Plot Schmot, Mr. Bigshot: A Box of Matches by Nicholson Baker

In her 2003 review of A Box of Matches, Salon.com writer Amy Reiter nominated novelist Nicholson Baker for the title of "Grand Poo-bah of the High Art of Navel-Gazing." She meant it as a compliment, since "no one gets more out of his navel- and head and life and ever-evolving sense of time and space- than Baker. A Box of Matches is basically just a really lovely and almost plotless novel about our ordinary and short lives.

Emmett, the narrator in Baker's novel, wakes up every morning before dawn, makes coffee in the dark, builds a fire in the dark, and then sits in front of that fire and thinks. It's his "fire journal" that we're reading. What does a married medical textbook editor with two children, a cat, and a duck think about? Well, his growing children, belly button lint, and death, obviously.

Emmett on his growing children, sparked by noticing his son's ability to touch both ends of the bathtub: "I remember how proud Phoebe was to be able to touch both ends of the tub, too—‘Nice growing!’ I said to her. And I even remember how proud I was myself to touch both ends of the tub.”

Emmett on belly button lint: "While I stretched...my hand strayed under my pajama top and my middle finger found its way to my belly button where it discovered some lint. I rolled the lint into a tube, as one does, and having done so, I became curious about what such a tube would look like if burned. I tossed it into one of the spaes between the coals. It went orange for a moment, fattened, and then darkened. It is still there now but it will be lost when I stir the coals."

In Baker's hands, a passage about burning belly button lint becomes one about the unrelenting passage of time. His fires, in fact, represent not only destruction, but also the search for warmth and love, as well as for some sense of our own purpose and our desire for a lasting impact. Don't believe me? Here's Emmett history and death, being completely direct:

"The ungraspableness of history, which can seem thrilling or frightening depending on your mood, can assert itself at any moment. I just found another small bedroll of lint in my automatic lint-accumulator and I tossed it into the fire; there was an almost imperceptible flare of differently colored fire--ah! lint fire!--and it was gone. That is part of why I like looking at those burning logs: they seem like years of life to me. All the particulars are consumed and left as ash, but warm and life-giving as they burn."

There's something really comforting about this book. It's nice to take a break from the constant fear of being bland and unremarkable, and just enjoy the beauty of the ordinary.