As mentioned by Emily in class, The Mezzanine appears to be a book filled with what people are not supposed to write about, subject matter deemed “inappropriate” and “uninteresting.” The book dedicates an entire chapter to a trip to the bathroom and the social encounters there, and contains page-long footnotes focusing on mundane topics such as ice cube trays.
But despite all this, I found The Mezzanine to be, as Howie might say, a very “interesting” book. I believe that part of its success is due to the blending of the two literary conventions discussed in Virginia Woolf’s essays “Mr. Bennett and Mrs. Brown” and “Modern Fiction.” The Mezzanine is a very materialistic novel, and at first glance appears to be following what Woolf called the “Edwardian” style of the 19th century. But contrary to “Edwardian” convention, the objects discussed are not emblematic of the character.
The literary conventions of the 19th century were materialistic insofar as they described in detail information that was related to a person in some way, such as the style of their house. As mentioned in “Mr. Bennet and Mrs. Brown,” this was done to “ hypnotize us into the belief that because he has made a house, there must be a person living there.” However in The Mezzanine, the items discussed seem completely unrelated to Howie; they tell us nothing about him.
The explanation for this conundrum is found in the new literary conventions discussed by Virginia Woolf, and summed up in this quote from Mr. Bennett: “The foundation of good fiction is character-creating and nothing else.” The doorknobs and garbage trucks of The Mezzanine tell us nothing about Howie’s life, but his musings about them reveal to us his character, the exploration of which is the purpose of fiction, according to Virginia Woolf.
