Re: The Mezzanine

tom alexander mcknight (tam9t@uva.pcmail.virginia.edu)
Thu, 27 Feb 97 20:32:20 EST

Reading the Mezzanine reminds me of a Calvin and Hobbes that I read awhile
back:
Calvin sits in class looking at his teacher...
She askes: "Calvin can you tell us what Lewis and Clark did?"
He responds: "No, but I can recite the Secret Superhero Origin of
each member of Captain Napalm's Thermo Nuclear League of Liberty..."
The teacher states: "See me after class Calvin."
Calvin concludes: "I'm not dumb. I just have a command of
thoroughly useless information..."

I feel that Howie and Calvin are on the same wavelength. However, I do
not believe that the material is "useless." The day-to-day aspects of life
build our personalities and allow nostalgia to develop. The nostalgia of
Howie's life may not have a plot or a profound moral theme, but, for me at
least, these bits of rekindle past scenes in my life. In these revived life
experiences, The Mezzanine lives. I believe the plot exists not in Howie's
nostalgia, rather in the reader's.

Tom McKnight