In class on Thursday, we discussed writers like Woolf and the way their Georgian style of novels differed from the previous Edwardian style. The Edwardian novel can be said to contain an “airtight” plot and is “materialistic”. Writers like Woolf thought this style of writing was not interesting enough and wanted something different, leading to the Georgian style which instead focuses more on the human experience and the inner thoughts of the characters.
At some point I thought, wait, isn’t that basically what The Mezzanine is? The Mezzanine seems nothing like an Edwardian novel. It doesn’t have an “airtight” plot. It isn’t “materialistic”. Instead, it’s very much a Georgian novel. It’s entirely made up of the inner dialogue of Howie and lacks any real conventional plot, creating a story that is very much focused on the human experience. Your average person has probably gone through many of the same events or thoughts that Howie has. We’ve all tied our shoes, used escalators, talked to other people, and used perforated paper. Howie is immensely relatable because he’s just your average guy (except for the fact that he’s from the previous century).
But at the same time, I feel like The Mezzanine is almost unrealistic in a certain sense. To be clear, that doesn’t suddenly make it a non-Georgian novel. Instead, it makes Howie an even more interesting character and makes me want to know more about him and the way he thinks. But, there’s still no denying that Howie is certainly unique. I mean, does anyone really think like he does? Howie comes up with the most random and ridiculous thoughts and even remembers them to look back upon later in life. And there’s also the fact that the book takes place in the previous century. A number of things have changed. And especially with the rise of cellphones, I feel like even less and less people are spending time thinking to themselves like Howie does. Howie’s experience is becoming less and less relatable, but I honestly feel like that adds to the charm of the novel. He has his own share of unique experiences that we will probably never be able to experience, such as the milk carton delivery thing. And being able to get a glimpse of what life was like in the 20th century is actually kind of cool.
This is a very interesting post that get me thinking. I agree that The Mezzanine is not Edwardian, but if it does fit into the Gregorian category, then it is very different from other Gregorian novels. The things we learn about Howie's character are mainly from his writing voice; apart from the Meditations section at the end, we do not directly learn much about his deep philosophy, motivations, or insecurities. Instead, we can assume things about him based on how he talks about trivial things. Compare this to something like Mrs. Dalloway, where for every main character, most of the words are taken up by the characters thinking about their life and views on various people.
ReplyDeletePublished in 1988, _The Mezzanine_ would literally be an "Elizabethan" novel, although no one uses that term for the 20th and 21st centuries ("Elizabethan" generally refers to literature from the era of Elizabeth I, like Shakespeare and his pals). And since it's American, it would probably be a "Reagan-era novel," which actually makes sense given its corporate setting and love for commodity capitalism.
ReplyDeleteBut I see what you're saying by comparing it to what Woolf says/predicts "Georgian" novels should or could be--there's the emphasis on the "ordinary," less emphasis on artificial plot or melodrama, something like "tracing atoms as they fall on an ordinary mind on an ordinary day." The biggest difference would be that Baker is not writing stream of consciousness or free-indirect discourse to represent consciousness "in the moment"; the novel is explicity *written,* a "memoir," and it has this postmodern self-referentiality (as in a footnote that talks about footnotes). I definitely think it's interesting to consider Baker as a late-century version of what Woolf says fiction should do--he's definitely more interested in the "small" than the "large," just like Woolf. She would be appalled by some of the stuff he has Howie talk about, though--Woolf is decidedly NOT following any of her characters into the public restroom.