Who Would Like This Book:
This quirky little novel is a delight for anyone who loves to find beauty and humor in the everyday. Instead of grand drama, The Mezzanine zooms in on the joys and oddities of the minor details: shoelaces, escalators, staplers, and the randomness of our inner lives. Baker’s writing is witty, meticulous, and often hilarious, making you see ordinary things with fresh eyes. Fans of stream-of-consciousness, observational comedy, or books like Seinfeld in novel form will find Baker’s unique style completely charming. If you geek out over clever footnotes or have ever lost yourself in a daydream, this book is your jam.
Who May Not Like This Book:
If you crave plot twists, action, or character-driven storytelling, this might not be the book for you. Some readers find the hyper-focus on minutiae and the long, digressive footnotes tedious or even maddening - like being stuck in a waiting room with someone who can’t stop analyzing their lunch. If the absence of a traditional story or cast of well-developed characters sounds dull, or if you want narrative momentum, you’ll probably want to skip this one. Not everyone is up for a deep dive into shoelace philosophy!
About:
'The Mezzanine' by Nicholson Baker is a short novel that delves into the minutiae of everyday life, focusing on the protagonist's lunch hour journey to buy a pair of shoe laces. The book is praised for its detailed observations and footnotes that explore mundane objects and experiences, turning them into thought-provoking reflections on human existence. The writing style is described as immersive, charming, and filled with existential explorations that make even the simplest activities fascinating.
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From The Publisher:
Turns an ordinary ride up an office escalator into a meditation on our relations with familiar objects-shoelaces, straws, and more. Baker's debut novel, and a favorite amongst many of us here.
Ratings (10)
Incredible (2) | |
Loved It (5) | |
Liked It (1) | |
It Was OK (1) | |
Did Not Like (1) |
Reader Stats (27):
Read It (11) | |
Want To Read (11) | |
Not Interested (5) |
3 comment(s)
I liked the concept of this one, and some of the observations made me chuckle in recognition, but overall it was putting way too much thought into nothing.
“The Mezzanine” is a novel consisting of fifteen chapters and 135 pages which focuses on a man’s thought process during his lunch break from work. Being that the narrator gets little excitement in his day working in an office building, the daily escalator ride is the highlight of his day.
During the novel, nothing escapes the narrator’s thoughts including his fascination with paper bags, his appearance to others, the series of events that led to his lunchtime errand, as well as mundane things such as brushing one’s tongue and teeth, small talk with coworkers and the shape of doorknobs.
Eventually, the reader learns the source of the narrator’s fascination with the escalator due to his childhood love of mechanical things. The narrator is especially drawn to the escalator in that
It was interesting to me how in some parts of the novel, the footnotes take up more space that the chapter content. I will admit that I found it annoying that narrator’s name (Howie) is not revealed until end of chapter ten. Finished novel feeling like I only got to know Howie on a shallow level, not in depth.
To me, the over use of footnotes seems like a pretentious way to add depth to the novel but instead, it serves as a vehicle for the narrator to do a brain dump on whatever topic interests him at the time. By having such long footnotes, I fell that this unfortunately prevents the reader from fully enjoying the novel.
Situated within capitalist society, wherein the cultural climate is one based solely on material consumption, Nicholas Baker’s “The Mezzanine” depicts a seemingly meaningless lunch break buying shoelaces at a CVS, and an escalator ride back to the office.
Throughout the text, the narrator Howie attempts to forge a connection between his personal identity and his function within the larger corporation. The narrator’s manic attention to detail, which shifts the observations from minuscule levels to larger implications, sets the scene for Baker’s exploration of the neoliberalization critique on commodities and consumption.
The novel is overwhelmingly interested in a class of commodities that very few of us tend to think of as commodities (office supplies, shoelaces, straws, etc.). These are often things that seemingly “no one” buys (and certainly no one fetishizes). Office supplies are just always, as though by magic, “there.” Shoelaces come prepackaged with shoes; straws are complementary add-ons to our sodas. Moreover, the novel then goes on to imbue these commodities with long involved back-stories. For Baker, every object has a story to tell, but that even as these stories may be compelling or plausible, there is no evidence that they are the right stories. They’re just Howie’s stories about them. Here is where the novel both intersects with and departs from a more Marxist account of alienation through the commodity fetish.
What can you read after
The Mezzanine?
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