MADreads

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June 8th, 2006 Jon - Central Library

The space Hawthorne Branch Library now occupies used to be part of Manchester’s, a two story department store that included an escalator.  Though the escalator is long gone, I thought it made sense to review Nicholson Baker’s The Mezzanine, since it features an escalator as one of its main elements. 

The narrator’s escalator ride to his office on the second floor of a mall provides the opportunity for reflection on all kinds of products and processes: straws, putting on socks, variations on the word “oops,” and garbage transport, to name just a few.  Digression follows digression, but the book never drags.  Wisconsin trivia buffs will be interested to know that the book makes a reference to the Neenah Foundry Company in Neenah, Wisconsin.

Entry Filed under: Recreational Fiction