The Mezzanine (2005)

By Nicholson Baker
This is a book about the little things in life – the truly, truly small and seemingly insignificant things that we think about every day. Essentially the story of one man’s lunch hour (he works on the mezzanine floor of a large building) and the intellectual history behind his thoughts of this hour, this book celebrates shoelaces, straws and finer points of office interaction.

There is bound to be one topic in this book that makes you think, “By golly he’s right!”. For me, it was the bit about vending machines. (I love vending machines! I wish everything was sold in vending machines. Except maybe fresh meat). More particularly, how the flap at the bottom of chocolate bar dispensing machines is too stiff to open properly with one hand. I have often thought this, struggling to retrieve my Twix bar from the bottom of the machine while trying to minimise contact with said flap, to avoid germs. Okay I know we should all have some germs otherwise we’ll develop asthma and allergies to chocolate bars, but really, if we ever get TB back in this country I’m wearing disposable gloves when I retrieve my goodies. How many germs could there possibly be on a vending machine flap, I hear you ask? Well I don’t know – that might make a good thesis for someone. What I resent is the extreme contact which your hand is forced to make with that damned bit of lead-enforced plastic, or whatever they make it out of, and the way it wants to snap back on your fingers and chop them off. Mind you, if I was a vending machine I wouldn’t want to let any Twix bars out of my little pouch either.

Now that little rant is probably a good example of what the book is like, except it’s better. (The book, not my rant, that would be a bit show-offy of me to say, wouldn’t it?). It is always a pleasure to see in print the expression of things you have privately thought but not thought worth the trouble of expressing to anyone else. One thing, though – the lengthy footnotes did annoy me. They are a clever tool in this book and I wouldn’t argue for their removal, it’s just that they make you lose track of the narrative and you are forced to place thumbs and fingers in between different pages so you can flip back and forth between text and footnote…

Rating: 6.5 out of 10
A book that will make you respect the inventors of elevators, perforated paper and above all, vending machines.