The Clean Background Effect In The Mezzanine 

    The Mezzanine is a simultaneously complex and simple book, however the entire book can't work without a concept that Nicolas Baker introduced in the book called the white background effect. On page 38 Baker introduces the concept saying "When I was little I used to be very interested in the fact that anything, no matter how rough, rusted, dirty, or otherwise discredited it was, looked good if you set it down on a stretch of white cloth, or any kind of clean background. The definition that Baker gives of the clean background explains to the reader how the book flows as smoothly as it does, to the point where it seems artistic; the theory that Baker gives the reader reveals that it's not so much the content that matters, it's what surrounds the content that makes it appealing to the reader. Howie does this with all of his seemingly pointless memories however it always leaves an interesting un-thought of epiphany of the little stuff that tends to go unnoticed.

   When reading the book the common feeling between picking up and restarting where you last left off of the book is normally a difficult task because usually you decide to stop reading because the book left you at an under stimulated part of the plot which leaves you with the sense of procrastination that gets prolonged the more you wait to pick up the book and continue reading to return to the "good part" of that book. The Mezzanine does the same thing, and between each paragraph the common feeling is the "oh boy is he really going to go here about something so trivial" usually the answer is yes; however the trivial subject he goes on a tangent always has a different type of background that you typically haven't considered because of the background of that inconsequential subject. For example when Howie begins to dry his hands he mentions the luxury of having the best types of paper towels. "The paper towels themselves were the best kind: Nearly a foot wide, waivly embossed, white, folded with two flaps for easy removal - it was an honor to use them."(page 87). He proceeds to spend most of chapter 11 disclosing the different types of paper towels and blow dryers and the cons of each one of them. Howie's analysis of these paper towels has already been made by most readers subconsciously throughout our day to day lives with many bathroom trips in all sorts of places either around the city, the country, or the world, yet the reader finds that Howie's analysis of these paper towels are so accurate that it feels like he describes the thoughts of what the reader has previously experienced. It's the same feeling one would get when a friend or a teacher gives a word about a very niche experience. In a way the subconscious mind is the subject and the "subject" (in this case the paper towels) become the background because of how familiarized we become with the subject. 

    In conclusion The Mezzanine takes many trivial day to day moments in life and flips those moments on their heads creating a new angle to view day to day life. By utilizing a "clean background" Howie reverses the day to day habits that most people develop in their cycle and digs deep into those habits showing how much thought we actually put into our actions that we don't even notice because we do it so often. Utilizing the clean background, the book functions in a way that brings the reader so much insight into the little things in life, that it allows the book to be written the way it is.