Revelations of The Mezzanine in Chapter 14
The Mezzanine is certainly not a book that conforms to the general structure of other novels. There is no general plot, Baker makes heavy uses of footnotes even though the story is fictional, and we don't see any of the characters develop over the course of the novel. In fact, these deviances from the norm make us wonder if we can even call the book a novel, but that is a discussion for another day. The purpose of the book may seem confusing to many, as it is simply a collection of the day-to-day observances of the main character, Howie. However, I believe that the purpose of The Mezzanine is clearly explained in Chapter 14.
Soon after starting Chapter 14, Baker uses the space in the footnotes to talk about... his interpretations of the footnotes. He starts by talking about how he has seen footnotes being used in Hartpole Lecky's History of European Morals to bring historical characters to life. In one example, he remembers how reading about the philosopher Wittgenstein's childhood fascination with cowboy movies in the footnotes made him lose respect for his theories. Later on in the footnote, he goes on to state that, "They knew that the outer surface of trust is not smooth, welling and gathering from paragraph to shapely paragraph, but encrusted with a rough protective bark of citations, quotation marks, italics, and foreign languages." I believe that Baker's analysis of the footnotes in Lecky's book was a way for him to justify the use of the footnotes in his own novel. Instead of using the footnotes as a way to cite additional information, he uses them to create a fuller image of the story. As The Mezzanine is a story about appreciating the mundane occurrences in our daily life, Baker uses the footnotes to give deeper meaning to everything beyond what we can see on the exterior.
Near the end of Chapter 14, Baker also compiles a list of his thoughts and the frequencies at which they occur to him. This really is the perfect way to wrap up the story. The whole time, the narrator was talking about random occurrences and trying to find the deeper meaning of them. In this process, he often recalled previous events and their significance to the topic at hand. Having a list of the narrator's most frequent thoughts serves as a way to bring the story full circle and recap all that Howie thought about throughout the course of the novel.
Furthermore, we as readers know that Baker is fully aware that he is writing a novel. At the beginning of Chapter 9, Baker breaks the fourth wall when he states, 'At the end of an earlier chapter, I instinctively said, "I stepped away toward the men's room, and the lunch hour beyond"' On further inspection, I confirmed that the main character really did use that line at the end of Chapter 4. Baker does this again in Chapter 14 in the footnotes, when he says, "Boswell, like Lecky (to get back to the point of this footnote)", proving to us that yet again, The Mezzanine is a novel within a novel. With this in mind, I think it is the natural conclusion that Baker would use the last full chapter of his book to wrap everything up and talk about the true meaning of The Mezzanine. The analysis of the footnotes and the thought frequency list encourage us as readers to take a step back, think about the small things that go on in every day life, and cherish each moment fully.
I really liked your post! The footnote about footnotes also really stood out to me when I was reading chapter 14! It is interesting how the passage explains the point of the novel without interrupting the flow of Howie’s thoughts. Like many of the items Howie is fascinated with, footnotes are often overlooked and it was interesting to see how he proved his point about the value of footnotes through including so many in his book.
ReplyDeleteI'd never considered how thematically relevant the list of random thoughts an occurrences could be, but you are absolutely right! We are kind of reading Howie's random thoughts as he is writing the novel. The "to get back to the point of this footnote" aside did jump out to me while reading it, but I never considered its actual significance in making the novel meta like you did. Great analysis!
ReplyDeleteI love the way Baker points out (IN his footnote) how reading footnotes causes the reader to lean closer to the page and look more closely, simply to see the smaller font, but making the reader feel appropriately scholarly and serious for doing so. We are likely leaning more closely over Baker's page when we read this very line, and the whole experience is very "meta." By relegating so much "interesting" stuff to footnotes, he also can exert some control over how we read, the order in which we read (we interrupt sentences in progress to follow long digressions, then return mid-sentence on an earlier page), and even our physical posture. He can make us "look" interested in his footnotes, even if we don't end up finding them as "interesting" as he does.
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