"Wrong, wrong, wrong!"

On page 120 of The Mezzanine, by Nicholson Baker, our enthusiastic narrator begins to reveal which Penguin paperback he has been carrying around for the majority of the novel. The paperback in question is Aurelius's Meditations. He informs us that his problem with reading is that "you always had to pick up again at the very thing that had made you stop reading the day before." and in his case, what made him stop was this: "Observe, in short, how transient and trivial is all of mortal life; yesterday a drop of semen, tomorrow a handful of spice and ashes." This excerpt makes our narrator shout at his book, saying how wrong it is, and with good reason.

None of The Mezzanine's readers can possibly agree with such a excerpt after having read 120 pages of stunningly profound observations about staplers. Nor could they still think that the trivial things of life are still, well, trivial. Our narrator finds joy and wonderment in the most mundane things that almost everyone would overlook, and I couldn't help but be drawn into his childlike happiness as well. I was so involved in our narrator's view of the world that even I was outraged when Aurelius was quoted. Our narrator goes on to say that such a notion is "destructive and unhelpful" which I fully agree with. If one is going to take that view, that everything is transient, nothing matters, etc, then...what is one going to care about?

It's destructive and unhelpful because it doesn't allow you to take pleasure in everyday things, like our narrator does. Our narrator can talk about drinking your drink while you're chewing and how gross that is for a footnote a third of a page long. Are you going to tell him that milk and cookies are transient and therefore don't warrant a third of a page? Of course you're not! Where is the fun in thinking everything is pointless and the world is pointless and trivial and blah blah blah? Wouldn't you much rather feel like you're experiencing everything for the first time? Inspecting the way the trash bags are hooked around the edge of the trashcan so that you can throw heavy objects in the can without the bag falling in on itself? Praising your office building for keeping the good, white paper towels in their bathrooms? Finding something valuable in...just about everything?

I would, and I completely understand why our narrator is so angry at Aurelius's observation. Aurelius is trying to take away our narrator's "manchild" quality, and tell him that his excitement at everyday things is silly. Well, that's not very nice, is it Aurelius? Our narrator's views on life are the polar opposite of Aurelius's, and our narrator seems somewhat insulted by the very notion that everyday things could be trivial and not ridiculously interesting.

I'm beginning to wonder if Baker intentionally put the excerpt so far into the book, and not, for example, at the beginning. Had he put it at the beginning, he would have given away his intentions; he would have been saying, "This is the way my character feels about life; take it or leave it." By having it so far into the novel, he gives us time to become immersed in our narrator's perception of life, and leaves us to our own reactions to the excerpt. Our own reactions, generally, agreeing with the narrator's (at least in my case), which might be Baker's goal. Hmm...ulterior motives? Or just a kick in the pants to make us enjoy life more? I'm going to go with the second one.