Howie's murderous intentions vs. me, the reader
First and foremost, The Mezzanine by Nicholson Baker is a weird book. With its interesting way of describing mundane life in an office and excessively long footnotes, it takes a dive into the world of our main character, Howie. Howie is a sometimes relatable character, who we see delve into the most lengthy stories about the most boring things anyone could imagine. The first chapter with his shoelaces, no one would necessarily think about their shoelaces that much, heck I don't even know if I've ever had a pair of shoelaces break on my shoes in my lifetime.
I would have said Howie is completely relatable if it weren't for the footnotes. On pages 108 and 128 we see Howie's darker side, where in the first footnote on page 108, we find out Howie stabbed his best friend at the time in the neck with a pair of scissors. Why did he stab him you ask? He stabbed him over the 64 pack of crayons his friend had gotten, and wouldn't show Howie how the pencil sharpener apparatus built into the back of the box fit in there without making the box unbalanced. Evidently, this thought pattern reoccurs multiple times throughout his life. On page 128, we see a list of things Howie thinks about, ranked by how many times he thinks about them per year. The urge to kill occurs 13 times per year. This means on average Howie has the urge to kill once every 4 weeks (what he wants to kill is something I don't know, and hope to not know).
I believe Howie's urges to kill along with his history of attempted murder are a bit problematic to say the least, but I did enjoy the rest of the book as a whole. It had some funny moments, like when Howie talks about what he does in the elevator where he fake rips off his skin like a mask, however this little bit of murderous intent still got to me, and it sort of made the book worse for me.
Though I understand where you're coming from, I am confused on how you got the number 4 times per week from 13 times per year. Perhaps you meant once every 4 weeks? Either way, urge to kill could be something as small as killing an insect, or as non-serious as wanting to kill some news figure he disagrees strongly with. I do agree that the stabbing-in-the-neck is a bit less relatable, but it's also understandable given the rest of Howie's character.
ReplyDeleteFunny story, My friend stabbed me in the neck with a pencil in 1st grade. He received a 5 minute timeout. Anyways, I think Howie's shoes are dress shoes, which have weird stupid leather laces that probably break faster than sneaker laces.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree that the inclusion of murderous thoughts made the book less fun to read. I was not expecting that at all, and it was really jarring, only to become even more worrisome when you see his tally of thoughts later on. Also, it didn't really seem to fit Howie's character, at least in my opinion. He tended to have a more positive outlook on things throughout the book, even if he was annoyed with them (which was a weird combination to read), so I would not see him having those urges. However, I think the book was deliberately written to make the reader uncomfortable, and these scenes definitely achieved that!
ReplyDeleteI agree that Howie's murderous comments were odd and often unfitting for how his character was written about. The scene where he describes stabbing his friend over crayons is disturbing, but for some reason I overlooked it while reading. I wonder why I overlooked the more disturbing side of him. I think I wanted to empathize and relate to him so much that I held little importance in actions made during his childhood. However, now that I think about it, stabbing someone in the neck with scissors is not really normal for a child to do.
ReplyDeleteOk, hear me out. I do think that the stabbing thing is very disturbing but I think it serves a very important purpose in adding to Howie's humanity. Through this display of violence we see a deeply disturbing part of Howie, which makes us want nothing to do with him, and then we struggle to reconcile that with his seemingly upbeat nature. (And perhaps the most disturbing parts of ourselves, in order to compare them with Howie's darkness.) I think it just really well illustrates how Howie's passion for the mundane can have very positive consequences for himself and his outlook on the world, but then also be very very very negative when someone challenges him. Basically, he is a sloppy messy and deeply flawed human being who can also be adorably obsessed with staplers-- both exist and that's Baker's point-- that Howie isn't one or the other.
ReplyDeleteOkay, this is a very interesting take on Howie. I think in the craziness of the book I didn't stop to think about these tiny details (partly because there were so many). But now that you mention these, Howie does seem a little more un-hinged. However, I'm not sure this makes him an unreliable narrator considering it is his story and internal thoughts.
ReplyDeleteAdding onto Fallon, I think the fact that the author explicitly mentions Howie's urges to kill is an example of how crude and honest this book is. As we can see from the random footnotes throughout the book, the book gives us access to Howie's thoughts, 100% natural without filtering (no GMOs or preservatives), which makes this book really special and partially more relatable (based on my past experiences I haven't had much (if any) urges to kill, but I did sometimes have an urge to punch someone on the arm - potentially indicating that the sudden urges to inflict pain onto another thing is a part of human nature)
ReplyDeleteI really liked your blog. I never really thought about Howie as that unhinged. There were so many details in the book and so many different things that I had never thought about. The shoelace one is a great example. The only time this has happened to me is when my puppy chewed them up. The thinking about killing is now getting to me more since reading your blog. I didn't really discover that side of Howie but now see the relation between the stabbing and his thoughts and his negative thoughts about the other employees. I think that Howie still has thoughts that are healthy and relatable though. Great post!
ReplyDeleteI think that its funny that you said that Howie is a "sometimes relatable character" because I think that's a really accurate way to put it. Howie's observations sometimes go so far down the rabbit hole in his footnotes that it becomes hard for me to follow his train of thought and it stops becoming relatable. Your discovery about Howie's dark side is new to me, but it definitely makes the book a little less relatable for me. I can often relate to what Howie says, but his ideas become bizzarre past a certain point. His bizzarre ideas and your discovery about his murderous intentions have convinced me that Howie is a uniquely weird guy, but one that makes for an entertaining narrator.
ReplyDeleteWhile I also found his murderous intent interesting, I disagree that it made the book worse. In fact, I feel like each time he thinks violently I get more interested in the story as action and excitement is something I felt the novel lacked. Speaking about his murderous intent, I feel like Howie gave out Joaquin Phenix's Joker vibes, like how he is antisocial and pay attention to very minor stuff, thinking on a completely different wavelength to everyone else.
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