The Mezzanine (1988) is a first novel by Nicholson Baker about what goes through a man's mind during a modern lunch break.
On the surface it deals with a man's lunch-time trip up an escalator in the mezzanine of the office building where he is employed, a building based on Baker's recollections of Rochester's Midtown Plaza. In reality, it deals with all the thoughts that run through our minds in any given few moments – if we were given the time t...
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The Mezzanine (1988) is a first novel by Nicholson Baker about what goes through a man's mind during a modern lunch break.
On the surface it deals with a man's lunch-time trip up an escalator in the mezzanine of the office building where he is employed, a building based on Baker's recollections of Rochester's Midtown Plaza. In reality, it deals with all the thoughts that run through our minds in any given few moments – if we were given the time to think them through to their conclusions. The Mezzanine does that, through extensive use of footnotes, some making up the bulk of the page, travelling inside a human mind, through the thinker's past.
The novel is a plotless, stream-of-consciousness examination greatly detailing the lunch-hour activities of young office worker Howie. His simple lunch of a hot dog, cookie, and milk, and buying a new pair of shoelaces are contrasted with his reading of a paperback edition of Marcus Aurelius's Meditations. Baker's digressive novel is partly made...
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