Product Description

In his second novel, Baker turns a young father's feeding-time reverie into a catalog of the minutiae of domestic love.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #475081 in Books
• Published on: 1991-04-03
• Released on: 1991-04-03
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 128 pages

Amazon.com Review
Nicholson Baker writes in 360-degree Sensurround--his descriptions of the seemingly banal awakening the most jaded of senses into recognition, admiration, and amusement. In Room Temperature, his self-deprecating, endlessly curious narrator is at home giving his baby girl a bottle and allowing his mind to wander. Uppermost in his thoughts are his wife and daughter, but there is also that obsession with commas and some concern with tiny taboos like nose-picking and stealing change from his parents. Truth-telling is the operative mode; at one point he tries to get his wife to explain a doodle by quoting a review of early Yeats: "Always true is always new." Room Temperature is a rare novel of domestic pleasure and stability, with a twist. "Was there ever a limit between us? Would disgust ever outweigh love?" Baker's alter ego asks, and seems determined to find out.

From Publishers Weekly
Baker's first novel, The Mezzanine , was hailed for its minimalist conceit--the story of a lunch-hour sortie to buy shoelaces--and its exhaustive cataloging of objects encountered and thoughts entertained. For readers impressed with the precision of Baker's descriptive powers but chilled by its clinical rigor, this second novel will deliver a welcome warmth. Occasioned by a 20-minute bottle-feeding of his infant daughter "Bug," narrator Michael Beal, a young house-hus- band, transforms the sounds and textures of an autumn afternoon into an absorbed--and absorbing--reverie: "The Bug's nostril had the innocent perfection of a cheerio a tiny dry clean salty ring, with the odd but functional smallness . . . of the smooth rim around the pistil of the brass pump head that you fitted over a tire's nipple to inflate it." In a refreshing bit of candor, the narrator baldly states the author's goals: "I certainly believed, rocking my daughter on this Wednesday afternoon, that with a little concentration one's whole life could be reconstructed." In a classic pairing of form and content, meditations on the images of infancy develop into mature, if somewhat ingenuous, reflections on the transit to adulthood. This is a small masterpiece by an extraordinarily gifted young writer.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
This stunningly original novel is more like a prose poem than a work of conventional fiction. Rich in playful humor, and with an abundance of ingeniously observed detail, it describes a young father's inspired musings as he spends a quiet afternoon with his infant daughter. Baker has a poet's way of investing everyday objects and experiences with a magical, emblematic intensity (his loving description of the musical qualities of a glass peanut butter jar is truly memorable). The result is a deftly woven interplay between the narrator's childhood memories and his experience as a new parent and husband. At times, the disarming intimacy of the author's tone seems to border on the self-indulgent, but Baker is such an inventive stylist that this minor fault should be overlooked in the light of his impressive achievement. Highly recommended for all collections of fiction.
- Christine Stenstrom, New York Law Sch. Lib.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Customer Reviews

Tender, engrossing
Probably the most undeservedly overlooked of Nicholson Baker's novels, Room Temperature is a delightful, heartwarming tome.

Any attempt at synopsis would only serve to make the book sound dreadfully boring. After all, during the entire 116 pages the narrator is feeding his small child. No car chases or steamy love scenes. Just a father feeding his baby.

Rather than relying on typical, often stale plot devices, Baker relies on his considerable talent at description to maintain the reader's interest, and he succeeds in a big way. Room Temperature is touching in a way that none of his other books are. The father-child bond is explored in such breathtaking detail that one finds the book impossible to put down, despite the lack of a discernable plot.

Nicholson Baker is not for everyone. His quirky prose and lack of traditional plot lines are sure to put off many readers, but fans of Updike are sure to find a great read in Room Temperature

The Breath
Room Temperature is certainly about a father and his child, but there is so much more. In typical Baker style, he examines minutia with elucidating commentary. This, in itself, is worth reading the novel; however, the quality that makes it transcend happens to be his ability to unite the entire book with its central theme: Breath. From the comma, to the mobile in his child's room, to tuba lessons, breath pervades - breath as its metaphor to remember to cherish every moment.

I have never seen a novel so effortlessly and imperceptibly weave a central idea throughout a book. Read this novel for both it compelling insight but also for the extraordinary literary technique.

praise for attention to details in "whatever" world
I have read all of Mr.Bakers books, and with the exception of "The Everlasting Story..." (which indeed did seem to be everlasting) have read them with delight. Although he's often compared to Updike, I think he surpasses him due to his wit and his more creative sense of the strangeness of life. In "Room Temperature" we find the antidote, along with his other novels, to a modern world obsessed with speed, impersonal technology and the summational catchphrase "whatever". How wonderful it is to see an author bend his mind and spirit to the details of life with so much talent and fervor. And how wonderful to see that his books, plotless and demanding of full attention as they are, sell so well. It gives me hope for our civilization; it really does. On a sidenote - I am tired of critics and readers thinking he is cheapening his prose by writing on sexual topics. Sex is one of the most universal and fascinating and character-revealing subjects around; a great writer can make anything cerebral and holy, and a writer needs to go where his passions lie. Besides, do we really want every novel to be about rubber bands and bathroom hot air dryers?