Details in Conversation
The passage where Howie and Tina interact in The Mezzanine stands out from the others, illustrating a mechanical way of talking with carefully thought out gestures and statements. Although Howie is found in other situations interacting with others, the specific scene creates a rigid environment that shows his approach to small talk. He is on his way to spend lunchtime break and runs into Tina, a co-worker. She tells him to sign a felt flower vase for the office trash cleaner, and they chat until she gets a call. Howie wants to leave and gives the mechanical gestures that mean he has to head off ("pulling up the pants, checking for my wallet, a joke salute").
Nicholson Baker illustrates this rigid routine as one that is required to be completed after Tina initiated conversation with Howie. He implies that the back and forth conventional steps are just necessary to maintain a good social appearance. He mentions this through comments such as “[Tina] knew the conventions well” or “she said, flirting mechanically”. The disingenuous comments seem pessimistic, while fitting well with Howie’s perspective on the norms of life. He prefers to focus on his own life as it is, since he already holds hundreds of topics and new experiences to touch on, and conversations with coworkers seem to be distractions to him enjoying those details of everyday life. Therefore, he does not place importance in creating genuine conversations with people he does not place as much importance with. He does not devalue genuine interactions overall, only he leaves his coworker interactions to social norms and conventions, but clearly still has authentic relationships as with L., the woman that he mentions several times throughout the book.
This passage of the book de familiarizes the almost automatic process of talking to people. There are details, gestures, respectful wording that we do not pick up on because they have become social norms in our society. Baker, however, walks through these automatic gestures and statements, explaining the reasoning behind, narrating a conversation with rigid conventional rules. An alternate version to how he defamiliarizes daily objects, this passage defamiliarizes the conventions and rules that he uses to talk to people.
I agree with you about how Baker presents gestures plays into the theme of defamiliarization. I too thought it was interesting how much thought he put into describing Howie and Tina's movements, not only in how they move, but why they move. In my own life, a lot of the gestures I make while talking to people come so naturally that I never really think twice about why I do them beyond surface-level emotions. It was also interesting how you mentioned his reaction to Tina being pessimistic. Something otherwise viewed as a regular action can actually be so subjective, in this case, based around Howie's perception of life.
ReplyDeleteI also found Howie's interaction with Tina pretty interesting. It's one of the few times in the novel where we see Howie interacting with someone for more than a few sentences, and it takes us on a journey through the thousands of thoughts and worries that a human has while trying to have a successful interaction with another human. We've all tried to give a certain appearance while interacting with others, and I think this further serves to relate our lived experiences to Howie's, which causes this sense of familiarity between us. Nice analysis!
ReplyDeleteHI Diza! This is a fantastic analysis of the interaction between Howie and Tina in The Mezzanine! You’ve done an excellent job highlighting how Nicholson Baker uses defamiliarization not just with objects, but also with social interactions. I think its so much more relatable to see a character overanalyzing social interactions, as many of us do, rather than doorknobs, which many of us do not. I think it is especially important because you must remember that this story is not just about the material world, but a coming of age story about living in the modern world itself and all of its nuance.
ReplyDeleteI also enjoy the extended scene with Tina--and Howie's agonizing as she's on the phone and he can't tell whether their conversation has "officially" ended or not. And remember, he elsewhere notes that this is the single longest conversation he has with anyone else all day (until he sees L. that night)--so we're again reminded of how different Howie seems in public than in his narrative. He doesn't go around talking about staplers and shoelaces all day (although I do love the detail that he and the guy on the escalator he hasn't talked to yet end up bonding in the copy room when Howie regales him with observations about the use of air-suction to move paper in a photocopier--a very Howie topic of casual conversation!).
ReplyDeleteI also suspect that many readers appreciate this scene because it illustrates and articulates the kind of lower-level social anxiety that many (all?) of us feel from time to time, even if, on the surface, we are pulling off "office small talk" or even "mechanical flirtation." Baker reminds us that even people who appear smooth and at ease in casual social settings might be a ball of nerves inside!
Great post Diza!! I really loved how you highlight the “mechanical” nature of the interaction, capturing these routine exchanges as an obligation. There is also a huge difference in how Howie interacts with his coworkers (more surface level interactions) versus L, even in the way he talks about them. I also like how your post focuses on Baker’s sort of negative view of social norms and conventions, which was something I was unable to catch in the novel.
ReplyDeleteHi Diza! I like your argument that this conversation "defamiliarizes" human interaction to a certain extent, and I hadn't really thought of it that way yet. This conversation definitely stood out to me as well, and I agree that it kind of highlighted some of the weirder, more socially awkward parts of Howie's character. I agree that Howie's term "mechanically flirting" is a little pessimistic, but I also think that it totally fits with the over-analytical, eager-to-explain parts of Howie, and it doesn't surprise me that in his mind he has small talk boiled down to a science.
ReplyDeleteHi Diza! I like how you focused on and essentially defamiliarized a specific detail in the book, Howie-style. We rarely see Howie interacting with others in the Mezzanine, and when he does, it's very heavily scrutinized and detailed, like you noted. I also like how you discussed the difference Howie has clearly decided exists between making small talk and talking to people he truly cares about, such as L. I find it so interesting that Howie is able to discuss "social norms and conventions," as you say, to such length -- he would obviously never share these opinions with a complete stranger he's holding a conversation with (which we, as readers, technically are) but he still manages to unpack every conversation and cursory glance. I really loved this post, amazing job!
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