Webb fuses fact, fiction in Rodin's Lover
French sculptor Camille Claudel, the muse and lover of her renowned peer Auguste Rodin, has inspired authors, playwrights and filmmakers for decades.
Author Heather Webb is the latest to examine their relationship. Her new novel, Rodin's Lover, tells the story from the viewpoints of both Rodin and Claudel, who spent the last three decades of her life in a mental institution.
Webb spoke about turning real lives into fiction and writing from a male perspective.
Why did you decide to tell this story in a novel?
It's not really a decision I made ahead of time. I loved the story and was fascinated by it, not to mention sculpture itself, and it unfolded that way.
Nonfiction is a completely different animal. At some point I might write nonfiction, but at this point, I'm not really interested. I obviously read a ton of it, but there's the magic in the inspiration and the beauty in fiction. The emotional element is something that you just can't capture in nonfiction.
How did you decide to incorporate fictional events, like the courtship of Claudel by a real person?
I assumed that her mother, traditional as she was, would absolutely be pushing for Camille to have a suitor. I'm sure that was something that was real. That's just what they did back then. ... I just created a name out of thin air. ... I Googled it and when I came upon it I was amazed and shocked that first of all he lived in Camille's lifetime, and second of all that he was this famous criminologist.
Was it difficult telling Rodin's side of the story?
I really latched onto his voice. I expected it to be hard because he's a male, I'm a female. But I loved how different he was from Camille. They obviously shared a passion and had a similar work ethic, but it's very exciting and interesting writing from a male point of view.
You present Rodin more sympathetically than the film Camille Claudel did.
He was very sympathetic to me because he loved this woman so much, but he also loved the woman he was with, and he was eaten alive by it. I think he struggled to make the right choice.
