Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > Baker, Nicholson - Ross Chambers (essay date winter 1994)

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Ross Chambers (essay date winter 1994)

SOURCE: Chambers, Ross. “Meditation and the Escalator Principle (on Nicholson Baker's The Mezzanine).” Modern Fiction Studies 40, no. 4 (winter 1994): 765-806.

[In the following essay, Chambers explores the narratological and philosophical significance of open-ended digressions and subjective contemplation in The Mezzanine. Contrasting Baker's novel with Descartes's Meditations, Chambers contends that the discontinuous narrative and trivial private preoccupations of The Mezzanine serve to shift the narrative structure of the novel in favor of “progressive extenuation” and “paradigmatic lingering” rather than closure.]

So essential to the productive economy are the small pleasures of “fugue”—napping in class, calling in sick, walking the dog—that time out is sometimes actually institutionalized and scheduled into the regulated hours of work. We take...

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1. Introduction
2. Principal Works
3. Criticism
   1. Michael Harris (review date 1 April 1990)
   2. Julian Loose (review date 19 April 1991)
   3. Galen Strawson (review date 19 April 1991)
   4. Richard Eder (review date 12 May 1991)
   5. William Scammell (review date 25 May 1991)
   6. Cyra McFadden (review date 9 February 1992)
   7. Peter Kemp (review date 6 March 1992)
   8. James Buchan (review date 14 March 1992)
   9. Julian Loose (review date 26 March 1992)
   10. Robert Towers (review date 9 April 1992)
   11. William H. Pritchard (review date autumn 1992)
   12. Ross Chambers (essay date winter 1994)
   13. Joanne Trestail (review date 6 February 1994)
   14. Richard Eder (review date 13 February 1994)
   15. Trev Broughton (review date 18 February 1994)
   16. Tim Parks (review date 19 February 1994)
   17. Adam Mars-Jones (review date 24 March 1994)
   18. Cathleen Schine (review date 7 April 1994)
   19. Francis Spufford (review date 22 March 1996)
   20. Eric Korn (review date 5 April 1996)
   21. Jim Krusoe (review date 5 May 1996)
   22. Nicholson Baker and David Dodd (interview date 15 May 1996)
   23. Michael Wood (review date 20 June 1996)
   24. Irving Malin (review date fall 1996)
   25. Richard Eder (review date 10 May 1998)
   26. Caroline Moore (review date 13 June 1998)
   27. Ron Charles (review date 25 June 1998)
   28. Eric Lorberer (review date fall 1998)
   29. Arthur Saltzman (essay date 1999)
   30. Leonard Kniffel (essay date April 2001)
   31. Robert Darnton (review date 26 April 2001)
   32. Alexander Star (review date 28 May 2001)
   33. Nicholson Baker and Andrew Richard Albanese (interview date 1 June 2001)
4. Further Reading
5. Copyright