The reaction to The Mezzanine from our class has been quite positive. For being such a strange format of storytelling, Baker manages to make Howie funny, relatable, unique, and somewhat charming.
While The Mezzanine was a thought-provoking experience in appreciating the small wonders of an industrial consumer society, the reason it is able to be so humorous and intriguing is because it is different and new to us as a writing style. The idea that someone could write a book based merely on objects they encountered, instead of events or social interactions, is appealing because we've never read it before, we want to see if it's possible to enjoy such a thing. I laughed out loud the first time reading about Howie's concern for straw construction, because it's not something I've ever thought about. It's funny that someone should care so much about straws. It's funny to realize that I too greatly appreciate straws and am always excited when an occasion arises that justifies me using one. Encountering such a rant in The Mezzanine is both familiar and quite new, because while similar thoughts may exist in my mind, the idea that someone would write those thoughts down is unexpected. However once you get over the discovery of shared interest and appreciation for common place things, the newness of the format begins to lose its excitement. It's like the old brands of bubble gum that start out stronger and tastier than the new ones, but lose their flavor in a matter of minutes. Once I got into the rhythm of how Howie thinks (or writes- as we established this is not a stream of consciousness narrative), I began to dread the appearance of a footnote that marked the beginning of yet another tangent on things I didn't particularly care about. While Baker does an excellent job of revealing what's special about painfully ordinary objects, I did not appreciate hearing what was extraordinary about every single object. After hearing about straws, staplers, escalator railings, urinals, clean backgrounds, vending machines, shoelaces, milk cartons, and countless other items, the uniqueness of examining something in such close detail became rather tiring and I was rather unenthusiastic.
I don't mean to say I didn't enjoy The Mezzanine. I did, it's just not the sort of thing I'd like to read again. It's the sort of book I wish had been about half as long as it was. While intriguing and full of delightful and witty surprise tangents, I missed the old-fashioned idea of a plot, and I especially missed real-time dialogue and the ability to be emotionally in tune with a character. To me this book was more like a writing experiment to see if such a strange genre of book could actually be readable (and I would say yes, it is a successful book), rather than art (although his way of over-explaining things and rejoicing in the normality of life is certainly masterfully pieced together). But we all know art is a matter of taste. So if The Mezzanine was in an art museum, I'd say it's sitting in the gallery along with the weirdly-shaped silverware and twisted tables labeled as "contemporary art;" a section I briefly walk through, laugh at the strangeness of, and leave feeling both humored that forks are behind the same glass as impressionist paintings, and a little unsatisfied that I didn't visit the Ancient Art of the Americas exhibit instead.
You make a convincing argument, though I personally enjoyed The Mezzanine I can relate to the flavorless gum analogy and my reading experience. But, for me I personally feel that even if the gum begins to lose it's flavor, it never loses that constant chewy consistency. In relation to the Mezzanine, though Baker's unique flare may start to pass throughout the novel, it never loses it's goal. I feel that though Howie's mind may have many different thoughts, the novel stays on one track (a minute in the daily life of Howie). So for me, Baker's novel was constantly relevant and very satisfying to read all the way through.
ReplyDeleteI agreed with most of the points in your post. However, at the beginning, I disliked the book, and gradually came to like it more as I got closer to the end. One thing I found admirable was that someone could have so much enthusiasm for mundane things. What I liked most about The Mezzanine was that I related to it in many sections, but also grew to appreciate the things I before did not care for. So, I guess, I just had a different reaction. But, I agree with the "contemporary art exhibition," and I am not sure I would read something like it again.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with the premise that while the Mezzanine was an interesting read the first time around, it wouldn't be an engaging read if there was more of it,since while the unique concept is interesting at first, it seems to grow stale after a while as the book goes on in the same way. One thing that also contributed to this was how little structure was present in the novel. While it was part of the effect of Baker's unique style, it got slightly confusing because of the amount of times he switched topics or went on a tangent without warning.
ReplyDeleteI have nearly the same attitude towards The Mezzanine as you do. Towards the end of the book, I became bored with Howie's footnotes and tangents and didn't care to hear him think about the same points over and over. I enjoyed The Mezzanine enough the first time and I laughed at a few of the goofier parts, but I would not be inclined to reread it.
ReplyDeleteI find part of the reason as to why the footnotes at the end of the novel began to bore me was that they no longer seemed to hold as much rich insight into the mind of Howie. At the beginning of the novel, he was a new person, someone we had just met. By the end of the novel we had a sense of who he was, and so the footnotes had less new content to add to his personality. I found also that the footnotes at the end of the novel were about other works of literature. This was not the kind of footnote I wanted to read. I liked the footnotes about his trip to buy magazines or even the intimidating record footnote because these told us about him, not what he likes.
ReplyDeleteI love this depiction of the Mezzanine. I agree with you on this experience of reading this book. Though there were some passages that were difficult to get through completely, I don't think that it was an overall downwards curve. There were some oddly surprising and exciting passages. However, I do completely understand where you are coming from. I think that the initial surprise of the book was so strong that by the time it wore off, I had to find ways to keep myself enthralled in the book, to constantly stay engaged in what he was saying, looking for an emotion he felt that resounded within me.
ReplyDeleteWhile The Mezzanine is one of my favorite books ever, I do think that the whole concept and idea behind it isn't one that could be pulled off often with any success. In fact, I'll probably have to wait a while before I read it again, since there's no exciting plot inspiring me to read it again. Once I forget about some of Howie's descriptions and ideas, the novel may become interesting again so that I can refresh myself with some of Howie's ideas and how I align with them.
ReplyDeleteIt intrigued me largely because of it's "experimental genre" as you said. Novels with traditional plot structures are definitely much more relatable to a mainstream audience, so I don't think that similar books could be as commercially successsful, and as such, would not be as likely to be published, at least through a large publisher which could give it a larger audience.
I could see novels similar to The Mezzanine being published to a sort of alternative audience, though I'm not sure how big of an audience that market holds and even in that case, if such a novel would be commercially viable even then. Online publishing might be the way to go for other authors to test the waters with similar novels, which could then potentially lead to print publishing. (The novel Wool is a good example...started out online and became a fairly good print success...was part of the Hero's Journey class last year. :) )
I largely agree - while I enjoyed reading The Mezzanine and I enjoyed the concept, I found it hard to read in large chunks at a time. For the first few chapters, there was the sense of, "oh wow, I didn't know anyone else ever thought about this thing!" After a while, I just got used to it. I think it's an interesting book to read once because it makes you think about things in a new way, but reading books like it on a regular basis would probably make me want to bash my head against a wall repeatedly.
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