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The tragedy is not only hers, she adds, but that of many female artists who found it impossible to achieve the recognition bestowed on men artists of lesser ability, and either dropped out of the art world or remained in it as she did and starved. “It is too late for me,” she continues, “but perhaps my memoirs will help bring capable women of the future the acclaim that our own generation denies them.”
The book proper is divided into three parts. Part One illuminates her childhood and the development of her genius. The section dramatizes the catastrophic relationship between Camille and her unloving mother, the supportive and loving relationship with her father, and her closeness with her brother Paul, who remained her best friend from early childhood to the end of her life. The section also illuminates how and why she became a great artist, as well as the inmate of Montdevergues. Part Two, which consist of three chapters, deals with the rise of her career, in the setting of the ecstasy of her life with Rodin. The chapters show the development of her great love for him, and the heights of passion they achieved. Their ten years of bliss are followed by the disintegration of her love for him, and its evolution into hatred. Her descent into madness is accompanied by troughs of despair and starvation, as she spent what little money her father gave her on art supplies rather than food. The story illuminates how each phase of her early life and her romance with Rodin culminated in a great work of art. Part Three describes the horrors of Claudel’s life in the asylum and ends with the highly original manner in which she comes to terms psychologically with Rodin and the other important figures in her life. 40 BOOK REVIEWERS CAN’T BE WRONG
#1. Combining an astonishing depth of historical research with a fertile imagination and great psychological insight. (Bookwire), Besides Camille Claudel, a Novel, Alma Bond is also the author of 12 other books, Old Age is a Terminal Illness: How I Learned to Age Gracefully and Overcome my Fear of Dying; The Autobiography of Maria Callas: A Novel; Tales of Psychology: Short Stories to Make You Wise; The Deadly Jigsaw Puzzle; Murder on the Streetcar; Who Killed Virginia Woolf? A Psychobiography ; Profiles of Key West; On Becoming a Grandparent; I Married Dr. Jekyll & Woke Up Mrs. Hyde; Is There Life After Analysis?; The Tree That Could Fly (Children’s book); Dream Portrait ; and America's First Woman Warrior: The Courage of Deborah Sampson (With Lucy Freeman) For more information on Dr. Alma Bond and her books, please visit her site at: http://alma_bond.tripod.com
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CAMILLE CLAUDEL, A NOVEL begins with a prologue in which Camille Claudel, an old lady confined to the Asylum for the Insane in Montdevergues, France, reviews her life in an attempt to make sense of it, and to leave behind her true story for future generations to understand. She says, “People say I am crazy, and for no reason but vengeance have me locked up in this dreary dungeon where I live without a face, without a soul, without a name... I hope my memoir will illustrate the heights of passion Rodin and I reached in our love affair, and unravel the mystery of why they were transformed to vinegar and ashes. Rodin,” she continues, “who is known worldwide for work done largely by me, while I fester away in this dungeon of despair. The book may even help me discover why my brother, the great poet and playwright Paul Claudel, is rich and famous, while I, a far more gifted artist, am locked up here forever. “
