"Practice Diction Analysis"

In the excerpt from his novel The Merranine, Nicholson Baker's slightly elevated and business like diction describes the flat, cold escalators in his place of employment. Baker describes the walls around the elevators and how they "form by intersections of the lobby's towering volumes of marble and glass."  He makes it seem like there is nothing out of the norm everyday when he goes up and down the elevators.  Baker talks about the "black rubber handrails which wavered slightly as the handrails slid on their tracks".  He describes them in great detail but he seems so business like and boring as he talks about it, like he's always in a business mode because he's at his work.  He almost feels trapped by the escalators that he rides up and down everyday because it will never change and nothing will ever be out of the norm.