The Mezzanine (Vintage Contemporaries

by BAKER, NICHOLSON

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Description

New York: Vintage. January 16, 199. Paperback. Near Fine. Baker's irresistibly readable short novel presents the quirkyand often hila riousinner life of a thoroughly modern office worker. With high wit and in precisely articulated prose, the unnamed narrator examines, in minute and c omically digressive detail, the little things in life that illustrate how o ne addresses a problem or a new idea: the plastic straw (and its annoying t endency to float), the vacuous ci vilities of office chatter, doorknobs, ne ckties, escalators and the laughable evolution of milk deliveryfrom those o ld-fashioned hefty bottles to the folding carton. Using the keenly observed odds and ends of day-to-day consciousness, Baker allows his narrator to re -create the budding perceptions of a child facing a larger mysterious world , as each event in his day conjures up memories of previous incidents. Thro ugh the elegant manipulation of time, and sharp, defining memories of child hood, the narrator dissects each item of apparent cultural flotsam with the thoroughness of a prosaic, though wacky, technical manual. The rambling "f ootnotes" alone are worth the price of this cheerfully original novel.

Book summary

Nicholson Baker's divinely nutty first book, THE MEZZANINE, takes place as Howie, the protagonist, rides down the escalator in the office building where he works, planning to buy a new shoelace because his has broken. From this series of nonevents in a plotless novel, Baker fashions a brilliant and hilarious narrative about nothing more (or less) than Howie's view of the world. As one digression leads to another (and to a whirlwind of elaborate, funny, and/or informative footnotes), Howie ponders such things as milk cartons, bathrooms, staples, the little thread you pull to open a band aid, Pez dispensers, doorknobs, and of course shoelaces (the physics of their breakage) and even footnotes themselves. Of all his novels, THE MEZZANINE seems the most accurate mirror of what the inside of its author's curious (in both senses) mind must look like: a roomy, well-stocked fusion of the astutely scientific and the purely childlike, full of fascinating facts, utterly unique observations, and an enviable way with the English language.