During our discussions in class, a question that's come up several times is what Virginia Woolf would think if she read The Mezzanine. Does it fit with her idea of what a modern novel should be? It does in some ways, but in others it seems to go against it. In the essays we read in class, Woolf rails against novelists that are preoccupied with the material world and attempt to use people's external features and social status to craw a picture of their character. The Mezzanine is nothing if not materialistic. However, I think that Virginia Woolf, (perhaps once she got used to the technological debris of the 1980s), would approve of the book.
Woolf complains about the authors of the 19th century, saying they force characters into situations that are too clean, too perfectly story-like to feel anything like real life. I haven't read any of the specific authors she complains about, but I've read modern books that are similar and I know what she means. The characters are sacrificed to follow the plot. Characters that don't seem to have thoughts about anything but the situation at hand/their love interest/their motivations in the story are easy to read, but not very interesting or real. The Mezzanine is basically the complete opposite of that. It shows the thoughts of one character without editing them to some larger purpose, and it's definitely not afraid to show real, everyday life without any epic quests or dramatic love triangles.
In class, people wondered whether Virginia Woolf would have a problem with The Mezzanine's extreme focus on material objects and trivial social pleasantries. I don't think that would be the case. The materialism Woolf complains about is authors using external things to describe characters, trying and failing to look in from the outside. The Mezzanine's approach is the opposite, looking from the inside out. We see the material world through Howie's extremely personal voice. Furthermore, Howie adds human interest to objects that normally seem cold and impersonal, such as paper towel dispensers and shoelaces. Part of his joy comes from imagining the designers, testers, and engineers that created them, and the thoughts that must have been running through their heads.
Virginia Woolf's complaint about books of her time was that they lacked character because they were too focused on appearances. In The Mezzanine, there is no lack of character - Howie brings character to everything in the world around him, and shows his own in the process.
