“Scaffolding. Has the ring of the gallows to it.” This line epitomizes Lauren Elkin’s debut novel, Scaffolding, a story that pulls us through Paris in two separate times, through four separate lives, as we watch our cast of characters navigate a sea of questionable choices and ever-shifting frameworks. Grappling with desire and how we justify our own hurts and wants, Scaffolding is a philosophical journey all ought to embark on.
Starting in the modern day, Anna is a psychoanalyst who was working as a therapist before her miscarriage resulted in her removal. Struggles in her marriage aren’t helping the matter, as her husband David has moved to London for work, and despite his pleadings, she refuses to leave their apartment in Paris that is under immense and seemingly ceaseless construction to join him. As David departs, Anna meets her new neighbor, Clémentine, a care-free and curious art student about a decade younger than Anna, who has just moved in with her boyfriend Jonathan. As the two strike up a fast friendship, the boundaries of their relationship become murky, both sexually and emotionally, as Anna becomes involved with both Clémentine and Jonathan.
Forty years prior, Florence and her husband Henry are living in the same apartment, facing remarkably similar circumstances. Like Anna, Florence is also aiming to become a psychoanalyst, and is similarly engaging in ill-concealed affairs. Florence is determined to have a child, despite Henry’s insistence against it. Despite the difference in time, these two storylines intersect and converse with one another in unexpected ways, giving a striking portrait of just how differently, or in some cases similarly, one half of a couple can go about handling their impulses.
At its core, this book is about desire, but desire muddled with philosophical questions. It was clear from the beginning that Elkin has done her research, and is brilliant in her own right, as I watched Anna and Florence and Clémentine justify or deny their wants based on their ever-changing philosophies surrounding desire. Some key questions that Elkin seems to be asking through these women are: who are we to deny our desires? Can desire ever truly be wrong? And maybe most importantly, what price is too high to pay to attain what we desire? I felt a line drawn in the sand between the idea of “want” vs “desire” in the book. “Want” seemed to be too basic a way to describe what these women were feeling; it seemed that “desire” was being used to insinuate that it’s a feeling much less easy to resist.
While these big questions loom over the heads of our characters, it’s safe to say that these women are willing to forfeit the protection of the feelings of their loved ones. While Jonathan is certainly not entirely innocent, I felt very bad for David throughout the book, who was nothing but loyal and encouraging to Anna as she embarked on numerous affairs in his absence. Anna seemed to be pushing against the confines of her monogamous marriage, questioning if she and David had ever truly “agreed” to be monogamous or if it was just assumed. This line of thinking seemed shallow to me, used as a means to justify acting on her desires behind his back.
The other prominent theme within this novel is the movement or stagnation of a setting as a backdrop to a story. The constant construction and changing of scenes and scaffolding within these two couples’ stories served as a means for Elkin to ask how our environment can help or hurt us, nurture or extinguish the desires we come to cherish. Paris was, in my opinion, the perfect setting for a novel like this, as the history and reputation of the city only served to propel the characters’ introspection. Scaffolding is a new and intimate story of desire and just how far we’ll go to justify obtaining them. A riveting, bold challenge to the norms of relationships, friendships and marriages, Elkin has certainly earned her place on any bookshelf and in the minds of any reader. I’ll be reading this one again and again.
FICTION
Scaffolding
By Lauren Elkin
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Published September 17, 2024
