Life Through The Looking Glass
In Nicholson Baker's novel The Mezzanine the main character, Howie, is continuously seen overanalyzing every little aspect of life. At first I thought that some of his thoughts were boring and quite frankly, unrealistic. However as I thought about it more, these unexplained, intricate thoughts of his became more reasonable to me. Everyone has their interests that they could drone about on for hours. Everyone has something that they find so enjoyable they would be happy with being surrounded by constantly. Howie's ‘thing’ is…well…life itself, which is very convenient because it's very easy to surround yourself with life while you are living. Anyone could say a lot about life, but only people who are truly interested can unconsciously think all you can say.
If you ask a person who has spent their whole life doing music, they’d probably have a lot of thoughts about it, even if you just view it as a simple song. To Howie, life is this great thing that causes him a mass amount of interest in even the smallest technologies or memories. To Howie, his purpose is probably to live. Which may seem like a ‘well duh’ moment to a lot but to him living is probably quite different than your definition of living. It’s not merely staying alive, growing up, and building a career. To Howie it’s enjoying and observing the little things that give him purpose and joy in his daily life. This is why he has so much to say about everything, because, like the musician, he has spent his life enjoying the observation of life.
When he reads the text Marcus Aurelius had written on page 120, he immediately reacts negatively with a surprising, “Wrong, wrong, wrong! I thought. Destructive and unhelpful and misguided and completely untrue!” (Baker, 120) Similarly, if you simplified music, dumbing it down into a few measly words, the musician would certainly react negatively. To us, his ramblings are unimportant and odd but to him his ramblings are the markings on his progress gained in his observations of life, in life itself even. While he calls it ‘agreeably sobering’ that is most likely reminding him that other people don't see life as he does and not that he sees life as simple. I say this because after this he continues to think away, without care about the text, never to read it again.
In summary, everyone has things that they’re passionate about, that they spend a long time focusing on. Like how Emily A. Dossey loves swimming. While I don’t share the sentiment (mostly because I can’t swim), I understand where her love of the sport comes from. And I understand where Howie’s love of noticing the little bits in life and reflecting comes from. People will like what they like. While this book was quite an annoying, boring, and odd read, I can still admire his passion toward life, even if I don’t share the passion like he does.
Baker, Nicholson. The Mezzanine. Grove Press, 2010.
Hi Krysantha. I really like your idea on Howie's purpose is to LIVE. And I agree, I found his ideas to be interesting towards the end of the novel. P.S. why did you call me out like that lol TvT
ReplyDeleteHi Krysantha, I will admit I was a little confused by this post at first. However, once you mentioned Emily A. Dossey's love for swimming, I immediately connected the dots. Fascinating comparison, and a beautiful point about the purpose of Howie's life.
ReplyDeleteHi Krysantha! I really liked your comparison of Howie to someone like a musician who could talk endlessly about their craft, it made his rambling make more sense. The point about his purpose being to "live" and how that's different from just staying alive and building a career was probably my favorite part of your analysis. It also made his reaction to the Aurelius quote more obvious. of course he would get defensive over someone reducing life to something simple since that is basically his whole passion being dismissed. Great post!
ReplyDeleteHey Krysantha! I love your take on this book, especially the part about Emily, and the part about Marcus Aurelius's writing. I definitely agree with your reading of Howie's perspective, especially when you say: "To us, his ramblings are unimportant and odd but to him his ramblings are the markings on his progress gained in his observations of life, in life itself even.". Great blog post!
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting to suggest that some of the digressive chains of association in this narrative seem "unrealistic"--which means something like it's not realistic to assume that a person would have these kinds of thoughts? But doesn't Nicholson Baker HAVE TO have had these thoughts, in order to write the book? He's not just inventing the stuff about drinking straws or stapler design, or how escalators and turntables work. We recognize unexpected logical connections as we read, and that's because the novel is describing a world we *recognize*. It might be unrealistic to imagine that a person could sustain a job like Howie's while seeming to do basically no "work" whatsoever--like, how has this guy not been fired yet? But as for the realism of making these associations and having these thoughts, I'm not sure how an author could "make them up" without actually HAVING the thoughts themselves. To describe the filling of an ice-cube tray as analogous to playing a harmonica, you'd have to first think of the parallel. right? Is it not "realistic" that someone would have this thought, even if we have never had it ourselves?
ReplyDeleteHey Kry. I liked your interpretation that Howie’s obsession isn’t with any one hobby or object, but with LIFE itself. Your comparison between Howie and a musician was really interesting because it helps explain why he can spend so much time thinking about things that seem insignificant to everyone else. I also thought your discussion of the Marcus Aurelius passage was interesting, since it shows how strongly Howie resists reducing life to simple ideas or rules. Even though you admit you found parts of the book boring, you still recognized the value in Howie’s curiosity. Your conclusion does a good job of showing that understanding someone’s interests doesn’t require sharing them.
ReplyDeleteHi Krysantha! I like how you compared Howie's obsessions to music, because I think it did a good job at recognizing how Howie really isn't as abnormal as he seems at first glance. I think sometimes it's easy to judge Howie, because he seems to be interested by such abnormal things, however, when we consider people who could analyze music for hours, it really puts his life into perspective. That said, I do personally think while Howie did seem to appreciate life, he seemed to specifically value inventions and their purpose, which I suppose could also tie into the value of music and the songwriters' lyrics' purpose. Anyway, great blog!
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