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A review by imbookingit
Claude & Camille by Stephanie Cowell
4.0
I enjoyed Claude and Camille, and yet found myself wishing for something a little more, or maybe a little different.
I never really connected with the character of Monet. Through the book, I got to know him as a person, but I'm not sure he was a person I would have particularly liked. He was driven by his art, and this left him feeling entitled to support from his family well into his 20s, and led him to live beyond his means at several different points in his life. I got something of a feeling for him as a painter, but not as a genius. I never saw through his eyes as an artist who changed the artistic world.
But Claude and Camille wasn't the story of a painter, it was the story of a relationship. With that perspective, I was much more interested in the character of Camille. I didn't understand or agree with her decisions either, but somehow I found her more accessible, and I think I would have loved the book if it was told from her viewpoint.
Camille was a young woman so swept away by her love for her young man that she ran off with him, living with him and bearing his child in a day when women of her class just didn't do such things. She also suffered from very dark periods, where even getting out of bed was difficult, and living the life of an artist's wife was nearly impossible.
I loved the look into a setting that I wasn't particularly familiar with. I also was unfamiliar with Claude Monet's background, so I can't speak at all to how closely the book sticks to the commonly known story.
I never really connected with the character of Monet. Through the book, I got to know him as a person, but I'm not sure he was a person I would have particularly liked. He was driven by his art, and this left him feeling entitled to support from his family well into his 20s, and led him to live beyond his means at several different points in his life. I got something of a feeling for him as a painter, but not as a genius. I never saw through his eyes as an artist who changed the artistic world.
But Claude and Camille wasn't the story of a painter, it was the story of a relationship. With that perspective, I was much more interested in the character of Camille. I didn't understand or agree with her decisions either, but somehow I found her more accessible, and I think I would have loved the book if it was told from her viewpoint.
Camille was a young woman so swept away by her love for her young man that she ran off with him, living with him and bearing his child in a day when women of her class just didn't do such things. She also suffered from very dark periods, where even getting out of bed was difficult, and living the life of an artist's wife was nearly impossible.
I loved the look into a setting that I wasn't particularly familiar with. I also was unfamiliar with Claude Monet's background, so I can't speak at all to how closely the book sticks to the commonly known story.