Brandon Baller Brand Blog
The Mezzanine by Nicholson Baker is a fiction novel that takes place during the lunch break of an office worker named Howie. This book highlights the microscopic details of simple daily life activities like riding up an escalator. Personally, I strongly dislike this book. Maybe this is just personal preference, but in my opinion, a book where you have to wonder what the plot is defeats the whole purpose of a novel. While I was reading this book, there were multiple times where I forgot what the book was about because it felt like reading random thoughts inside someone's head with no substance. What motivated this author to write this? What did he think people's reaction to this book would be?
What defines a Novel? According to the Oxford Dictionary, a novel is "A long written story with characters and a plot, like a mystery or a romance". This book is definitely a long written story, with characters some form of a plot, but it is definitely not a good novel. most of the time, I would find myslef sitting on the couches of the uni senior lounge reading this book. Every couple of pages, if would come to my senses and realize I had been spacing out while reading about Howie talking about urinals. The I would turn to Matias Garmendia Nieto and Evan Emilio Gustin Saballos who are in my free period and complain on how rando this book is. Genuinely, why does this book exist? I can't even focus on the story for more than 3 pages and yet I read 4 chapters before every class period.
To conclude my complaints on this book, I would like to discuss a little about the content of the book. My biggest issue with the book is that literally nothing happens. The entire book is built around the story of a random guy buying some cookies, riding up an escalator, and yapping about a bunch of random stuff. If youre looking for character development, maybe a plot twist, or even a simple climax of the story, youre in the wrong place because this book has none of the above. It was such a frusterating read because of the fact that a lot of the things seemed repetitive and felt more like a chore to get through the chapter. To be completely honest, some of the in class discussion about the small details were somewhat interesting. But that doesn't justify the fact that I have to go through a whole class discussion to understand the "plot" of this book. Nothing against those who enjoyed the book, but some books are just not for me I suppose.
Hey Brandon, I definitely agree that this book could be a real chore to get through sometimes. While I do think that it serves as a good commentary on noticing the beauty of the mundane life, I do think Baker really took book to a surrealist extreme--- I mean, the whole point of the book is to really beg the question of "what is a novel?" I almost wonder if I would have gotten more out of it if I had had more time to read it so I could spread out the work load a little bit more. Definitely relate to the spacing out while reading, though (I probably can't count the number of times I had to reread sections because I realized I was reading with my eyes and not my brain).
ReplyDeleteWell, it sounds like you disagree with Salman Rushdie's assessment, quoted on the cover image. But what does that guy know, anyway? It's not like his books are all that funny.
ReplyDeleteIt also sounds like, once you decided you were turned off by this book's unconventional style, you gave up on reading it with any degree of focus or attention--you missed a lot of the good stuff, I'm afraid. It's true that the novel is not *driven* by plot, but there's a LOT to talk about aside from plot. But you have to actually READ it, with conscious critical attention, in order to get to the interesting stuff.