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Title: Such Brilliant Description, but to What End?
Review: Baker's "Mezzanine" came to me highly reccommended by a trusted source, someone with whom I have shared my enjoyment of Delillo and Will Self. I approached Baker's novel optimistically, and was sorely disappointed. Baker's style is indeed unique and his diction is flawless. For this, he is to be commended. What "The Mezzanine" lacked, however, is anything transcendent. Though, as other reviewers noted, Baker does describe the minutae of our lives in unique ways, he still describes minutae. Perhaps this novel is a postmodern examination of the emptiness of corporate life--postmodern in own emptiness. If so, a short story would have sufficed. After about forty pages, this novel begins to feel tedious. Eventually, one begins to wonder if anything apart from a neurotic impulse was propelling Baker to lengthen this book.
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