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.