Are The Mezzanine and Mrs. Dalloway that Different?

In class, we've largely talked about differences between The Mezzanine and Mrs. Dalloway. Comments always come out about how The Mezzanine is object-focused, while Mrs. Dalloway is people-focused. The Mezzanine is more tangential and random while Mrs. Dalloway is more structured. While these discussions go on, I usually ask myself, "are they really that different, after all?"

First, let's look at the claim that The Mezzanine is solely object-focused. While The Mezzanine definitely looks closely at the objects in our lives, and there are few characters mentioned aside from Howie, I would argue that the book looks at the way objects relate to people and memories. Take, for example, the footnote doorknobs, which goes on to talk about ties in the book. What starts out as a simple critique of the word "knob" when the device used to open the door is not knob-shaped at all, moves into a memory of his doorknobs at home. This then seems to trigger a memory of his father, who used to drape his ties over the doorknobs in his house when he was a child. Afterwards, he recalls his father's superb taste in ties, and later a proud moment when he and his father had the best two ties at a dinner party. He ends with a memory of when he and his father traded ties after his father complemented his taste in ties, and he came back later to see his tie among the others on the doorknob in his childhood home, and as Howie puts it, "it fit right in, it fit right in!"

To say that the novel doesn't focus on people at all seems absurd, when many of the most memorable footnotes in the book end with this kind of deep reflection and personal memory. Sure there are few names of people close to him in the book, but to be fair, how often do you refer to your mom and dad by their first names? It seems that Nicholson Baker is trying to convey the relationship between people and objects in the book. Just as the objects often trigger memories for Howie, much of his marvel at the objects at the book seem to be more marveling at the fact that someone was capable at putting that much thought in to something we view as so commonplace. By putting the objects on display, he also is putting the ingenuity that the people used to create them on display. He seems to be saying more than "wow, escalators are neat!", but rather saying "look at how the stairs perfectly mesh on the escalator, creating a perfect seal. Escalators seem almost magical—who spent the time to make something so perfect?"

Next, I'd like to challenge the assertion that Mrs. Dalloway is purely centered around people. Mrs. Dalloway certainly thinks of people more than Howie does, but that's not to say she's blind to the beauty of objects. She fondly looks at Bond Street saying, "Bond Street fascinated her; Bond Street early in the morning in the season; its flags flying; its shops; no splash; no glitter; one roll of tweed in the shop where her father had bought his suits for fifty years; a few pearls; salmon on the iceblock." Here Mrs. Dalloway appreciates the beauty of the area around her. Tucked in amongst the the list of things around her comes an implied fond memory as well—when she discusses the shop where her father bought his suits, it clearly has some significance to her as a result. There are too other passages where she describes London's sights and sounds and marvels at the beauty of the town. So yes, Mrs. Dalloway looks at people, but it doesn't entirely  neglect the importance of objects, and had it, the fact that she went to buy flowers for her party herself would seem unimportant and trivial.

Lastly, I would like to look at the styles of The Mezzanine and Mrs. Dalloway and argue that they have two approaches for the same goal. One can look at the style that The Mezzanine and Mrs. Dalloway each take and argue that the books are clearly dissimilar: The Mezzanine has frequent chapter breaks, footnotes, and a lively, almost random first-person voice, while Mrs. Dalloway features no chapter breaks, no footnotes, and a much lengthier third-person voice. However these books have stylistic differences largely because they are written by two different authors more than sixty years apart! Additionally, they are written about or from the perspectives of two different people. I get the impression while reading that Howie is a classic introvert. That's not to say that he's socially awkward or doesn't like people, but even if he enjoys others' company, the only way to "recharge" is through time on his own, which seems reasonable given his prolific thought-process yet brief exchanges with everyone he meets. Clarissa Dalloway, on the other hand, seems to be extroverted. That's not to say that she's rambunctious or wild (we see that she's anything but), but while she spends a lot of time thinking to herself, she defines herself by who she's with, and she seems exhausted being by herself, and energized when she gets to leave the house to buy flowers—she needs people around her to "recharge." The respective novels reflect these differences in character as well.

And while the voices and styles seem very different, they both seem to have a similar goal despite different approaches: to marvel at the beauty and depth of the world around us by using a style which closely simulates human thought. The Mezzanine seems more random because it tries to simulate a train of thought—one starts out on a certain topic before triggering a memory or thought that gets off the original topic. Mrs. Dalloway is so hard to distinguish from thought that many, myself included, saw it as a first person novel at first.

