Good Reads | My Two Claudes
Note: This entry was originally posted on my book blog, Miss Book Bird. I'm sharing it here because, well, it's not just about books.
“I’m at war with nature and time, and I’d like to finish some paintings I’ve started.”
Two Claudes walk into a bar…
One is a young American farm boy, coming of age awkwardly, but with feeling, in the Midwest. Feeling pressure from his father to take over the family farm, he drops out of college, unhappily. He’s restless and dissatisfied, and desperately yearning for “more.”
The other is an old French painter, racing against time to finish his greatest work yet, in a small village outside of Paris. For much of his working life, he’s dreamed of painting a larger-than-life masterpiece, what he calls a “flowering aquarium.” Now, in the middle of this overwhelming project, everything seems to be going wrong—not the least of which, his failing eyesight.
Claude Wheeler. Claude Monet.
Aside from their shared name, they have little in common.
Until The War.
Double-Booking
I don’t often read more than one book at a time. I like to be all in, fully immersed, in whatever story I read. But I’m realizing that in order to carry on with my mission to read all the Pulitzers, and allow myself to read books on a whim (one of my most necessary joys), I’ve got to get used to carrying two books in my (very heavy) bag.
Currently hitching a ride in myveryheavybag are: One of Ours, my fifth Pulitzer, by Willa Cather; and Mad Enchantment: Claude Monet and the Painting of The Water Lilies, the soul food I was starving for upon coming home from Paris in August.
As we humans do, I’ve adapted to double-booking. I’ve put a whole system in place to make time for each book, every day.
Claude Monet in the morning; Claude Wheeler in the evening.
The reading for each is unique from the other: one is non-fiction, one is fiction; one hero is a master, working on a masterpiece, one is yet a kid, who feels he is master of nothing.
It’s been a good brain exercise, that requires me to wear different hats—one, a beret; the other a Stetson.
Anyway, I’ve been traveling along with My Two Claudes, and they’ve been taking me in different directions, until, a few days ago, when they brought me smack dab into the center of the very same point in time and space: France. September. 1914.
World War I.
One World, One Capitol
“The Miracle of the Marne” was the second great battle on the Western Front. It saved Paris, but led to four years of trench warfare. It’s also the moment that weaves My Two Claudes into the same story.
From the onset, I’ve known Monet painted his Water Lilies during WWI. It’s a reason I was inspired to read Mad Enchantment. Even, and perhaps especially during times of great despair and destruction, humanity needs art. We need artists to continue their work, to continue to create and share reminders of why we must keep going, keep surviving. And that’s what Monet was doing as The War raged on, all around him. He was digging in his heels and, in defiance of all chaos and fear, creating a masterpiece of beauty and light. At one point he’s even quoted as having said, “As for me, I shall stay here regardless, and if those barbarians wish to kill me, I shall die among my canvases, in front of my life’s work.”
Meanwhile, on a farm in Nebraska, Claude Wheeler may be very remote from the action, but in his heart he knows he is being called into it. The night he learns of the battle of the Marne, he lays in bed, thinking it all over to himself.
"It was curious, he reflected, lying wide awake in the dark: four days ago the seat of the government had been moved to Bordeaux,—with the effect that Paris seemed suddenly to have become the capital of the world! He knew he was not the only farmer boy who wished himself tonight beside the Marne.”
He continues, reflecting further on Paris, “the city which had meant so much through all the centuries—but had never meant so much before. Its name had come to have the purity of an abstract idea. In the great sleepy continents, in land-locked harvest towns, in the little islands of the sea, for four days man watched that name as they might stand outside at night to watch a comet, or see a star fall. "
Not long after that night, Claude Wheeler volunteers himself to join the American forces. And with the turn of a few pages, my two Claudes go from arbitrary strangers in two different stories, to co-conspirators in a plan to save the world from darkness.
Synchronicity.
Two stories began on opposite sides of the world, but brought me around to the very same point: on a mission to protect what is beautiful, true, and human.
Now, I follow Claude Monet’s brushstrokes, as he quietly and passionately works to create a sacred refuge from the despair of The War.
Simultaneously, I am with Claude Wheeler, as he bravely marches into the battle, determined to protect what is precious and holy from the destruction of The War.
Different methods, different skills, employed by my two Claudes, but I am finding their sameness to be much greater. And as I face another day in the world—another mass shooting, another powerful man outed as a sexual predator, another natural disaster—
I’m thinking.
I’m thinking about how often we allow our small differences to dig a great dividing trench between us.
I’m thinking about how there are many good ways to reach the same goal.
I’m thinking about how one person’s talents are just as sacred as another’s.
I’m thinking about how I believe in the goodness of a soldier and the courage of an artist.
I’m thinking about how sometimes a paintbrush can be the most effective weapon.
I’m thinking about how sometimes a fighter can be the greatest warrior for peace.
I’m thinking about how petty our daily problems seem when we’re faced with a true act of terror.
I’m thinking about how each act of terror only serves to bring us closer to each other.
I’m thinking about how much more powerful we will be when we stop defining ourselves by location, age, race, gender, occupation, religion, story; and realize that all our paths lead to One.
I’m thinking about how I still believe Love will win.
Into the Light
My two Claudes are heroes in the same tale, fighters in the same battle—as we all are.
That’s the thing about war, and any other act of violence or destruction—it quickly melts away our individual differences, until only the real opposites remain:
darkness and light
death and life
fear and hope
hate and love.
And in those times, we unite, not according to our age, race, gender, or geographical location, but according to what we believe is worth living and dying for.
In the face of WWI, My Two Claudes chose Light.
Wheeler shipped off to defend the City of Light; Monet hunkered down to manifest Light on canvas.
And what I am moved by now as I turn the pages in two different books isn't what separates us, but what brings us together.