Scaffolding
I wanted to say that this book hurt my feelings, with (what I thought was) that Nora Ephron phrase in mind. But actually, it turns out that the Nora Ephron book I was thinking about is called I Feel Bad About My Neck (and not something like My Neck Hurt My Feelings), so maybe I should say that I Feel Bad About This Book. I know that this is just a matter of preference because this is how I felt while living in Brooklyn. Not cool enough, too basic (or something?), severely lacking in the droll hipster department. Making our way through our days there had me feeling like Dorothy in Oz. That’s a lonely feeling, so maybe that’s it: Scaffolding made me feel lonely.
This novel — the first for Lauren Elkin, although she is already known for her translation work as well as nonfiction books — is about two couples who live in the same Parisian apartment decades apart. The tiniest of connections (a calendar, the study of psychology/psychotherapy, the understanding of a Jewish identity) exist between the two narratives, although plot-wise they have in common the thread of infidelity and desire.
Those aren’t unusual topics/plot points for a novel (actually, they’re quite common), but “lonely” squirrels away platitudes to take out and meditate on when the going gets tough (see what I mean?), and “lonely” is like a net covering you — you can poke a finger through but it remains incessantly encompassing. I could pull out the usual “it’s not you, it’s me” line about my reaction (ugh, so facile…talk about platitudes) and I could try to eyeball bright spots through the net as if I were writing a straight-up review (“it is so well written!”), yet…why?
Scaffolding is a good book receiving good reviews. But it made me lonely, and I’m not sure I totally understand the reason(s). Such are the mysteries of different people’s receptions to written texts. (There’s a moral or parable in here somewhere, isn’t there?)
originally published on instagram