The Mezzanine [Paperback]

The plot is minimal. He ascends an escalator one day at work. Big deal. But the plot is only the line on which he strings his beads of close observations of the "usual." It's androgynous; he marries assertive technical description of objects and processes, with sensuous flowing aesthetic experience of them.

So herein he gives us enlarged glimpses of soda straws; ice cube trays; perforations; paper vs. hot-air hand-drying in lavatories; paper vs. plastic coin rolls; and more. Oh, and a footnote about footnotes.

Plus he can give us a salvo of juicy examples to illustrate experiences. (1) Disruptions of the expected: as in missing a top step, pulling out a Band-Aid thread, drawing a piece of tape, trying to staple a thick memo. (2) "How beautiful graded surfaces are as a class:" as in not only the escalator grooves, but also "the grooves on the underside of the blue whale that must render some hydrodynamic or thermal advantage; the grooves left by a rake in loose soil or by a harrow in a field; the single groove that a skater's blade makes in the ice; the grooves in socks that allow them to stretch, and in corduroy, down which you can run your ballpoint pen; the grooves of records." (3) The "renewing of newness"-as in "whether it was the appearance of another identical Pez tablet at the neck of the plastic Pez elevator... or the sight of one parachutist after another standing for a second in the door of an airplane before he jumped... or the rolling-into-position of a pinball after the previous one had escaped your flippers... or one sticky disc of sliced banana displaced from its spot on the knife over the cereal bowl by its successor... or the uprising of yet another step of the escalator... "

So Baker revels in the aesthetics of the technical. But is all this decoration, art? Worse, is it even mature pleasure? Baker says that this renewing of newness "was for me then, and is still, one of the greatest sources of happiness that the man-made world can offer."

But isn't this delight in the diurnal, sort of minor, even decadent? Isn't it even what's called "camp"? (In the sense of giving more attention to the less important than is warranted?) During a deep study of coffee mugs, including corny old-fashioned ones, Baker denies this. He says he theoretically disapproves of camp, but then camp "has long been superseded and in the limbo of its demotions can be glibly disparaged."

But hold it. Later on, he notes that when you quit a job, things reverse. Big crises recede ("the problems you were paid to solve collapse"), and instead, you remember the small surfaces. The nod of the security guard, the escalator ride, the things on your desk, the features of the corporate bathroom, "all miraculously expand: and in this way what was central and what was incidental end up exactly reversed." Sounds campy to me in its topsy-turvy re-valuation.

But perhaps the incidental becomes not just reversed, but also revered. This is surely the book's final charm for me. Perhaps it is perhaps Baker's unique achievement, subversive but satisfying. Tables are turned; away from ponderous plot or principles. Let's enjoy the techne and the aesthetics of surfaces. I can disclose that I read this book at a recent time of stress and weariness. It was then just the thing for me. I found it good fare, "comfort food with a gourmet sauce." So, Baker's inspecting vision honors objects and processes, honors existence.

The strange thing is that this "novel" is readable, and when it touches on some common aspects of human experience, it is downright disarming. Take, for example, the description of the corporate washroom. Within a few pages Baker merges the history of paper towels and the human psychology of the urinal (most specifically, the difficult task of starting with a co-worker nearby). And, truly, I don't think I will ever be able to ride an escalator again without thinking of this book. In this case, and in several others, Baker turns the minutia of daily life into objects of great meaning.

But the sum of all that piggling over detail does not quite congeal. I got the feeling that Baker wanted to make a statement in the end-- possibly about how lives are made up of those silly little details and not the heroic exploits found in novels. Nice sentiment. Needs work.

The narrator, Howie, leads a tour of his world through the course of an afternoon. Through his eyes the trivial has seldom been so interesting and captivating. His piercing skills of observation are to be admired, testament to Baker himself. Howie playfully combines tidbits of wisdom and wit, the sums of which build and grow so by the conclusion of Chapter Fifteen it is difficult not to be subtly impressed. Baker teaches the reader to think like he does.