It‘s a silly book that takes place over the course of a single escalator ride. Baker does a great job of stretching the brief moment out with random reflections and long footnotes
One of my favourite books… 200 pages about a bloke riding the escalator up to his office. so many musings about everyday life, great vocabulary, detours, etc. just lovely and life affirming in its mundanity
135 pages of a shallow man giving his deepest thoughts as he prepares to go up to the mezzanine level of his office building via the escalator. Topics include extended treatises on shoelaces, paper towels in the bathroom versus air dryers, and plastic straw technology. A reverse-American Psycho satire of Reagan-era business that finds its disturbing moments in the narrator's most anodyne observations.
i know… the worst guy you ever met had half this book stuffed in his messenger bag and made out like he was a genious for reading what seems like the longest book of all time. fuck that guy. it’s genuinely a good read. take it slow, dont feel pressured to get through it quickly. there‘s enough bouncing around from character to character that it doesn’t stagnate. i read it on several 5 hour plane rides over ~2 years and have had a tender place in my heart for it ever since. it’s also afaik the place where my Capitalizing for Emphasis comes from. reading it now is extra neat bc of how many little things dfw got right about the future. did i say neat i meant scary
