Claude and Camille by Stephanie Cowell

Title:  Claude & Camille

Author:  Stephanie Cowell

Publisher:  Broadway Paperbacks

Publication Date:  2011

Pages:  330

ISBN:  9780307463227

Source:  Purchased

"The pain passes, but the beauty remains."

-Auguste Renoir

This is one of the best books that I have read in a long time!  It is the love story of Claude Monet and Camille Doncieux.  Camille left a privileged life to be with the man she loved.  Over the years they suffered through war, hunger, poverty, and the loss of many friends.  But through it all, Claude and Camille stuck it out together.  This book is the story of their love and how they held on to each other through many difficult times.  Also this book touches on the lives of the other Impressionist artists of that time, because they were all good friends.  Stephanie Cowell suggests that as you read, you keep a book of Monet's work, to view while you read.  I second that idea, because it brought so much more to the story.  I can honestly say that after reading this wonderful book, I have a much stronger love of Monet's work.

"He had never painted anything like this in his life.
  She lay there very pure and pale and still but he saw colors rise and swirl about her.  He painted her face as almost a spirit, with a violence of color about her, slashed and feathered with his brush,  He painted against time.  You are light, he murmured, and if something of you remains here yet, it is leaving me.  He gritted his teeth as he painted, murmuring, "Stay, stay.  I don't want life without you.  Is this all that life is then, Minou, in the end, suffering?  Do we ever know another person truly?  It is better to go than to feel this."
  He heard only the sound of his brush.  As long as I paint, she's not yet gone, he thought.  And then the painting was done and still she lay there."
-page 321 Claude & camille

The lines quoted above touched me so much that I felt compelled to share them!