The mezzanine
Although most of the action of The Mezzanine occurs on the escalator of an office building, where its narrator is returning to work after buying shoelaces, this startlingly inventive and witty novel takes us farther than most fiction written today. It lends to milk cartons the associative richness of Marcel Proust's madeleines. It names the eight most significant advances in a human life —beginning with shoe-tying. It asks whether the hot air blowers in bathrooms really are more sanitary than towels. And it casts a dazzling light on our relations with the objects and people we usually take for granted.
Stats for nerds
9recommend
15mentions
13people
2009–2025years
73% recommend27% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- I'm a longtime fan of Nicholson Baker's work since I first read The Mezzanine. His close attention to detail and his careful choice of words really impressed me.
- You may be interested in reading Nicholson Baker's novel The Mezzanine, where he wrote about preferring paper straws.
http://weblibrary.apeiron-uni.eu:8080/webdokumenti/6304-ip.p...
- The Mezzanine by Nicholson Baker. It’s a slim, experimental novel with a narrator who spends every second of the book noticing smaller and smaller details about the world around him—such as the burrs on the underside of a soda can tab opening and how they can grasp a plastic straw that would otherwise float—-and what this all reminds him of.
- Nicholson Baker in Mezzanine has a long internal monologue about paper towels vs hand dryers. A good summary of the different opinions that are possible.
- For fans of extreme detail, I'd recommend The Mezzanine by Nicholson Baker[0]. Iirc, he devoted several pages to the feeling of the curls of a brown paper bag carried in his hand.
0: https://www.amazon.com/Mezzanine-Nicholson-Baker/dp/08021449...
- If you liked the writing, check out the 1988 novel The Mezzanine by the same author (Nicholson Baker). He's also written about Wikipedia (https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2008/apr/10/wikipedia...).
