Book Eighteen of the Book-A-Week Quest
The Mezzanine
by Nicholson Baker (1986)
It's honestly a little tough to describe this novel as it's literally 135 pages of a twentysomething man's thoughts as he takes a single ride up an escalator. During this short trip, his mind wanders to his past, present, and future.
So, summary-wise, that's it. Doesn't seem like much. And it's really not much. I liken it to the Seinfeld episode where George and Jerry decide to create a sitcom about nothing. Despite the fact that there's no substance here, the book was incredibly clever, bordering on genius at times. Take this quote from the protagonist's thoughts:
"Perforation! Shout it out! The deliberate punctuated weakening of paper and cardboard so that it will tear along an intended path, leaving a row of fine-haired white pills or tuftlets on each new edge! ...Why isn't the pioneer of perforation chiseled into the façades of libraries?"
I read that and said to myself, "You know what...he's right. Perforation was a genius invention!"
Whether it be a whole chapter devoted to how to put on deodorant after you've already put on your shirt and tie (which invoked an "I do that, too, sometimes!" from me), or the paragraphs that told me that I'm not the only one who "holds a pillow with my chin" while putting on a new clean pillowcase, or the sentence that reminded me of those kindergarten days where you "placed your coat on the floor, inserting both arms in both armholes, and then proceeded to flip the coat over your head." See, the book is about nothing.
The book falters in the final third. I don't know whether I got bored of it or whether it got much too deep for me (which it did...he started talking about philosophical authors and some nonsense...I literally "browsed" through the last chapter...you know what I mean...you read the first sentence of a paragraph and then the last one and determine from them if anything important happened within said paragraph in which case you'll read the whole thing, but if not, you're moving along...).
Overall, a good book (great, at times), but not entirely consistent.
So, summary-wise, that's it. Doesn't seem like much. And it's really not much. I liken it to the Seinfeld episode where George and Jerry decide to create a sitcom about nothing. Despite the fact that there's no substance here, the book was incredibly clever, bordering on genius at times. Take this quote from the protagonist's thoughts:
"Perforation! Shout it out! The deliberate punctuated weakening of paper and cardboard so that it will tear along an intended path, leaving a row of fine-haired white pills or tuftlets on each new edge! ...Why isn't the pioneer of perforation chiseled into the façades of libraries?"
I read that and said to myself, "You know what...he's right. Perforation was a genius invention!"
Whether it be a whole chapter devoted to how to put on deodorant after you've already put on your shirt and tie (which invoked an "I do that, too, sometimes!" from me), or the paragraphs that told me that I'm not the only one who "holds a pillow with my chin" while putting on a new clean pillowcase, or the sentence that reminded me of those kindergarten days where you "placed your coat on the floor, inserting both arms in both armholes, and then proceeded to flip the coat over your head." See, the book is about nothing.
The book falters in the final third. I don't know whether I got bored of it or whether it got much too deep for me (which it did...he started talking about philosophical authors and some nonsense...I literally "browsed" through the last chapter...you know what I mean...you read the first sentence of a paragraph and then the last one and determine from them if anything important happened within said paragraph in which case you'll read the whole thing, but if not, you're moving along...).
Overall, a good book (great, at times), but not entirely consistent.
I'd agree with that assessment. I particularly loved the note about cigarettes being flicked out of car windows at night. I also loved his list of what he thought about in the last year, and randomly having Kant in it.
ReplyDeleteThe one that stood out to me on that list at the end..."Urge to Kill - 13 times."
ReplyDeleteI loved that at the end he found a scientific paper detailing the wear and tear on shoelaces.
Many things that I loved about the book. About halfway through, I was saying, "This could be my favorite book I've read this year," but it just kinda fell apart for me. I don't know if I got tired of reading the footnotes or what, but the last third was a disappointment.
Still, like I said...definitely moments of genius in the book, for sure.
FYI, I'm bringing 3 books in that I won't be re-reading anytime soon. So you can read around them.
ReplyDeleteA Working Stiff's Manifesto by Iain Levison
If I Die in a Combat Zone by Tim O'Brien (his actual memoirs which isn't as good as The Things They Carried, but still a good book)
The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera.