Diffrences between Mrs. Dalloway and The Mezzanine

In my previous blog, I talked about the major similarities between Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway and Nicholson Baker’s The Mezzanine. But like in every story there is a beginning and an end, there are similarities and differences in two texts as well.  A major difference which can be spotted immediately in reading both the books is the different styles of writing probably due to the different time periods. While Mrs. Dalloway was published in the 1925, The Mezzanine was published in 1988. Logically therefore, there are distinct changes in the manner that both books are written. But also, Virginia Woolf’s writing is a bit more confusing. At several instances, I was confused whether it was some character speaking or Woolf. In the Mezzanine, as it is all told through Howie, we are never in doubt of who is saying what. Also, many times, I thought that in his footnotes Baker was being just descriptive, however, that is not the case in Woolf’s writing. Her passages are always including other things than just material object description such as other character's consciousness, their thoughts and opinions about others, and their life around them.

In addition, The Mezzanine is told in the first person perspective, with Howie giving a sort of autobiography about his past. On the other side of the spectrum, Mrs. Dalloway is told in the third person perspective. In The Mezzanine, we are simply recounted ( I really have no idea how to phrase this) a story in Howie’s perspective while in Mrs.Dalloway, we get the perspective of so many different characters by getting into their head as well as the narrators’.There is also the obvious difference of the time periods: Mrs. Dalloway takes course over a day and The Mezzanine takes course over a much shorter 30 seconds.