If anyone knows me then they know I always have my Kindle with me. I’m always reading something. I’m probably one of the few people who still reads the Sunday comics. This is why I generally like English class because it forces me to pick up books that I would never typically select. The Mezzanine is one of those books and I was excited to learn more about it.
However, at the start of this book I struggled to get through it. I honestly couldn’t read the first three pages without needing a break. Reading a novel about a man’s mundane life was actually a mundane task for me to complete. The text wasn’t exciting. The footnotes were long and boring. Howie reminded me of a ranter. I didn’t understand the hype about reading about a man’s elevator ride. But, as the story progressed, I started to realize what Nicholson Baker was trying to convey to his readers. My opinion about this novel began to change and evolve.
Howie’s view of life is the opposite of Marcus Aurelius' philosophy about life. Marcus Aurelius’ wrote, “Observe, in short, how transient and trivial is all mortal life; yesterday a drop of semen, tomorrow a handful of spice and ashes.” While Aurelius sees life as insignificant in the grand scheme of things, Howie thrives on the insignificant aspects of life. He sees this quote as a challenge to his own beliefs. For Howie it is the trivial things in life that are the most beautiful and deserve our deepest understanding. Howie analyzes everything “in the middle between life and death.” Every minute, every moment, every second of our lives is important to Howie. Yet no one takes the time to think about it. Humans want to experience drama and chaos like in an action movie. But the climax of our day might simply be our shoe laces breaking. The repetition of life is what makes up life. Those 24 hours in a day are made up of more events than one realizes because most people don’t take the time to notice.
The Mezzanine was not a book I enjoyed while I was reading it. But as I reflect on the book’s meaning, I can understand the reasons why Nicholson Baker wrote it.
Works Cited:
Baker, Nicholson. The Mezzanine. Grove Press, 2010.
