Point of View

The point of view is the first-person, but a first-person perspective that is primarily reflexive, or focused on itself and its observations only through second-order thoughts. Howie may appear from the outside to be an ordinary office worker, but his internal thought life exhibits a degree of complexity that would appear insane and exhausting to others. He is obsessed with his own thinking, in particular on the mezzanine escalator and about his broken shoelaces. More broadly, Howie is focused on trying to find meaning in the trivialities of his life. He is trying to grow up by creating new adult thoughts to replace his old childhood thoughts. We learn a great deal about some of Howie's likes, dislikes, philosophical views and observations, but we learn very little about his properties that most novels focus on when building a character.

The author, Nicholas Baker, appears to bear...