Nicholson Baker
Author of The Mezzanine
About the Author
Nicholson Baker lives in Maine. Nicholson Baker was born in New York City on January 7, 1957. He briefly attended the Eastman School of Music before receiving a B.A. in philosophy from Haverford College. He is the author of both fiction and nonfiction works including The Mezzanine (1988); Room show more Temperature (1990); Vox (1992); The Fermata (1994); The Everlasting Story of Nory (1998); Checkpoint (2004); and The Anthologist (2009). His nonfiction work, Double Fold: Libraries and the Assault on Paper, won a National Book Critics Circle Award in 2001. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Image credit: Nicholson Baker at the Edinburgh International Book Festival, 24 août 2009
Series
Works by Nicholson Baker
Human Smoke: The Beginnings of World War II, the End of Civilization (2008) 1,001 copies, 34 reviews
The World on Sunday : Graphic Art in Joseph Pulitzer's Newspaper (1898 - 1911) (2005) 112 copies, 4 reviews
Baseless: My Search for Secrets in the Ruins of the Freedom of Information Act (2020) 63 copies, 1 review
Subsoil [short fiction] 3 copies
"Deadline: The Author's Desperate Bid to Save America's Past." New Yorker, July 24, 2000, pp. 42-61. 2 copies
Author vs. the Library 1 copy
The Mezzanine 1 copy
Глас 1 copy
Associated Works
For the Love of Books: 115 Celebrated Writers on the Books They Love Most (1999) — Contributor — 479 copies, 4 reviews
The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror: Eighth Annual Collection (1995) — Contributor — 331 copies, 6 reviews
War No More: Three Centuries of American Antiwar and Peace Writing (2016) — Contributor — 110 copies, 2 reviews
Significant Objects: 100 Extraordinary Stories about Ordinary Things (2012) — Contributor — 65 copies, 1 review
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Birthdate
- 1957-01-07
- Gender
- male
- Education
- Eastman School of Music
Haverford College (B.A.|1979) - Occupations
- novelist
non-fiction writer
essayist - Organizations
- American Newspaper Repository (founder)
- Awards and honors
- Katherine Anne Porter Award (2004)
James Madison Freedom of Information Award (1997)
Calw Hermann Hesse Prize (2014)
National Book Critics Circle Award (2001) - Agent
- Melanie Jackson
- Nationality
- USA
- Birthplace
- New York, New York, USA
- Places of residence
- South Berwick, Maine, USA
New York, New York, USA
Rochester, New York, USA - Map Location
- New York, USA
Members
Reviews
An office-worker goes out to buy replacement shoelaces in his lunch-hour. With footnotes.
That’s basically it — a glorious, subtly-funny 130-page study of the trivial thoughts that fill our minds for most of the day. Staplers, escalators, office washroom fittings, the way store cashiers put things into bags, the ritual of office banter, and the eternal mystery of how and when shoelaces choose to fail. And a celebration of the joys of excessively-footnoted text.
That’s basically it — a glorious, subtly-funny 130-page study of the trivial thoughts that fill our minds for most of the day. Staplers, escalators, office washroom fittings, the way store cashiers put things into bags, the ritual of office banter, and the eternal mystery of how and when shoelaces choose to fail. And a celebration of the joys of excessively-footnoted text.
… the great scholarly orshow more
anecdotal footnotes of Lecky, Gibbon, or Boswell, written by the author of the book himself to supplement, or even correct over several later editions, what he says in the primary text, are reassurances that the pursuit of truth doesn't have clear outer boundaries: it doesn't end with the book; restatement and self-disagreement and the enveloping sea of referenced authorities all continue. Footnotes are the finer-suckered surfaces that allow tentacular paragraphs to hold fast to the wider reality of the library.show less
ZERO stars, actually, but there is no way to indicate that and I don't want anyone to think I didn't leave a rating!
This is the most maddening, dishonest book I have perhaps ever read--especially considering the importance of the subject. From a world of possible texts, Baker selects those that best demonize the British, such as accounts of apparently every bomb that missed its target, and leaves out essential facts, such as the Japanese invasion and occupation of Manchuria and the show more Hitler-Stalin pact, to somehow hint that Britain and America were mostly responsible for the length and horrors of WW2, including the Holocaust, which could have just been avoided by accepting peace with Germany and Japan.
A case in point: I'm disturbed at Baker's sections that describe China and Japan. They give the impression that somehow China was provoking Japan by having American assistance, by buying planes, etc. What is totally missing from Baker's book is that Japan had already invaded and occupied part of China--Manchuria--in 1932 and created the puppet state of Manchukuo (nominally ruled by Pu Yi, the now-grown Last Emperor as you may recall from the Bertolucci film). Therefore, it isn't any surprise that China might be a bit wary and looking to defend itself against the expansionist Japanese. To his credit, Baker does include the Japanese Rape of Nanking (Nanjing), but without the proper context, the truth of what happened is missing.
Context is a big issue throughout the book. This is not to say that it doesn't contain some interesting parts and some truth. I'm assuming that each entry is at least accurate in its depiction, so it lets us see what was being said by a variety of observers, including Western pacifists, a very naive Mahatma Gandhi, and people within the territory of the German Reich. Certainly, the sections that deal with Franklin Roosevelt's anti-Semitism are well-founded. And Baker loves to point out every folly of Winston Churchill, such as his initial admiration for Mussolini and Hitler. Churchill indeed got a lot wrong, but in the end, he helped save Britain and Western Civilization, as a much better book, Erik Larson's "The Splendid and the Vile" demonstrates. By any account, however, the Western indifference to the plight of the Jews that Baker highlights is appalling.
