Nicholson Baker

The seemingly mundane events that occur to a young clerk on his lunch hour are magnified in his mind into complex statements on the modern condition.

A Novel

The Mezzanine

Although most of the action of The Mezzanine occurs on the escalator of an office building, where its narrator is returning to work after buying shoelaces, this startlingly inventive and witty novel takes us farther than most fiction written today. It lends to milk cartons the associative richness of Marcel Proust's madeleines. It names the eight most significant advances in a human life -- beginning with shoe-tying. It asks whether the hot air blowers in bathrooms really are more sanitary than towels. And it casts a dazzling light on our relations with the objects and people we usually take for granted.

The mezzanine.

Sarah Christine Gill

Katherine

Unsure if I’m awarding the book five stars here or myself five stars for finishing it. In any case I found this maddeningly, mesmerisingly excellent and I’m either going to read everything Nicholson Baker has written or nothing ever again. 

Records one man's minute observations of the familiar objects and surroundings of everyday life, recalled during a trip on the escalator in his office building

Jeff Brown 

Simply, this is a book about a man who mentally documents his travels while at lunch, up the escalator and to his office. But it is so much more. 

The book is 135 pages long, but there is AMPLE use of footnotes throughout -- some lasting the better of four pages long. This is where a lot of the hilarious parts of the book are placed. I could go on, but I'd be writing most of the book here. Let me just point out a few poignant parts that cracked me up.

(FYI, this was written in 1986) "Among average men, the singular, 'oop', is the normal usage; the word is found in its plural as 'oops' most often among women, gay men, or men talking to women, in my experience, although there are so many exceptions to this that it is irresponsible of me to bring it up."

Another section talked about the difference in the technique in filling ice trays: "you could fill the tray by running all the cells quickly under the tap, feeling as if you were playing the harmonica, or you could turn the faucet on very slightly, so that a thin silent stream of water fill in a line from the tap, and hold the tray at an angle, allowing the water to enter a single cell and well from there into adjoining cells one by one, gradually filling the entire tray". This was funny because my wife uses the first technique, and I the second, and we have never convinced the other that their technique is the correct one. 

A final one dealt with his mother getting on to him about taking a drink right after putting a bite into his mouth. Not that it was a choking hazard, but because it was rude. I remember when I was 11 or 12 and eating supper at my best friend's house. His mom got on to me for doing this. I'm not the kind of person that goes, "Huh? What? Why?" I just usually try to conform. I couldn't, and haven't in all these years. You might think it disgusting. I think it's disgusting to gnaw on food while it dries up in your mouth until you can barely swallow. ::shrug::

I can't fully recommend the book, because with all the footnotes (for which he explains why he does it late in the book), and because there is a banality to the lengthy analyses on, for example, the wear on shoelaces. Hence the 3 rating.

But if you like the frequent chuckle, the thoughts that the character has that YOU have had at one time, or you see yourself in his remarks and think that is funny, I give this a strong 4 rating.

Baker has a beautiful style of writing that makes the mundane profound. Also really loves footnotes (as now do I).

Robert Vetter

Niklas Pivic

Steph

A National Book Critics Circle Award-winner elevates the ordinary events that occur to a man on his lunch hour into “a constant delight” of a novel (The Boston Globe). In this startling, witty, and inexhaustibly inventive novel, New York Times–bestselling author Nicholson Baker uses a one-story escalator ride as the occasion for a dazzling reappraisal of everyday objects and rituals. From the humble milk carton to the act of tying one’s shoes, The Mezzanine at once defamiliarizes the familiar world and endows it with loopy and euphoric poetry. Baker’s accounts of the ordinary become extraordinary through his sharp storytelling and his unconventional, conversational style. At first glance, The Mezzanine appears to be a book about nothing. In reality, it is a brilliant celebration of things, simultaneously demonstrating the value of reflection and the importance of everyday human experiences. “A very funny book . . . Its 135 pages probably contain more insight into life as we live it today than anything currently on the best-seller list.” —The New York Times “Captures the spirit of American corporate life and invests it with a passion and sympathy that is entirely unexpected.” —The Seattle Times “Among the year’s best.” —The Boston Globe “Baker writes with appealing charm . . . [He] clowns and shows off . . . rambles and pounces hard; he says acute things, extravagant things, terribly funny things.” —Los Angeles Times Book Review “Wonderfully readable, in fact gripping, with surprising bursts of recognition, humor and wonder.” —The Washington Post Book World

The Mezzanine A Novel

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