What Howie's Nostalgia of Inventions Might Mean...

 

One of my favorite passages of The Mezzanine is the footnote on page ninety-five, as it conveys Howie’s unease regarding change. The note starts on page ninety four when Howie mentions unnoticed developments in the history of the straw, ending with “An unpretentious technical invention—the straw, the sugar packet, the pencil, the windshield wiper—has been ornamented by a mute folklore of behavioral inventions, unregistered, unpatented, adopted and fine-tuned without comment or thought” (Baker 95). I connected this note with aspects of life changing gradually without recognition. I first thought of something as simple as hair growing. The length of my hair is something I do not notice growing daily or weekly, but only after a couple of months. This idea of unrecognized change can also apply to the larger life event of coming of age. I believe people sometimes doubt the passing of their childhood until they are near the end of it. It seems as though only when they are at the end that they appreciate the time period, recognize the speed at which it passes by, and acknowledge a significant change in their lives of coming of age. 

Howie’s hyper fixation on developmental changes and appreciation of inventions signifies a nostalgia and possible fear of change in his personal life as well. An example of Howie’s deep appreciation of inventions is the footnote on page seventy-eight where he describes the image of an “old golden-agey cartoonish kind of blender.” He asks “Why do these images have to age before we can be fond of them?” (78). This appreciative description of an older model of the blender reminds me of his appreciation for his childhood. He often recalls fond moments of his childhood, such as his father’s love of ties and learning from his mother how to step on an escalator. The idea of  “these images ending before we can be fond of them” might relate to his feeling of nostalgia towards childhood (78).  Therefore, I believe his hyper fixation of the unrecognized changes of inventions correlates to aspects of his life he is now realizing he under-appreciated.

Howie being uncomfortable with change makes sense to me once I think of the context of his story. His thoughts come from a very transformative period of his life as he reflects on starting a new job and facing adulthood. Recognizing that he is writing during a reflective period was crucial to remember while reading his narrative, as I often thought of him as obsessive or overly sentimental. However, once I remember he is facing a period of adjustment with starting a new job, experiencing his first relationship, and grappling with the true meaning of adulthood, I understand his struggle in letting go of what inventions and childhood experiences were before they changed. The Mezzanine perfectly describes a first-person experience of adjustment through different phases of life.