There is a second unforgivable omission: As he describes the lead-up to the German invasion of Poland, Baker totally neglects to mention the pact between Hitler and Stalin to divide the country up! I certainly hope no one is reading this book as their first introduction to World War II. Their understanding would be hopelessly muddled. Later, he mentions that Hitler talks about going to war against the Soviet Union because it is a potential ally of Britain--again without pointing out that up until the Nazi invasion, the Soviet Union was a nominal ally of Germany!
Ideally, one should separate politics from literature. Baker can be an interesting author; "The Mezzanine" is a classic of small details, for instance. But "Human Smoke" is such a treacherous, despicable pack of lies that I wouldn't be able to read anything else he has written with any amount of objectivity. show less
This is the most maddening, dishonest book I have perhaps ever read--especially considering the importance of the subject. From a world of possible texts, Baker selects those that best demonize the British, such as accounts of apparently every bomb that missed its target, and leaves out essential facts, such as the Japanese invasion and occupation of Manchuria and the show more Hitler-Stalin pact, to somehow hint that Britain and America were mostly responsible for the length and horrors of WW2, including the Holocaust, which could have just been avoided by accepting peace with Germany and Japan.
A case in point: I'm disturbed at Baker's sections that describe China and Japan. They give the impression that somehow China was provoking Japan by having American assistance, by buying planes, etc. What is totally missing from Baker's book is that Japan had already invaded and occupied part of China--Manchuria--in 1932 and created the puppet state of Manchukuo (nominally ruled by Pu Yi, the now-grown Last Emperor as you may recall from the Bertolucci film). Therefore, it isn't any surprise that China might be a bit wary and looking to defend itself against the expansionist Japanese. To his credit, Baker does include the Japanese Rape of Nanking (Nanjing), but without the proper context, the truth of what happened is missing.
Context is a big issue throughout the book. This is not to say that it doesn't contain some interesting parts and some truth. I'm assuming that each entry is at least accurate in its depiction, so it lets us see what was being said by a variety of observers, including Western pacifists, a very naive Mahatma Gandhi, and people within the territory of the German Reich. Certainly, the sections that deal with Franklin Roosevelt's anti-Semitism are well-founded. And Baker loves to point out every folly of Winston Churchill, such as his initial admiration for Mussolini and Hitler. Churchill indeed got a lot wrong, but in the end, he helped save Britain and Western Civilization, as a much better book, Erik Larson's "The Splendid and the Vile" demonstrates. By any account, however, the Western indifference to the plight of the Jews that Baker highlights is appalling.
There is a second unforgivable omission: As he describes the lead-up to the German invasion of Poland, Baker totally neglects to mention the pact between Hitler and Stalin to divide the country up! I certainly hope no one is reading this book as their first introduction to World War II. Their understanding would be hopelessly muddled. Later, he mentions that Hitler talks about going to war against the Soviet Union because it is a potential ally of Britain--again without pointing out that up until the Nazi invasion, the Soviet Union was a nominal ally of Germany!
Ideally, one should separate politics from literature. Baker can be an interesting author; "The Mezzanine" is a classic of small details, for instance. But "Human Smoke" is such a treacherous, despicable pack of lies that I wouldn't be able to read anything else he has written with any amount of objectivity. show less
This chronological collection of anecdotes documenting the lead-up into WWII adds up to a profound argument for pacifism. What emerges is not a Good War of Allies vs Axis but rather a global tragedy brought about by warmongers on all sides--Hitler's crazed aggression is joined by the distressingly Cheneyesque lies and manipulations of Churchill and even FDR.
There's the failure of the allies to allow more Jewish emigration out of Germany before it was too late, the multi-year British naval show more blockade to starve Germany and then occupied Europe, the American naval oil embargo on Japan and military collaboration with Japan's enemy China, FDR's decision to leave the entire American fleet holed up at Pearl Harbor despite numerous warnings that a Japanese attack was inevitable, and much more. There are also sane and reasonable pacifist voices, notably Gandhi, the American congresswoman Jeannette Rankin and numerous relief societies--even Herbert Hoover, who argued against the food embargos, sounds a note of humanity.
My one gripe is that the book wholly consists of discrete chunks, usually just a paragraph or so long, which are separated by far too much white space--probably half the paper surface in the paperback edition is blank. Seems like a waste and making the book about 40% bigger and heavier than it need be. show less
There's the failure of the allies to allow more Jewish emigration out of Germany before it was too late, the multi-year British naval show more blockade to starve Germany and then occupied Europe, the American naval oil embargo on Japan and military collaboration with Japan's enemy China, FDR's decision to leave the entire American fleet holed up at Pearl Harbor despite numerous warnings that a Japanese attack was inevitable, and much more. There are also sane and reasonable pacifist voices, notably Gandhi, the American congresswoman Jeannette Rankin and numerous relief societies--even Herbert Hoover, who argued against the food embargos, sounds a note of humanity.
My one gripe is that the book wholly consists of discrete chunks, usually just a paragraph or so long, which are separated by far too much white space--probably half the paper surface in the paperback edition is blank. Seems like a waste and making the book about 40% bigger and heavier than it need be. show less
An unusual and illuminating work. Personally I like the "snippet" approach as it gives a sense of relentless progression that fully rounded historical narratives rarely do. And as an alternative view of the march to war it is an eye opener. Personally I don't think Baker is trying to contend that "the pacificists were right", simply that there were possible paths to peace that were ignored, and the plans to subdue Japan way before Pearl Harbour is probably the most surprising theme. Of show more course its no surprise that some of the most venerated war leaders were hardly without flaws especially Churchill. And non of the bombing enthusiasts come out of the narrative well. show less
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Statistics
- Works
- 30
- Also by
- 14
- Members
- 14,363
- Popularity
- #1,596
- Rating
- 3.6
- Reviews
- 357
- ISBNs
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- Favorited
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