Speciality as expressed in The Mezzanine
One could say that The Mezzanine is not special. It is not an enjoyable book to read in the least. It is quite literally fifteen chapters of the stream of thoughts of an ‘80s office worker: just about as interesting as you would imagine it. What makes it so different?
Simply put, The Mezzanine is a 135-page catalog of all the thoughts our narrator, Howie, has while making his way up his office building’s escalator. He ponders his lunch, his shoelaces, the different ways he ties his shoes, various conversations he’s had since he was but a child, how long it’s going to take him to stop reminiscing about his childhood, the different types of amenities in his office bathroom, approximately how many times he uses the office bathroom, and so on. Throughout the novel, Howie jokes with himself, makes vague references he expects his readers to understand, and goes about his day while innately analoging every single idiosyncratic detail.
Nothing distinguishes Howie from the rest of the human population. He has a life so normal that it becomes abnormal. Every day, he chooses a tie from his vast collection and presumably drives to his office building, where he staples papers and ponders multiple conundrums threatening the existence of the human species, such as the invention of perforated paper. He is not special.
As a reader — who also happens to wake up in the morning, choose an outfit, and drive to my current occupation — I think that is what makes him special.
We all have thoughts similar to Howie’s. Even if we don’t religiously catalog them according to how often they occur to us, we all reference events and occurrences in our lives with ourselves, making mental lists and getting stuck in our thoughts. I believe we all have a little Howie in our personalities. Howie is just an exhibit, a specimen, of the human experience today.
Howie finds everything special. He sees himself in each person he interacts with and he imagines what it would be like to be in their shoes, experiencing life through their lens, living as they do. And when somebody threatens the bubble he’s created for himself, the bubble of specialty and happy thoughts, and Jiffy Pop, as Marcus Aurelius does on page 120, he struggles to acquiesce.
To Howie, mortal life is not “transient and trivial,” surely consisting of more than just “a drop of semen [and] a handful of spice and ashes.” Such a declaration is “Wrong, wrong, wrong!” (120). Life should be appreciated for all its quirks, regardless of how small.
His opinions are evident in the way he talks to his readers and the way he references his previous chapters, saying, “In an earlier chapter I …” as if we are also desperately following along on his seemingly never-ending escalator ride. He seems to find himself special; he seems to find everyone special. The tiniest details within one's day, that the typical person would overlook -- Howie cherishes them.
I believe this is what makes him different. This is what makes The Mezzanine special.
So, the next time you’re stuck on a mind-numbingly boring Uni elevator ride, take a moment — a few seconds, to be exact, just how long it would take for one to take an escalator — to appreciate how beautiful life is. Think about the moments that led you to land on this specific elevator at this specific time. Reflect on your life, your childhood, your dreams, and your aspirations. Alas, according to Howie, everyone around you is doing the same.
I think you touch on an important question regarding the mezzanine: why should we care about Howie and his little revelations. However, I think you highlighted the answer pretty well stating that he overdramatizes things and becomes this relatable character for people. Granted, the book is long and dense at times but as you said, it forces you to think about things no matter how small in life. Overall great post!
ReplyDeleteI like how you open this post, boldly putting out that the setting of the novel is not special and Howie isn't special either. It gets at a core element of the book that is difficult to see at first but so important in holding the book together; that there is a bit of Howie in all of us, and we keep reading the book because in many ways he is just like us.
ReplyDeleteI think your blog post purposefully summarizes the meaning behind Baker's novel. Although it seems boring on the surface level, there is much more meaning to Howie's thoughts. It's not set up in the typical style of a story, but Howie's enthusiasm for the mundane encourages us, the reader, to be more positive in general and find joy in the little things.
ReplyDeleteFrom the opening which may not even be what you believe, I disagree that The Mezzanine is not special, it is special because of the mundanes of it and its attention to the little things. It's special because it's different.
ReplyDeleteThis is a really interesting dive into Howie's character, and why a character like him even deserves a 135 page novel. I agree that the thing that makes Howie so special is the mundaneness of his everyday life, and how he is able to transcend that with his thoughts and tangents. While we might be reading The Mezzanine and assuming that our thoughts are exactly like Howie's, therefore he is not special, we would be wrong. I went into reading the Mezzanine thinking that Howie and I are not so different, and came out of it believing the complete opposite, and I think that's true for a lot of people. It's unlikely that anyone, in their daily life, takes the time to appreciate the little things as much as Howie does, which is what makes his character at all compelling to read. If he was describing everything completely objectively, or even complaining about everything, I think The Mezzanine would be a lot less interesting to read. This was a really good blog Simrah!
ReplyDeleteGreat Pot Simrah! I think your post gets at the key question: why do we persevere and finish this book despite its seemingly trivial contents? As mentioned in your post, we read to experience Howie -- his relatable thoughts, his appreciation for the mundane and the tiniest details, everything. Baker expects us to hook ourselves to Howie and follow him through the entire book, which is why Baker is confident when not catering to the readers' interests.
ReplyDeleteI don't know that Howie presumes "everyone around him is doing the same," giving this same degree of close attention to "trivial" details. But at the same time, he does write this book in a way that seems to presume that a reader will be fascinated by all of these comments and observations--he writes as if ALL novels were like this, and it's a given that the author will be able to generate interest in whatever fleeting thought crosses his mind. To his credit, he doesn't present himself as "special," or as "the only one who pays attention to stuff like this" (even if he is).
ReplyDeleteBut I would say that the novel IS surprisingly "enjoyable to read" (I've read it more than a dozen times myself, over the years, and it continues to make me laugh and confront me with compelling insights), and I say "surprisingly" because this really SHOULDN'T work--I AM glad that all novels are not like this. So how does he pull it off? I would say it has a LOT to do with Baker being a very good writer: it's almost like he's posed a challenge to himself, to write about the most "boring" subject imaginable but make it compelling, and as I tried to demonstrate in class, he does this largely through poetic and literary devices (metaphor, analogy, voice, defamiliarization)--his language constantly "brings alive" the dull things he is talking about, refreshing our perception in precisely the way art always does (so we can see the escalator-frame as a pair of "giant integral signs" in the lobby). I would describe the general enthusiasm with which he writes as a kind of "literary" quality to his prose, and that goes a long way toward not only making this novel comprehensible but *readable*.
The idea that The Mezzanine can be seen as boring is reasonable considering the book's slow start. However, I like your take on 'if we look below the surface, we'll find a deeper meaning'. I think this especially true when dealing with the idea that we occasionally think like Howie, even if it's not our main stream of thought. Great work!
ReplyDeleteI really like the idea that by looking closely at something, you can find a deeper meaning. I think there is a certain beauty that there is a deeper meaning to everything, no matter how small said thing actually is. I also agree on your take with what makes The Mezzanine unique, is that Howie cherishes all the details that a normal person wouldn't. This shows how Howie is (probably) in such a good place that he is so untroubled by everything else.
ReplyDelete