Even though I found this book as a whole to be dull, the little passage from Aurelius's Meditations, was somewhat interesting. I found this interesting because it seems to go against everything Howie stands for. The narrator Howie not only notices the little things in life, he celebrates and cherishes them like no one else. Howie gets more excited than even a child when he about such trivial things as escalators, milk cartons, staplers, perforated paper, and anything else that is commonplace in everyday life. These trivial items are all Howie seems to think about, all he seems to care about, and pretty much all that he lives for. Then suddenly, in the middle of his life of trivial delights, he comes across the following passage from Aurelius's Meditations:
"Observe in short, how transient and trivial is all mortal life; yesterday a drop of semen, tomorrow a handful of spice and ashes."
This passage seems to distress the narrator to his very core simply because it goes against what he believes in. The passage quite eloquently puts that nothing that anyone will ever do will ever amount to anything. One day you're enjoying life, the next moment, you're gone.
I think that this little inclusion of this ancient passage is the author's way of directly disagreeing with it. I think it is Nicholson Baker's way of saying that you have to enjoy the little things in life. Even thought Baker probably isn't as passionate about everyday things as Howie is, he seems to be arguing that there is some meaning to life and that there is even meaning to everyday things and events. That's what the entire book seems to amount to.
3 comments:
I agree with you 100%, and I really like how you first explained Howie's "trivial delights," then threw in the Aurelius quote--it represented really well how reading the quote affected Howie and made him stop and immediately react with revulsion.
Do you agree with Baker? Do you think that he was successful in convincing us that the little things are important? (This question is hard for me to answer, because while I do value the little things, I completely understand and agree with Aurelius as well--I think it goes to show how confusing this subject is, and how many important, convincing sides it has.)
I do believe that there is beauty and importance in everyday life, but I don't believe that this book did a good job of showing that. I mean, Howie just made a ridiculously huge deal about EVERYTHING!!!
Haha, I agree that at points it got a little bit monotonous (I remember thinking to myself, "I wonder what it would be like to have to live with this guy!"), but I thought overall it was really funny and interesting because it was so easy to relate to. It is a bit difficult at first to get into a book like The Mezzanine that doesn't really have an action-packed plot.
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