Diving into Howie's thoughts - The Mezzanine Blog
The Mezzanine puts many mundane things into extreme focus. I think that this book helps the reader understand the significance of the small things in life, even when most people would never think deeply about some of those things. The narrator's thoughts do follow a pattern though. Howie has a tendency to think a lot and care a lot about things that would be considered childish by many people. These thoughts have an interesting contrast with his workplace setting where he is surrounded by corporate people and the reader gets a sense that these people may not have the same kinds of thoughts as Howie does. There is no description of other people at the company that he works at doing things like having a cookie and milk for lunch. At some moments in the story Howie articulates how he does not feel like he is grown up enough to be working where he is. He wonders if he keeps pretending that he belongs if he will eventually feel like he belongs. I think that this is extremely relatable, and the reader comes to notice that many of the things that Howie talks about relate to them.
One of the most relatable parts of the story for me was the part where he was in the corporate bathroom and he was talking about the paper towel situation. Howie brought up many uses for paper towels that I have not really considered before but had taken for granted. For example, Howie says “But far more important…is pretending that the only thing you do with paper towels is dry your hands. Not so, not so! You need paper towels to dab at a splash of food on your sleeve that you notice in the mirror; you need them to polish your glasses dry; you need them to wash your face. When you are oily faced on a hot afternoon in a room made hotter by the hot-air dryer and you decide you want to wash your face before you order your Big Classic, what do you do?” (Baker 90). I agree with this take from Howie, and I think that it is a good example of the kinds of things that he likes to discuss. Howie likes to pick out certain topics and go really deep into them. The reader also notices how adamant Howie is about these topics, and I think that if he wasn’t excited about the topics, the story would be much less interesting.
All of the traits of the book seem to follow one theme. When reading and discussing The Mezzanine, the theme of childishness came up repeatedly. There seems to be some sort of inner child within Howie that he is able to connect to his everyday experiences well. This is very interesting because his job is very mundane and many people would not be able to connect his kind of work with any child-like thoughts. Personally, before reading The Mezzanine I had not had many of the “childish” thoughts for many many years. I can’t remember the last time that I thought about shoe laces, or how baggage is transported in airports. In The Mezzanine Howie has these kinds of thoughts all of the time. I wonder if Howie has had these kinds of thoughts his entire life, or if these thoughts are relatively new. If these thoughts are relatively new for Howie, I wonder if his workplace may have induced these thoughts instead of rejected them. If this is the case, the mundaneness of his work may cause him to have so much boredom in his environment that he must have childish thoughts to stimulate his brain. Even if Howie’s environment is a key factor for his thoughts, he still has an exceptional attention to detail, and he can find interesting things in seemingly mundane things.
Baker, Nicholson. The Mezzanine. Grove Press, 2010.
Hey Lucas,
ReplyDeleteOur class didn't talk too much about childishness and I think that would've been a very interesting topic to explore. It is definitely interesting to see how Howie can approach his mundane and boring life with a childish POV that just allows his to ramble about the most minute of things. Personally, I still often have these childish thoughts especially when I'm alone because these thoughts just seem to go on forever and it's very good at killing time (the book felt like Howie writing down his thoughts as he was trying to kill time). Overall, great blog!
Hi Lucas, I also talked about the childishness and "inner child" of Howie in my blog, so obviously we both agree on that point. I'm intrigued by your theory that his wandering thoughts stem from workplace boredom, but I don't think I agree with it. However, one question I want to pose to you is this: although Howie often has thoughts and theories that you or I have never thought about, how often do you agree with his findings and observations? I personally found that many of his observations (such as milk cartons and baggage claim) were things I hadn't thought about but were actually curious about. Great blog!
ReplyDeleteHey Lucas, interesting blog. I wonder if Howie himself would consider his thoughts as childish? He mentions in the novel that he is now an "adult" (in his own views), but maybe he isn't as "grown-up" as he thinks. Outwardly he might seem mature and well put-together, though on the inside he might not be as much adult-like.
ReplyDeleteNot bad kid. Not bad at all. Not to sound like a record on repeat but I'd have to agree with you and James on the childishness being very intriguing. It was personally my favorites thing we talked about in class because it was something I felt like I could relate to. Sometimes I (and probably all of us) have thoughts then suddenly realize that we sound like children.
ReplyDeleteThere is a kind of "childishness" in the way that Howie focuses on the kinds of things we tend not to talk about in polite society--and the public corporate bathroom is a great example of this kind of thing. We all use these facilities for a wide range of purposes every day, but there's this unspoken rule that we pretty much never talk about the unwritten rules for social interaction in these settings, or even the "interesting" advances in technology that we literally interact with every day. My own anecdote about my colleagues discussing the note in the women's restroom in Uni is illustrative--until then, I hadn't even registered that there ARE new paper-towel dispensers in the Uni bathrooms, let alone that I actually have a point of view on their inadequacy when it comes to drying wet hands. As soon as we'd had this conversation, the next time I found myself in the catacombs of Kenney using the sink, I immediately noted that two towels is woefully insufficient to the task. My colleagues had redirected my attention to this mundane aspect of our daily office life that we never talk about, and BOOM--I suddenly noticed the new towel dispensers. How long since they were installed? Sometime last year? I have no idea! I need to pay closer attention--and that's what this book is all about.
ReplyDeleteHi Lucas! I also agree that Howie’s childish way of thinking makes the corporate setting feel even more disconnected from who he really is. The discussion of paper towels especially stood out to me because it shows how something so trivial as drying your hands can lead into a whole chain of observations when you actually stop to think about it. I think that contrast makes Howie relatable because even in a boring or serious environment, people can still have these random thoughts that reveal a more playful side of themselves. W blogpost!
ReplyDeleteHey Lucas, this is a very interesting post. Howie seems like a child in a grown man’s body, which he himself sort of says when he considers when the amount of childish thoughts will be less than the occurrence of adult thoughts. Do you think that Howie is unique in his “childish” thinking or do you think others have these kinds of childish thoughts could be shared with others around the workplace?
ReplyDeleteHey Lucas, I really like what you're talking about here. Like you, I also noticed that a lot of Howie's narration has a lot of childish aspects to it, and his actions also reflect that, which is something I talked about in my blog. It's surprising to see that while Howie is almost 30, he's still having these childish thoughts, not only when he goes on unrelated waves of rambling, but when he looks back at past memories as well. Great blog!
ReplyDeleteHey Lucas, nice blog. I definitely agree with the fact that this book would be a lot less interesting if Howie was not interested in it. Because of the fact that it's a genuine feeling, it feels natural rather than being forced to create more volume in the book. I think this is somthing to keep in mind when writing out essays. Have the free feeling of being able to let out your inner childishness really brings out the sincerity of recreating a Baker style essay. Thanks for the inspiration!
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