of the novel.  She took the risk of allying herself with the Impressionists when the painting establishment rejected them, and the public didn’t understand their work.  She was interested in learning new techniques and experimentation. 

I was not at all pleased by Robin Oliveira’s portrayal of Mary’s relationship with Degas.   She would stop speaking to him because he had been verbally abusive and extremely inconsiderate toward her, but then she would forgive him.  She apparently loved him, but Degas was emotionally unstable.  He could be very helpful and supportive to Mary, but then he would suddenly withdraw and fail to keep his professional commitments.  His negative behavior tended to coincide with Degas losing faith in his own work. Given Oliveira’s portrayal of Degas, I wondered if he was in fact bipolar or was a survivor of abuse himself.   The BipolarAid website lists Degas as clinically depressed rather than bipolar.  I think that Degas deserved compassion, but Mary should not have allowed him to undermine her career during his bouts with depression. I thought that the characterization in I Always Loved You was painfully honest, but I was nevertheless disappointed in the way Mary Cassatt related to Degas.  I wanted her to be stronger which caused me to like this novel less.