So do you guys agree? Are The Mezzanine and Mrs. Dalloway that different in the end? Or are they more similar? Am I just grasping at straws here, or do you see where I'm coming from? Does the fact that they're similar mean anything? Despite my lengthy claims, I feel I still have more questions than answers at the end of this. I'd be glad to hear your interpretations in the comments as well.

The Mezzanine as an Individual Experience

While reading The Mezzanine, I started to truly notice things. Baker does a fascinating job of pointing out the little things that you've always noticed, but never told anyone. The little details that he notices aren't the type of things that often come up in conversation. Perhaps they're things we wish that we talked about more, however. The comparison to Seinfeld is not a bad one, and the show's popularity may suggest an interest in the sort of little things that "no one talks about." Seinfeld is often called "the show about nothing," and there have been similar comments made about The Mezzanine by students in class. 

However, neither the book nor the TV show truly are about nothing per se, in fact, in an episode of Seinfeld they play on this—in the episode they try to pitch a sitcom (exactly like Seinfeld) and talk about how it's a "show about nothing." They naturally have difficulty selling the show which while humorous, shows that it's not about nothing, but it's about the little things. In fact this point is the biggest difference between the show and the book: Seinfeld is about exaggerating the little things for comedic effect, where The Mezzanine expresses so perfectly the ideas about the little things that it doesn't need exaggeration to be heartwarming, funny, and personal, though we know very little about Howie.

The fact that we know little about Howie is also important. It would seem that the less we know about certain aspects of his life—his job, his family, L., his political ideologies—the less personal the book would feel, and the less we would feel to "know" Howie. In fact, we hardly even know his name, except for a passing reference perhaps twice. As anyone who reads the book will notice, however, this is far from the case. In fact, as pointed out in class, it is one of the most character driven novels they, and I, have ever read. 

Why do we feel this deep knowledge, and even affection for Howie, when we hardly know his name unless we were paying close attention? This is probably for several reasons. First of all, the sorts of things we think of as important info about someone are not really that personal. Major corporations know my name, street address, etc. and send me emails, phone calls, and letters. Are they close to me? Do they truly know who I am as a person? No, which is why their letters end up in the trash, their emails in my spam folder, and their phone calls are left ignored. In fact, The Mezzanine perhaps is even suggesting these things are not that important.

Second, The Mezzanine seems to be carefully constructed so we are able to identify with Howie on a deeper level than hardly any other book. The fact that his name is unimportant, as is his job, and his girlfriend (perhaps now an ex-) gets only a single letter "L." allow us to truly place ourselves in his shoes. Should any of these factors have been stressed more, and surely we would only distance ourselves from him. Not consciously, but on some level we would compare ourselves to him, and end up distancing ourselves. He is almost a shell we can place ourselves in; who doesn't make the types of observations that he does? We may not have them written down as he does, nor have specific thoughts exactly as he does, but we almost surely recognize what he's saying once he wrote down that which heretofore could not be put in words. 

Another important reason the story works is precisely that it doesn't have the same sort of plot as a typical novel. Most novels have very plot driven stories, and they skim over details, since they are seen as unimportant. The mundane is ignored, which means novels often have rare or even exaggerated situations as the basis for the story. Once the action starts, the story begins, and similarly when the action ends, the novel does. This to some extent, forces us away from the characters in the book; while we identify to some extent, on some level we know that we have never experienced what they have. We may grow fond of characters, and see parts of ourselves in them, but we can't truly see ourselves in their shoes without trying to find ways we would have done things differently. The Mezzanine does a great job at allowing us to put ourselves in Howie's position—who can't see ourselves as Howie walking back from lunch subconsciously moving our things to one hand to be able to slap the street signs, and watching ideas about objects evolve into deeper personal reflection? 

In addition to being able to see ourselves doing what Howie does, we can also see parts of our character in Howie. He can be seen as a big kid, but he even recognizes this fact, to an extent, in the book. He mentions when he first knew he was an adult, and the differences between our expectations of adulthood as opposed to reality. This theme should be ever more present now than ever, in an age where the lines between adolescence and adulthood are very blurred. We have children that are acting like grown ups, through technology, clothing choices, parents pushing their children into college prep starting in preschool, and general increased pressure to start earlier for anything and everything. At the same time, a lot of adults have been argued to be acting like kids; there are an unprecedented number of adults staying at home after college, happily letting their parents pay for their cell phone bills, getting jobs later, married later, and splurging on "toys." Where does that leave us? That's one question Howie doesn't really have the answer to, but that uncertainty resonates better than if he had had a definitive answer. 

Overall, The Mezzanine lets us truly see ourselves in Howie's place due to deeply insightful observations, yet a comfortable ambiguity, and speaks on topics we've all thought of yet never talked about.