The Mezzanine
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| + | " [...] as you lean on the [[stapler]] with your elbow locked and your breath held and it slumps toothlessly to the paper, that it has run out of staples."--''[[The Mezzanine]]'' (1988) by Nicholson Baker | ||
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| - | '''Nicholson Baker''' (born [[January 7]], [[1957]]) is a contemporary American novelist, whose writings focus on minute inspection of the narrator's [[Stream of consciousness writing|stream of thought]]. His unconventional novels deal with topics like [[voyeurism]] and planned [[assassination]], but generally de-emphasize traditional aspects of [[Plot (narrative)|plot]]. Baker's enthusiasts appreciate his ability to candidly explore the human psyche, while critics feel that his writing wastes time on trivia ([[Stephen King]] notoriously compared Baker's novel ''Vox'' to a "meaningless little fingernail paring"). | ||
| - | ==Books by Nicholson Baker== | ||
| - | *''[[The Mezzanine]]'' ([[1988 in literature|1988]]) is Baker's first novel. It presents the thoughts and memories of a young office-worker as he ascends an escalator to the [[mezzanine]] of the office building where he is employed, a building based on Baker's recollections of Rochester's [[Midtown Plaza]]. The novel created the genre for which Baker is best known, and is perhaps its boldest representative. It abounds in long [[footnote]]s, including a vivid paean to long footnotes. | + | '''''The Mezzanine''''' (1988) is a first novel by [[Nicholson Baker]] about what goes through a man's mind during a modern [[lunch break]]. |
| - | *''[[Room Temperature (novel)|Room Temperature]]'' ([[1990 in literature|1990]]) mines the same vein as ''The Mezzanine'', though this time the action spans a few minutes at the narrator's home (in [[Quincy, Massachusetts]]). Mike is feeding his baby daughter, "the Bug", as her head rests in the crook of his arm. He blows in the direction of a [[Mobile (sculpture)|mobile]]; twenty seconds and two dozen pages later, he is surprised to see the mobile move. Mike's thoughts wander as he contemplates, for example, the possibility of admitting to one's wife that one has been [[Nose-picking|picking one's nose]] (body functions are discussed extensively, perhaps prompted by the baby's presence), or the juxtaposition of [[Claude Debussy|Debussy]] and [[Skippy peanut butter]] jars in a [[symphonic poem]]. The novel was received warmly but without great enthusiasm, as an enjoyable if slightly demure domestic follow-up to ''The Mezzanine''. Mike may be expressing Baker's approach to writing when he thinks "...that with a little concentration one's whole life could be reconstructed from any single twenty-minute period randomly or almost randomly selected;" | + | ==Plot introduction== |
| + | On the surface it deals with a man's trip up an escalator in the mezzanine of his office building during a lunch-time sojourn from his building. In reality, it deals with all the thoughts that run through our minds in any given few moments – if we were given the time to think them through to their conclusions. ''The Mezzanine'' does that, through extensive use of footnotes, some making up the bulk of the page, travelling inside a human mind, through the thinker's past. | ||
| - | *''[[U and I|U and I: A True Story]]'' ([[1991 in literature|1991]]) is a non-fiction study of how a reader engages with an author's work: partly an appreciation of [[John Updike]], and partly a kind of self-exploration. Rather than a traditional literary analysis, Baker begins the book by stating that he will read no more Updike than he already has up to that point. All of the Updike quotes used are presented as coming from memory alone. | + | ==Plot== |
| + | The novel is a plotless, stream-of-consciousness examination greatly detailing the lunch-hour activities of young office worker Howie. His simple lunch of a hot dog, cookie, and milk, and buying a new pair of shoelaces are contrasted with his reading of a paperback edition of [[Marcus Aurelius]]'s ''[[Meditations]]''. Baker's digressive novel is partly made up of extensive footnotes, some several pages long, while following Howie's contemplations of a variety of everyday objects and occurrences, including how paper milk cartons replaced glass milk bottles, the miracle of perforation, and the nature of plastic straws to float, vending machines, paper towel dispensers, and popcorn poppers. | ||
| - | *''[[Vox (novel)|Vox]]'' ([[1992 in literature|1992]]) covers an episode of [[phone sex]] between two young single people on a pay-per-minute chat line. The sex scenes in the novel, though quite vivid, nevertheless share the basic approach that Baker has taken since ''The Mezzanine'': in this case, he explores two characters' accumulated thoughts and memories in relation to sex. For some readers, Baker's obsession with detail detracted from a hoped-for [[pornography|pornographic]] effect. Others, in reading the imaginative sex stories that the two protagonists produce for one another, have perceived a budding romantic affection: in the last act they perform before hanging up, the man gives the woman his phone number. The book was Baker's first [[New York Times]] bestseller. [[Monica Lewinsky]] supposedly once gave a copy to President [[Bill Clinton]]. | + | ==Critical reception== |
| + | The novel was praised for its originality and linguistic virtuosity, announcing Baker's trademark style of highly descriptive, focused prose, "fierce attention to detail", and delight in discrete slices of time within mundane existence. Like Proust, he makes the personal significant. | ||
| - | *''[[The Fermata]]'' ([[1994 in literature|1994]]) also addresses the erotic life and fantasy. To quote the dust jacket of one edition: "Arno Strine likes to stop time and take women's clothes off. He is hard at work on his autobiography, 'The Fermata.' It proves in the telling to be a very provocative, funny, and altogether morally confused piece of work." (A [[fermata]] is a mark in musical notation indicating a long pause.) | + | ==Further reading== |
| + | *Chambers, Ross, '"Meditation and the Escalator Principle – on Nicholson Baker's ''The Mezzanine''", ''Modern Fiction Studies'', 40, 4, Winter 1994, pp. 765-806. | ||
