Practice Diction Analysis

The excerpt from Nicholson Baker's The Mezzanine is a straightforward, imigistic depiction of an escalator ride through his scholarly feeling and refined thinking. Baker draws a picture in your mind with his descriptions, "escalator of daylight" and "towering volumes." Comparing the black handrails, "like the radians of black luster," shows the way he is able to control his writing. Being more business-like than anything Nicholson describes the "integral" signs and "long glossy highlights" along side the escalator.