Howie's Views of the Emerging Technology: Hand Dryers vs Paper Towels

While reading The Mezzanine, I loved receiving Howie’s interpretations for the new emerging technology of the time. This passage shows us Howie’s, and possibly many others’, views of the hand dryer vs paper towels specifically:

“Meanwhile, are people truly content to be using the hot-air blower? You hit the mushroom of metal that turns it on and, as the instructions recommend, you Rub Hands Gently under the dry blast. But to dry them even as thoroughly as a single paper towel would dry them in four seconds, you must supplicate under the droning funnel for thirty seconds, much longer than anyone has patience for; inevitably you exit flicking water from your fingers, while the blower continues to heat the room. In case you do decide to stand for the full count, the manufacturer (World Dryer Corporation) has provided a short silk-screened text to read to pass the time.” (88)

I found this passage especially interesting because it shows Howie's views towards emerging everyday technology. He sees hand dryers as a waste of energy and time. However, there is a very important aspect that Howie didn’t realize but we do today: environmental friendliness. In the present, hand dryers are becoming more popular to conserve paper and waste. This is something that, as we can see, Howie didn’t realize. We can also question the amount of awareness of this particular topic during this time period. How much did people realize the importance of conserving our environment? Were the hand dryers initially implemented for convenience, the spread of technology in our everyday lives, environmental factors, or the combination of some/all of these things?

I believe that Howie thinks hand dryers were implemented for the simple spread of technology in our everyday lives. He never mentions being environmentally friendly and specifically says that they are inconvenient. After the quoted passage, he goes on to say: “but when I was little it bespoke the awesome oracular intentionality of prophets whose courage and confidence allowed them to scrap the old ways and start fresh” (88-89). This shows that he believes society is trying to “start fresh” by implementing new technology.


I think I liked this passage so much because it shows us how an everyday person in that time period viewed the new technology and how different it is from our views today. It is also a passage that includes some major aspects of the Nicholson Baker writing style. There is the metaphor of the “mushroom of metal” as well as the long run-on sentence in the middle. I also found this passage to be comical and relatable which are more aspects of Baker's style. For me, this passage not only exemplified key aspects of the writing style throughout the book, but gave us a subtle insight into the thoughts of the people during this time period. 

Comments

  1. CatalinAugust 26, 2017 at 12:34 PM

    I like the connection that you made between Howie and Nicholson Baker's perceptions of the world and how those fit in with the time the novel was written in. I find I often forget that people have had different opinions about things that nowadays seem so clear, such as global warming. When reading books you often assume things are just the way they are now, because you are looking for ways to relate to characters. Since The Mezzanine was written in the 80s, Nicholson Baker, and then by association Howie too, will have had a lot of the same beliefs that people had then, which is nice to keep in mind while reading.

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  2. TinaAugust 28, 2017 at 12:22 PM

    Reading your blogpost really made me wonder what sort of things we may now be ambivalent (or even a bit hostile) towards today, that will prove to be actually beneficial in some way tomorrow (not literally tomorrow, of course). I really like how you're taking the novel and what it depicts, and wondering about the society at large at that time, and if similar views were common (it really reminds me of what Mr. Leff's RCG 20c class does). I wouldn't have thought about this sort of question otherwise. In a similar vein, your post also makes me question where exactly Baker got the inspiration for Howie's opinions from (I think it'd be too much of a stretch to include way of thinking and nuances). From himself? The people at that time? From his imagination?

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  3. SolomiaAugust 28, 2017 at 2:46 PM

    You bring up an interesting point, I hadn’t really thought about how for Howie, this wasn’t about environmental friendliness. Looking at this from a historical point of view, I guess this may show a bit of generational difference between us and Howie. Millennial and Post-Millennial generations have all grown up with the ideas of clean energy and Reuse-Reduce-Recycle, these things were taught to us since we were elementary school kids. For Howie, his childhood was one of a different technological innovation from ours. Where for us, things are advertised as “energy-efficient”, “eco-friendly”, or “recyclable”, for Howie, things were advertised as “new” “powerful” and “modern”. Growing up in what I presume was the late 60s, lots of things were quickly changing, and Americans were generally caught up in and excited about that change, with a lack of consciousness about the environment that would later come back and haunt them. I guess Howie really shows here the average consumer in the 80s.

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  4. AlbertAugust 30, 2017 at 12:33 PM

    I agree with your idea that Howie is critical to modern day technologies. For us, hand-dryers are everywhere and we don't think much about it. However, analyzing Howie's different perspective is an interesting way to rethink the benefits and drawbacks of technologies that we take for granted. Also, it's interesting that you bring up the correlation of the time period and the comments Howie makes. It's easy to look over this information while reading, but the time period is important to recognize. I enjoyed that part of your blog.

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