Lessons from The Mezzanine


    The complexity and originality of The Mezzanine, depicting Howie’s life throughout the mundane, sets up opportunities for valuable lessons and personal applications. The Mezzanine delves into much more than what is simply a ride up the escalator, sharing quite personal experiences and thought processes of the character Howie. Throughout reading this novel, I was able to take into account different lessons applicable to my life. 

     The approach of life that is depicted through the novel allowed me to reflect on my personal perspectives of life. Howie seems to wallow in the present moment, taking life day by day and picking apart the small moments. In class discussions, phrases about the book including “expanding and diving into the complexity of life,” and “meaning of life through small and mundane things” stood out to me as highly accurate depictions of the author’s reflection of life. Considering my own life, I feel as though I have a mindset highly different from Howie’s, as I tend to rush through moments and have a forward facing mentality. The Mezzanine showcased the importance of the present moment, making sure to take time to savor and cherish the current processes, and not only focus on the future. 

    Additionally, there are a multitude of instances in the book where Howie recalls and incorporates his past memories throughout his daily encounters. For instance, Howie remembers in detail when he learned how to tie his shoes as he contemplates how his shoelace broke, as well as memories of his father and the ties he had displayed on their doorknob as Howie simply touches a doorknob in his workplace. These moments evoked a realization in me of how all experiences and memories are interconnected, weaving together to shape us into the people that we are today. I was able to understand the importance of the experiences that I have had, am having, and will have, that all influence the understanding of my life. 

The Mezzanine brings to life many valuable lessons through just the character Howie and his mindset and experiences. There is much that I was able to learn, as well take into consideration on how I can apply these themes into my personal life. 

Comments

  1. Mikayla BlankeSeptember 12, 2022 at 10:37 AM

    I agree that there were multiple important lessons in "The Mezzanine", despite the lack of a complex plot. I also tend to rush through the present, but I found that while reading the book, I actually started to slow down a bit and take more notice of the little details. However, I did not think much about the "his memories creating his person" type of idea. Yet, it makes so much sense when you think of it. People's worldview and thoughts are usually shaped by their past, so this is an ingenious part of character-building on Baker's part!

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  2. Khadeejah R.September 14, 2022 at 9:48 AM

    I thought your comment on how all our memories are interconnected was really interesting. I think the book kind of emphasizes how important small memories are, and how they effect our personalities and the people we become. I think that our experiences shape who we are not just because of how we react and feel in the moment but also because of how we remember that experience years later. Howie is a really interesting character because he makes you reanalyze your own thoughts and experiences.

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  3. Gabe DavisSeptember 25, 2022 at 11:38 AM

    By having a forward-facing mentality, do you mean you spend a lot of time thinking about the future? I often spend "the present" either thinking about something I want to happen in the future or something I wish hadn't happened in the past. Reading the Mezzanine encouraged me to spend more time in the moment, at least for a while. Did the Mezzanine influence your mentality at all?

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  4. MitchellOctober 10, 2022 at 8:43 AM

    I like this way of looking at memory in the novel, and its complex relation to nostalgia: we do get this picture of all of us, our "characters," made up of a complex nexus of memories and general impressions about the way things are, all of which are traceable back to these early childhood experiences and the ways we improvise our way through the myriad technologies that we encounter every day. The thing that really distinguishes this book's version of this idea (which we also see in Woolf) is that Baker insists that these deep webs of memory and identity and experience can be traced through the most mundane and basic features of our everyday lives--the things we don't think of as imbued with memory, or which seem trivial or silly to talk about. But the necktie/doorknob digression is a great example--he has various associations and memories around doorknobs in his childhood home, which leads to the local quirk of his dad's ties on his doorknob (the kind of thing a kid will notice and remember), which leads to the deeper personal digression about the evolution of his tie-tastes and the key moment when his father affirmed that he too is a discriminating chooser of neckties.

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