Lady of the Camille

by: Plant's Review of Books Archivist

Fri 20 Jun 2008 at 11:13:53 AM PDT

review by Brian Wry

Camille: The Life of Camille Claudel
by Reine-Marie Paris
Arcade, 1984

"A revolt against nature: a woman genius"- Mirbeau

"I showed her where she could find gold but the gold she finds belongs to her"- Rodin

"She was locked up in 1913 and, after thirty years of seclusion, died on October 19, 1943, in the asylum of Montdevergues.

She leaves us a work stamped with the seal of exemplariness: small but of a quality that makes it equal to the works of the greatest sculptors, beginning with Rodin."

—from "A plea for Camille Claudel" by Jacques Cassar

Whew! Just barely through the introduction and the tone for the book has been set. The next 224 pages are a wonderful insight into the life of one of the greatest sculptors of all time.

Reine-Marie Paris brings Camille to life for us, and allows us to care for her; without resorting to hype, speculation, or hearsay. Based solely on factual data, the book isn't cold or clinical, but manages to be just the opposite. It guides us through the life of Camille Claudel: from what life must have been like in her family's household before the turn of the century to the letters she wrote from the asylum of Montdevergues before her death. It provides insight into how one of the brightest lights of the art world was snuffed out. It is the life story of a talent so great that it is virtually criminal that we are not left with a greater body of work to appreciate.

This woman who rates only a few paragraphs in books on the life and works of Rodin was in fact not merely Rodin's pupil or disciple as suggested in many of those volumes. By the time they had met, Camille was in fact an accomplished sculptor in her own right. It is hypothesized in the book; and is borne out by scrutiny of Rodin's art at the time, that Camille was not only his equal but provided Rodin with inspiration.

Her split with Rodin and subsequent self-imposed isolation were the beginning of the end for Camille Claudel. Was the persecution complex that kept her in solitude and silence for many years purely psychosis, or is there more basis in fact for her seclusion than we will ever be able to uncover historically? We do know that in all the years she sculpted with Rodin she signed only three of her pieces. This leaves a lot of room for speculation and conjecture. In any case, perhaps Camille was simply born to soon, into a world that was not prepared for such a strong willed, independent, and enormously talented woman.

The two most striking features of the book are the powerful detailed photographs of Claudel's art, and correspondence both from and to the artist. These alone are worth the price of admission, and capable of moving even the most cynical and skeptical of us.

America's Killing Field

by: Plant's Review of Books Archivist

Thu 19 Jun 2008 at 15:53:11 PM PDT

review by Doug Rennie

The Killer Angels
Michael Shaara
Ballantine, 1974

Drive half an hour north of Washington, D.C. and you will find verdant rolling hills and flat, rich farmland, broken here and there by granite outcroppings and dark poplar forests. A place of great beauty and serenity. Close your eyes a moment, efface the houses and stores and gas stations from your mind's eye, and it looks pretty much as it did in July, 1863.

With one huge difference.

That summer its green fields were stained red with the blood of 50,000 Americans dead and wounded. 50,000. In just three days of slaughter in Eastern Pennsylvania, fully one-third as many casualties as during the three years of the Korean War.

The Battle of Gettysburg, fought July 1-4, 1863, was America's Armageddon, the single, blazing moment when the Civil War's central issue—would we be one nation, or two?—was decided. What happened is well known: after a smashing win in May, 1863 at Chancellorsville, Virginia, Robert E. Lee became set on dealing a death blow to the Union army, now in disarray, and staked everything on winning a huge victory on northern soil. Almost by accident, the two great armies made contact at Gettysburg, a site neither side chose nor wanted, and the greatest battle ever fought in the Western hemisphere began. The Union army was the first to reach Gettysburg, seized the high ground and, driven into the ropes by Lee's body punches, never let it go.

While what happened at Gettysburg is well-documented, why it was done as it was done remains elusive. These are the questions Michael Shaara tries to answer in his 1975 Pulitzer prize-winner The Killer Angels, a sort of American Iliad that has in abundance what many historical novels lack: believable personalities, accurate minutia, genuine pathos. It is a dramatic work reminiscent of the best historical fiction, including William Styron's The Confessions of Nat Turner and Gore Vidal's Burr and Lincoln.

Margie, Mike, & Me

by: Darrel Plant

Wed 12 Sep 2007 at 21:45:18 PM PDT

by Darrel A. Plant

I was planning this issue to follow up on the trail of where Houghton-Mifflin's profits from fifty-something years of sales of Adolph Hitler's tome Mein Kampf have gone (see "Desperately Seeking Adolph," Plant's Review of Books, November, 1992), but little did I know last fall when I was planning my next line of investigation that I was about to be sucked into a nationwide controversy involving another story ignored by the Oregonian, a syndicated Chicago Tribune columnist whom I respected and admired, a conservative journalist, a Clinton advisor who had just become one of the most influential persons in America, and a hitherto unknown (to me) television show starring an actress I'd never heard of.

Sounds too grandiose to be true for the editor and publisher of a little book review from a podunk town in a hick state whose population just a decade ago used to be about that of a smallish suburb of LA, doesn't it? Well, the president of this fair country is from Arkansas, and don't you forget it. Now let's get this over with so I can get back to some real research.

Several years ago, when this magazine was but a twinkle in my eye (and a haphazard pile of notes and sketches), and little knowing that within a brief span of time my thoughts would be catapulted across the continent like dead cows over some mediaeval battlement, I had what my wife would call one of my "stupid" ideas.

Plant's Review of Books (#2), February 1993, front cover by Eric Rewitzer

by: Plant's Review of Books Archivist

Wed 08 Aug 2007 at 23:46:36 PM PDT

Plant's Review of Books (#2), February 1993, back cover by Eric Rewitzer

by: Plant's Review of Books Archivist

Wed 08 Aug 2007 at 23:42:50 PM PDT