| - | *''[[The Everlasting Story of Nory: A Novel|The Everlasting Story of Nory]]'' ([[1998 in literature|1998]]) was inspired by Baker's daughter Alice, "the informant", to whom he dedicates the book. In this work, Baker tries to see the world through the eyes of a curious nine-year-old American girl attending school in England. | ||
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| - | *''[[Double Fold|Double Fold: Libraries and the Assault on Paper]]'' ([[2001 in literature|2001]]) is a non-fiction book about preservation, newspapers, and the American library system. An excerpt first appeared in the July 24, 2000, issue of [[The New Yorker]], under the title "Deadline: The Author's Desperate Bid to Save America's Past." The exhaustively researched work (there are sixty-three pages of endnotes and eighteen pages of references in the paperback edition) details Baker's quest to uncover the fate of thousands of books and newspapers that were replaced and often destroyed during the microfilming boom of the 1980s and '90s. | ||
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| - | *''[[A Box of Matches]]'' ([[2003 in literature|2003]]) is in many ways a continuation of ''Room Temperature''—similarly mining the narrator's store of reflections and memories, many of them domestic. The narrator is now middle-aged, and has a family. He rises each morning about 4:00, lights a fire in the fireplace, and ponders. The work is admired, although some have found it rather less exuberant than its predecessor. | ||
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| - | *''[[Checkpoint (novel)|Checkpoint]]'' ([[2004 in literature|2004]]) is composed of dialogue between two old high school friends, Jay and Ben, who discuss Jay's plans to assassinate President [[George W. Bush]]. Jay is an unbalanced day laborer who, in the depths of his anger and desperation at Bush's actions and his inability to do anything to stop them, has traveled to [[Washington, D.C.]], to kill the president. He considers many far-fetched means of assassination, such as depleted uranium boulders, flying radio-controlled CD saws, homing bullets trained to target the victim by being "marinated" in a tin with a picture of the president, and hypnotized Manchurian scorpions. Ben has met Jay in a Washington, D.C., hotel room, unaware that his friend is planning to commit "a major, major, major crime." Over the course of the novella, Ben discusses what drove Jay to plot an assassination. Reviewers have pointed out that the book is mild, and the planned violence so cartoonish as to be non-threatening. | ||
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| - | *''[[Human Smoke (book)|Human Smoke: The Beginnings of World War II, the End of Civilization]]'' ([[2008 in literature|2008]]) is a history of World War II that questions the commonly held belief that the Allies wanted to avoid the war at all costs but were forced into action by Hitler's unforgiving crusade. It is written in a mostly objective style, largely consisting of official government transcripts and other documents from the time. He cites documents that suggest that the leaders of the United States and the United Kingdom were provoking Germany into war (showing, for example, that Britain bombed Germany before Germany bombed Britain) and that the leaders of those two nations had ulterior motives for wanting to participate. | ||
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| - | *''[[The Anthologist (novel)|The Anthologist]]'' ([[2009 in literature|2009]]) is narrated by Paul Chowder, a relatively unknown poet, who is attempting to write an introduction to an upcoming poetry anthology. Distracted by problems in his life -- Chowder's career is going nowhere, and his girlfriend has recently left him -- he is unable to begin writing, and instead ruminates on poets and poetry throughout history. ''The Anthologist'' is scheduled to be published on September 08, 2009. | ||
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Current revision
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" [...] as you lean on the stapler with your elbow locked and your breath held and it slumps toothlessly to the paper, that it has run out of staples."--The Mezzanine (1988) by Nicholson Baker |
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Featured: |
The Mezzanine (1988) is a first novel by Nicholson Baker about what goes through a man's mind during a modern lunch break.
Contents |
[edit]
Plot introduction
On the surface it deals with a man's trip up an escalator in the mezzanine of his office building during a lunch-time sojourn from his building. In reality, it deals with all the thoughts that run through our minds in any given few moments – if we were given the time to think them through to their conclusions. The Mezzanine does that, through extensive use of footnotes, some making up the bulk of the page, travelling inside a human mind, through the thinker's past.
[edit]
Plot
The novel is a plotless, stream-of-consciousness examination greatly detailing the lunch-hour activities of young office worker Howie. His simple lunch of a hot dog, cookie, and milk, and buying a new pair of shoelaces are contrasted with his reading of a paperback edition of Marcus Aurelius's Meditations. Baker's digressive novel is partly made up of extensive footnotes, some several pages long, while following Howie's contemplations of a variety of everyday objects and occurrences, including how paper milk cartons replaced glass milk bottles, the miracle of perforation, and the nature of plastic straws to float, vending machines, paper towel dispensers, and popcorn poppers.
[edit]
Critical reception
The novel was praised for its originality and linguistic virtuosity, announcing Baker's trademark style of highly descriptive, focused prose, "fierce attention to detail", and delight in discrete slices of time within mundane existence. Like Proust, he makes the personal significant.
[edit]
Further reading
- Chambers, Ross, '"Meditation and the Escalator Principle – on Nicholson Baker's The Mezzanine", Modern Fiction Studies, 40, 4, Winter 1994, pp. 765-806.
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