Ema and Paul, married to other people, work in the same labor court outside of Paris, and they begin falling in love in Paul’s car which the author describes in some detail, indeed in more detail than she describes the appearance of Ema or Paul, their spouses, or their children. Thus the title Geography of an Adultery, Agnès Riva’s slim first novel.
The affair begins in Paul’s car, moves to a corner of the kitchen in Ema’s house, to an empty chapel on the outskirts of town, to Paul’s house briefly (they live within walking distance of each other), and is finally consummated in an apartment hotel.
Agnès Riva tells the story entirely from Ema’s point of view. He never learn what Paul is thinking, only what he says to her: “You have to compartmentalize,” he tells her, and we understand even if Ema doesn’t know how to keep the parts of her life separate, that’s how Paul manages his life. “Don’t let your personal feeling affect judgments that must remain rational.” Ema finds this schoolmasterish advice aggravating and sexually arousing.
Paul clearly finds Ema sexually desirable. “I don’t think we’ll ever be more excited than this,” he murmurs in her ear during heavy petting in her kitchen. He says it “as if he wants her to take the next step but has no intention of forcing her.” Reaching that step takes another ninety pages.
One of the things that makes this slim debut novel so interesting is Riva’s evocation of Ema’s internal life, her feelings, the tension between abandonment—her desire for excitement, adventure, passion—and the fear of getting caught.
“Her attempts to establish routines that can be counted on, like her offer of her house as a place where they can see each other outside of work, have ended in failure, for Paul’s visits remain as irregular as always. Between one encounter and the next, it seems to her, the man quite simply forgets her; he moves on to something else.”
Another thing that makes the story ring so true is the author’s ability to convey the contrast between Ema’s expectations and Paul’s. Because it is an affair and not a romance between two single people that can lead to marriage or a stable union, they cannot easily work out their differences.
Riva writes, “In principle, Paul wouldn’t be against finding a place, an apartment, for example, that they could rent for their romantic encounters.” [They can afford one? And hide the expense from their spouses? Never mind.]
“But when they envision the passion they will know in their proposed love nest, what each sees differs a little from the other’s version. Paul pictures a place where desire can be ‘contained,’ shielded from prying eyes for as long as their romance lasts,” [He’s already assuming the romance has a time limit.] “whereas Ema, by contrast, hopes it will allow their sensitivities a new freedom of expression.” In any case, while Paul talks about renting a place, he makes no effort to do so.
Without preaching or proselytizing, the novel makes a solid case against adultery. It should be no spoiler to read that when Ema and Paul finally do create the conditions in which they can make love, the experience not that great.
“The young woman has often imagined this moment, and now that it’s here, she feels something like indifference, like absence from the unfolding scene. Her head is clear, and on the one hand she can visualize all the elaborate fantasies she’s built up around her desire, and on the other, she can see Paul and herself, here on the bed, but she can’t, despite her efforts, manage to connect the two sights.”
Readers who have committed adultery can compare and contrast their thoughts and experiences to Ema’s. Readers who have ever toyed with the idea of an affair should read this as a cautionary tale and be prepared to be disappointed. Reality is almost never as stimulating as fantasy.
No comments:
Post a Comment