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These Good Hands

by Carol Bruneau

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Set in the early autumn of 1943, These Good Hands interweaves the biography of French sculptor Camille Claudel and the story of the nurse who cares for her during the final days of her thirty-year incarceration in France's Montdevergues Asylum. Biographers have suggested that Claudel survived her long internment by writing letters, few of which left the asylum because of her strict sequestration; in Bruneau's novel, these letters are reimagined in a series, penned to her younger self, the sculptor, popularly known as Rodin's tragic mistress. They trace the trajectory of her career in Belle #65533;poque Paris and her descent into the stigmatizing illness that destroyed it. The nurse's story is revealed in her journal, which describes her labours and the ethical dilemma she eventually confronts. Through her letters, Camille relives the limits of her perseverance; through Camille's journal, Nurse confronts limits of hers own: in the faith these women have in themselves, in the then-current advances in psychiatric medicine, and in a God whose existence is challenged by the war raging outside the enclosed world of the asylum. In her dying days, Camille teaches the nurse lessons in compassion and, ultimately, in what it means to endure.… (more)
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In These Good Hands Carol Bruneau reimagines the tragedy of French sculptor Camille Claudel (1864-1943). The story takes place in 1943 as the sick and elderly Claudel approaches the end of her life in the Montdevergues Asylum in occupied France, where she was committed by her family 30 years earlier. Revered today as an innovator and artist of rare passion and single-minded vision, during her lifetime Claudel was virtually ignored, only gaining a modicum of recognition and notoriety as a result of her affair with Auguste Rodin. In late 19th-century Paris, Rodin maintained a studio and took in students and apprentices. Claudel came to Rodin's attention while still a teenager, and it was not long after she entered his workshop that she was seduced by her much older mentor (24 years her senior). It is commonly thought that while at the asylum Claudel was able to tolerate her imprisonment by writing letters, though hospital staff were allowed to post only those addressed to her brother, and Bruneau reproduces the letters in order to tell Claudel's story from her perspective. To flesh out the narrative, the author has invented a young nurse, Solange Poitier, whose duty it is to comfort and care for the cantankerous "guest" in her final months. Poitier’s journal forms the other half of the narrative, alternating with Claudel’s letters. In the novel Bruneau tasks herself with depicting two separate historical periods (Paris and other locales in France around the turn of the 20th century, and Vaucluse in the unoccupied Vichy region of France during the Second World War) which she does persuasively and in great detail. As the action proceeds, and as Claudel weakens, nurse and patient form an exclusive and sympathetic bond. Claudel’s letters chronicling her life evolve from a straightforward rendering of her artistic, emotional and spiritual growth into a litany of grievances as her relationships with her family and with Rodin sour and she begins to see enemies and persecutors around every corner. In the meantime, nurse Poitier describes her own personal and professional development and some frightening encounters as the horrors of war encroach upon life in the deceptively placid French countryside. Carol Bruneau, a prize-winning novelist and short-story writer, is clearly motivated to tell the story of this female genius who tried to force her way out from under her mentor’s shadow and for her audacity was marginalized and victimized by a male-dominated artistic establishment. If Claudel’s letters and Poitier’s journal occasionally slip into a contemporary vernacular, it’s a minor flaw in a story with such a strong pulse. Carol Bruneau’s treatment of her source material is richly dramatic and suspenseful, bringing the period and the characters vividly to life, and drawing the reader irresistibly into a tale that is gripping despite the fact that the finale comes as no surprise. ( )
  icolford | Oct 10, 2016 |
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Set in the early autumn of 1943, These Good Hands interweaves the biography of French sculptor Camille Claudel and the story of the nurse who cares for her during the final days of her thirty-year incarceration in France's Montdevergues Asylum. Biographers have suggested that Claudel survived her long internment by writing letters, few of which left the asylum because of her strict sequestration; in Bruneau's novel, these letters are reimagined in a series, penned to her younger self, the sculptor, popularly known as Rodin's tragic mistress. They trace the trajectory of her career in Belle #65533;poque Paris and her descent into the stigmatizing illness that destroyed it. The nurse's story is revealed in her journal, which describes her labours and the ethical dilemma she eventually confronts. Through her letters, Camille relives the limits of her perseverance; through Camille's journal, Nurse confronts limits of hers own: in the faith these women have in themselves, in the then-current advances in psychiatric medicine, and in a God whose existence is challenged by the war raging outside the enclosed world of the asylum. In her dying days, Camille teaches the nurse lessons in compassion and, ultimately, in what it means to endure.

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