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Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 815.1
EAN num: 9780375706035
ISBN number: 0375706038
Label: Vintage
Manufacturer: Vintage
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 192
Printing Date: March 09, 2004
Publishing house: Vintage
Release Date: March 09, 2004
Sale Popularity Level: 241327
Studio: Vintage
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Editor's Notes and Comments:
Product Description:
Emmett has a wife and two children, a cat, and a duck, and he wants to know what life is about. Every day he gets up before dawn, makes a cup of coffee in the dark, lights a fire with one wooden match, and thinks.
What Emmett thinks about is the subject of this wise and closely observed novel, which covers vast distances while moving no further than Emmett’s hearth and home. Nicholson Baker’s extraordinary ability to describe and celebrate life in all its rich ordinariness has never been so beautifully achieved.
Amazon.com Review:
One man's simple, colloquial meditations on his past, his family, and his life's daily minutia are the substance of Nicholson Baker's A Box of Matches. Feeling that life is passing him by, Emmett, a middle-aged medical textbook editor, decides to wake up early each day to sit by a fire in his country house and record his thoughts in a diary. 'Good morning,' Emmett begins, 'it's January and its 4:17 a.m., and I'm going to sit here in the dark.' From this vantage point, Emmett reflects stream-of-consciousness style on whatever occurs to him, no matter how mundane: his recent trip to Home Depot, how he met his wife, the habits of the family duck. Routines, such as how he makes his morning coffee in the dark or picks up his underwear with his toes, are described with childlike reverence and directness. All told, nothing much happens in A Box of Matches, which seems to be the point. Baker is more interested in the idea that for many, life is made up of such apparent trivialities, and that only by pausing to appreciate them can anyone gain any lasting satisfaction. Baker emphasizes this through the moments of understated wisdom and joy that Emmett derives from ordinary occurrences, such as the daylight through the window: 'a simple light that goes everywhere but with no heat, aware that it is taken for granted and content to be so.' This is the philosophical equivalent of a one-joke premise, however, and there are moments when Emmett's naiveté and laundry list-like narrative wear thin. Likely understanding this, Baker has wisely kept things short. A curious, often charming novel, A Box of Matches will inspire some readers, while inspiring frustration in others. --Ross Doll
User popularity level:
Rated by buyers 
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This is the very first Baker novel I read, and I'm almost lost for a review. The book is an extremely fast read - I got through it in 2 days on my Kindle. The story draws you into Emmett's life, but I'm not so sure this is a good thing. Actually, the novel reminded me of my solo journey's through Europe where I drink wine, write down random thoughts in my journal, and then sum them up to my friends and family via email. They find them to be good reads and recommend I publish, but then enough say what the heck was that about? This is a unique read and recommended for that.
Rated by buyers 
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Fictional story centered around Emmett, a 44-year old Father and medical textbook editor. He gets up before dawn each morning, lights a fire and shares his reflections on lighting the fire, making coffee and other trivial and mundane thoughts that are sprinkled with some deeper reflections on himself, his family and his life.
I was moved by a number of flashing-by passages relating to his children, his parents and his own ruminations on mortality:
"Last night I washed my son's hair, thinking what I always think: How many years will be left before I have no child young enough to wash his or her hair? Phoebe takes long showers now and of course washes her own hair. The loss is enough to make you lose your composure."
However, these passages were overwhelmed by a large number of thoughts such as this one:
"The mug of coffee rests on top of the ashcan, and it gets hot on the side that it near the fire. But it stays cool on the side that I sip from. This particular mug has a blue stripe around it and a small chip in the sipping area."
I found the story verbose and overwritten with detail (and maybe that was the point in getting us to appreciate the wonder of this world. Yet I found that I had to wade too hard and too long in the inconsequential and minutia to get to the too few nuggets of pure reflection. I found this novel challenging to finish and it wasn't for me.
Rated by buyers -
This is one of those books where nothing really happens, but that's not really a bad thing! It is the story of a man who get up every morning very early, while it's still dark, to light the fire with a box of matches.
The narrative takes us through the motions of each of these mornings, and the subsequent day, through his thoughts, and via a series of flashbacks, over some of the events of his life.
Will it keep you on the edge of your seat? No. Is it worth reading for sheer skill of the storytelling? I think so
Rated by buyers -
I have read many of N.B.'s novels and essays, and he is a favorite author of mine. This novel, however, seems more like it was written by someone else in his writing style, rather than written by Baker himself. It lacks the substantive punch of his earlier works, lacks the beauty and emotion of a narrator relating to others in his world. The pet duck in the story seems more real, compelling, and finely drawn than the narrator's wife and children. (Maybe this is intentional?) In addition, whereas past Baker narrators have described the minutiae of their lives with freshness and wonder, this narrator gets pedantic. Does the reader really need to be told how a rear-window defroster works, or how to wash a dish? I think for Baker fans, this might be a disappointment. For a first-time Baker reader, however, it's a peaceful little book that might lead to his better ones.
Rated by buyers -
Count me among the many fans of Nicholson Baker's body of work. Upon very first cracking the pages of A Box of Matches I was quite pleased to discover that it is a return to the style of writing that made him famous - focusing in on the beauty of detailed minutiae within a story-arc comprised of a few reflective moments. This is the same stuff that made me love The Mezzanine and Room Temperature. In this case, our protagonist is a medical texts editor who details his early morning ritual of making a cup of coffee, starting a fire in his fireplace, and ruminating on his life. Like any piece of fiction by Baker, the descriptive details are dazzling and his use of metaphor and simile unparalleled among his peers. Those who, like me, appreciate a particularly inventive turn of phrase will find much to delight in this small book. Ultimately however, I found A Box of Matches not entirely satisfying. I think it has to do with the age of the narrator. In The Mezzanine and Room Temperature, both narrators were experiencing things both new and old, but mostly new and came at things with a palpable sense of wonderment. By contrast, the narrator in A Box of Matches seems a bit world-weary and lacks that same sense of wonderment. I think that takes away from the soul of the narrative that really shines through in the earlier two tomes. Detailed descriptions of things new and exciting make for a stirring read. Detailed descriptions of the old, the tried and true, come out a bit dull and perfunctory. It has always been a tightrope walk for Baker to make the mundane details of everyday life come alive exquisitely, and unfortunately with A Box of Matches it seems he's lost his balance.
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