I know it’s been awhile since any piece of writing has been shared on this blog, so my apologies if there are any awkward pauses or inappropriate drifting in the first few posts. But, I suppose drifting should be acceptable for at least my first post, since we have all (hopefully) finished reading The Mezzanine over the summer.
To tell you the truth, I have honestly no idea if I liked The Mezzanine or not. Yes, the book really had no driving plot, (except for the continually mentioned/ mourning over the broken shoelaces), but it would be unfair to say that a book must have a clear plot line to be considered “good”. Instead of focusing on an adventure to save mankind, I think The Mezzanine takes a different direction in showcasing how one’s mind can drift throughout the day. While at school, in let’s say US History, we are expected to be contemplating how America seems to believe that we are the best nation in the world, and how our actions in the past have portrayed that, for forty-five minutes a day. But one cannot possibly believe that our mind could focus on a single subject for forty-five minutes, (at least for me this is seemingly impossible.) In my case, I tend to stray away by either studying people’s shoes or contemplating what I am going to do once the bell rings in t-45 minutes. It’s not that Mr. Sutton is an boring teacher, (in fact, I quite liked his history class), it’s just that my mind, like Howie’s, is unable to focus on a single subject for a large block of time.
Sometimes, my sidetracking is even related to the class. When Mr. Sutton was talking about 19th and 20th century America, I would picture myself back then. (I believe I have, more than once, effectively concluded that I would be a better president than at least half of the ones in the past.) My point is that we all drift off, and most of the time don’t even realize it, so it’s interesting that Mr. Baker was able to capture that element of our minds, and portray it in a book for all of us to read.
With that being said, dear god the footnotes, Howie. If one were to delete the all the footnotes in the book, (which would be almost half of the book!), the writing may have been a bit more tolerable. I mean this whole book was basically a tangent, but once you saw that “1” in the middle of a sentence, you knew that you were about to dive really deep into Howie’s brain, (which in it of itself is a black hole I can’t even begin to understand). The infamous chapter eight, where more than half of the chapter is a footnote was brutal. But I am certain that not a single stone was left unturned when given a fifteen chapter glimpse into Howie’s mind. I haven’t decided if that’s a good or bad thing, but I definitely believe that Mr. Baker was successfully able to make me question just how far my mind can go when I’m not paying attention, and if I can still be considered sane when drifting occurs.
Ha, I enjoy the candid acknowledgement of how much time is spent in class thinking about things totally unrelated to the subject at hand. I think on the surface, Howie appears to be kind of ADD and insane, but when I really looked at my own thoughts, they were just about as varied and rambling as Howie's, but they move at such a speed that it's almost impossible break them down into individual focuses. I applaud Baker for exposing our distractability.
ReplyDeleteI agree, it takes a lot for me to keep focused, especially in this novel. I enjoyed bits of the Mezzanine, but as a book, it bored me to death. In the beginning, I found his quirks and footnotes and all that candid detail funny, but by page 50 I was just sick and tired of it. My mind kept wandering, and it took me several days to read a book that's less than 200 pages. The concept of a book without a lack of plot was interesting, and it was executed well, but the fact of the matter is that books tend to be boring if there is no plot or central point that they revolve around. And while you can say that the Mezzanine does have a central plot (riding the escalator, buying shoelaces) that the rest of the story focuses very, very, loosely on, to me, it's not enough.
ReplyDeleteThe drifting is something I can associate with since I have a really short attention span...especially when I hear a train, and even more so now that I'm supposed to have a computer with me at most of my classes. And while this drifting constantly keeps me interested in something, it's not always what I should be interested in at the time. I wonder if Howie is like this all the time or only when he's off-work. It'd be interesting to see how good of a worker Howie is if he spends his time thinking of shoelaces rather than writing memos...
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of drifting, the footnotes completely made me lose track of where I was, especially with the big ones. The little number always made me feel obligated to go immediately to the bottom of the text, and read the footnote, whether it was a few sentences or spanned across multiple pages. And then, I'd have completely lost any track of where I was in the actual text of the novel, as I'd become so wrapped up in whatever Howie was explaining in greater detail. So Howie's drifting into footnotes made me drift even further off than I already was.
I had kinda sensed that Howie was a drifter through the course of the novel, but I never really picked up on it as a major point, which in a way delves into the human condition. We get wrapped up in the little things often, and Howie getting wrapped up in little things dives into us as humans, as if Baker is looking at us like Howie looks like things such as staplers or hand driers.
I enjoyed the irony that as Howie's thoughts drifted, it made mine as well. I'm with Zoe, as I was incredibly bored reading this novel, but I can appreciate what Baker was trying too accomplish with it. He did a good job of writing a (mostly) plotless book that focused on the stream of thoughts that run through a person's head during simple, mundane tasks. The footnotes were endless, but I almost think that Baker did this as a joke on his readers, having Howie's mind wander so much he needs footnotes to capture it all. I like the idea of The Mezzanine, but reading it was a completely different story.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed the irony that as Howie's thoughts drifted, it made mine as well. I'm with Zoe, as I was incredibly bored reading this novel, but I can appreciate what Baker was trying too accomplish with it. He did a good job of writing a (mostly) plotless book that focused on the stream of thoughts that run through a person's head during simple, mundane tasks. The footnotes were endless, but I almost think that Baker did this as a joke on his readers, having Howie's mind wander so much he needs footnotes to capture it all. I like the idea of The Mezzanine, but reading it was a completely different story.
ReplyDeleteI think Baker's depiction of straying thoughts is rather realistic (at least it is to me). But I agree that it is overwhelming to read all those footnotes. I might have a billion tangents coming off of one topic in my mind but I don't just spurt all of it out in one bout. I think Howie's footnotes and tangents show that just because you look bored doesn't mean you're boring.
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