We all remember getting our 'report' from the PSAT or PLAN or whichever it was. There was that section that had a wheel labelled 'People, Things, Ideas' and your test scores somehow put you somewhere on that map. Based on what you were good at, those presumptuous test writers decided they could categorize you. Well, who knows how good they are at that, but maybe there's something to it. Maybe there are people who like working with people rather than something, um, less...human; or perhaps some people like abstract ideas more than physical objects, and maybe every person in the world fits into one of those categories. Nicholson Baker would be really easy to place. Things. No question. Maybe that's why I found his novel lacking...well, purpose.
As I try to figure out where I want to go with my pastiche, I think I've realized that the problem is in the question. I keep asking where I'm going with this, but maybe it simply doesn't matter. It's all just a tangent. Not a rant, maybe, but a tangent. Maybe since I seem to have trouble with plot, it'll be good for me to just ignore huge plot development for a while. Maybe I'm just bored with 'Things'.
The Mezzanine may have some interesting things to say about everyday objects, but personally, I just didn't find anything revolutionary in its pages. Maybe I just think such similar thoughts that nothing really surprised me. Maybe 'Things' aren't my thing. I'm pretty sure those standardized tests put me as far from 'Things' as one could possibly be. Maybe they got something right, there.
I can understand where The Mezzanine has character development, but the fact that everything has already happened from the narrator's point of view makes it feel less obvious to me. There is no change in the tone of the novel. There isn't much rising action unless you find escalator handrails gripping (pardon the slight pun, couldn't help it), there is no conflict at all. I couldn't find any revelations in Howie's thinking. Perhaps that's why I find this book somehow less than a novel. It's focus of items has a human background, but it somehow lacks complicated emotions. It doesn't have the deep self-revelations that I find so compelling in Mrs. Dalloway. Maybe if more of his comments on objects had deep personal meaning for him, like the ties on the doorknobs, I could appreciate them more. I find the sentimentality of objects more relatable than appreciation of the object itself. Yes, staplers are fantastic, but once I figured out how they worked sometime in elementary school, probably, I lost interest.
I had the same issue where I was thinking too much about where my Pastiche was supposed to go, when in the end as long as you come full circle (eg. like Baker's escalator) then the trip doesn't actually matter as much. So maybe it is just one long, rambling tangent.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I feel like even though most of the book was about inanimate objects, I would argue that by looking at how Howie thinks about these objects that we come to see more about his character by stepping into his tedious thought processes.
I love your cheesy pun. You could say it escalated my mood EHEHEHEH
I'm done.
YAYYYY CRINGE WORTHY PUNS ARE THE BEST OF PUNS
I would 'like' that pun if I could. Also, I know we really get a feel for his character, but very rarely are there times where I feel like Howie has really changed (ahem pun). My favorite parts of the book are where he really shows himself growing up, or at least getting used to adulthood in some way. I think if Baker had done more of those very personal anecdotes, I would have liked the book more.
ReplyDeleteI understand that you wish Howie provided more personal meaning to back up his observations. I don’t think that that was the purpose of The Mezzanine though. All that Baker was trying to do may have just been to illustrate the thought process of an ordinary man during a lunch hour. After reading this book, I’ve noticed that my thoughts can be very similar to Howie’s. They’re about the objects and people I encounter, and any feelings that have carried over from the events of the day before. I’m not sure that anybody has very many deep, self-revelatory thoughts during times such as these.
ReplyDeleteI don't know if I'd go so far as to call it "revolutionary," but what I see that's original and new in Baker's novel is the very assumption that this fundementally plotless exploration of everyday life can be the subject of a novel--it's a "novel" that is based on a premise that really shouldn't work at all, and yet (for many readers) it does. And it seems crucial that the objects he focuses on are NOT the kind of thing we tend to view as interesting. An escalator-handrail expert (someone who manufactures them for a living, I suppose) might actually find a lot of what Baker says about handrails irrelevant, ill-informed, and stupid. He's talking to the "lay" reader--the one who just thoughtlessly uses escalators all the time. Like lots of art in a range of genres, he's playing with our attention, directing it places in which it doesn't typically go.
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