Ode to the Mundane

The Mezzanine is 100 pages of highly articulate stream-of-consciousness: the thoughts of our narrator as he takes a ride up the escalator during his lunch break to his office on the mezzanine.

That’s it;  that’s the plot. But that’s, of course, not the point: the point, or one of them, is following ordinary trains of thought to their conclusions in detail-oriented and precise prose, following the trail of a curious and engaged mind as it explores the minutiae of everyday (modern, office) life. You know those times you catch yourself wondering something, perhaps for the fifth or tenth time, and then try to remember what train of thought took you there? Those times you’re struck by the ingenuity of something simple: the bend of a bendy straw, the ends of a shoelace? This book is that, but better.

But…I have mixed feelings. On the one hand, some of it is brilliant–specifically, brilliant articulation of thoughts that we’ve all had, and brilliant attentiveness to details that, usually, go unspoken.  On the other, some parts were downright boring.

There were individual segments that I enjoyed quite a bit–for instance, where he muses on how many (or rather, how few) overlapping thoughts he and his girlfriend share on a yearly basis–how we know each other so well and yet have entirely different thought patterns. I, too, have mused on this, and far less articulately!  Our narrator considers ridges on record players, the design of straws, the design of CVS, escalators, and staplers, among other things, in great detail. Again, some of these I found quite charming indeed; some I found tedious enough to skim full pages.

Baker does a good job of maintaining the reader’s attention, considering he’s musing about plastic straws and record ridges, partly due to his deft way with words and ability to conjure up a sense of nostalgia, familiarity and, sometimes, awe. He’s in awe of the everyday, the little repetitions, decisions, and designs that make up our experiences, and therefore our lives, and witnessing his awe is enough to make you smile, if not join in. It just wasn’t a page-turner.

Rating: 3/5. This seems like a book for a specific mood, one in which you’re particularly curious and attentive, perhaps, and I imagine I’ll mull it over for a while. It’s unique and Baker’s skill as a writer is impressive. However, for a short (103 pages!) book, there were too many parts that dragged.