A 30 Somethings' Reflection On The Modern Day Bookstore
Sula PeaceEven though I would consider myself a healthy reader of literature, I am not one to purchase books often. I like to borrow books from my friends, who usually guarantee my enjoyment, or I check out classic pieces I should have read long ago from the library. So my recent trip to Borders Books Store proved to be a very shocking experience for me.
First, I walked around for about ten minutes looking at the sections of the store. I found it very puzzling. What meeting of what type of employees decided how to organize this store? What research questions or suggestions from any marketing company caused the sections to end up the way they currently are? The literature section consists of only two bookshelves in the back corner of the store, while the mystery section was about four double wide rows in the front of the store. Is this really what people are reading? Mystery novels. Is this what I have to create to become a best selling author in America? Can crime drama be my only way to reach a million dollars? Is this the same population of people who view all the crime dramas currently on tv? CSI, NCIS, SVU, Law and Order, Criminal Behavior…etc. What type of world will I have to raise my children in? If everyone is obsessed with death and all of the gruesome details associated with it, what lessons will my children be learning? Oh, I have only been in the store ten minutes and my head is already spinning.
Next, I studied the two shelves of books that someone at Borders deemed literature, to see if my opinion agreed with theirs. (And if so, how can I get a job doing this? Is this a six figure paying job?) As I scanned the section, I saw many titles that are included in most high school curricula. But the thing was the covers of these novels were designed to attract students in 2010, not me. Oh my, what shock! Black covers with neon pink, scary font declaring Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Even a new version of the beat up old copy of My Antonia I had picked up in the back of someone’s classroom, was staring at me from the shelf. My edition had a worn cover with about ten names listed inside dating all the way back to my own time in high school. The picture on my cover was a faded, tattered watercolor. But the book on Border’s shelf looked nothing like it. A glossy panoramic picture of Nebraska’s peaceful plains stared back at me. Challenging me, Are we the same book inside? All of a sudden I didn’t know.
Over in the children’s section the same experience. Covers of books I grew up on: Babysitters Club, Little House on the Prairie, Ramona Quimby Age 8 all glared at me with their shiny covers. Did I even read this same version? I had my doubts.
Perplexed at the new mysteriousness of this store they call Borders, I resigned myself to the fact that there was a new book game in town and I had no part in its creation. I most certainly did not want to give my money to this institution, which was so obviously trying to play games with the literature in my head. I hold this area as concentrated memory storage. I did not appreciate anyone, not even Borders, trampling all over its blessed memory. I gathered my purchases and headed to the register (I still had to use one of the gift cards in my wallet before it expired.) As I was checking out, a customer approached and asked about a book her daughter was required to read for her Honors English class. The Stranger or something like that. The boy at the register looked dumbfounded. No, he has never heard of that book before. Camus was on the tip of my tongue. I could show off my literary knowledge to help a fellow English student (or her mother in the least). But before I could get it out, the thirty something girl behind the counter calls out “C A M U S, Camus, Albert Camus” And I was saved. My faith in the literary cannon continues! Someone besides a dorky, English teacher knows this book. This woman at Borders was more than just a cashier. I knew in my heart she was a lover of the written word just the same as me. And my heart was happy. Borders is lucky that this employee waited on this customer, or a customer no more I would have become.
A bookstore can mix and remix it collections of books. It can divide each category into little aisles, it can reissue Romeo and Juliet in a hundred colors, each one brighter than the next, but it will never be able to do so to the book lover in me! But just to make sure, I ran back to check my favorite line in Romeo and Juilet. And there it was, as beautiful as ever.
O, swear not by the moon, the inconstant moon,
That monthly changes in her circled orb,
Lest that thy love prove likewise variable.
Reader Comments (5)
What is scary is that a "modern" bookstore like a Borders or Barnes and Nobles may soon become as relevant as modern record store. With devices like Kindle and the iPad, as well as internet magazines and such...the days actually turning the paper pages in your hand may very well be seeing an endpoint.
I think though that Barnes and Nobles does do a better job of advertising where its "classic literature" section is located and pointed out. And they serve Starbucks...always a plus.
Well-written humorous piece.... Lemme answer some of your questions:
"What research questions or suggestions from an marketing company caused the sections to end up the way they currently are?"
It's simple supply and demand. If you have a moronic populace that demands to voraciously consume crap, you'll get rows and rows of consumeristic garbage, and only a few rows of actual "literature."
"Can crime drama be my only way to reach a million dollars?"
Probably. Who knows? Making a million dollars, however, should never be the goal of any serious writer, artist, musician, etc. Create art merely for the sake of art. If it finds an audience, then so much the better...
"What type of world will I have to raise my children in? If everyone is obsessed with death and all of the gruesome details associated with it, what lessons will my children be learning?"
This is gonna be a fun one to answer.... A) Don't have kids, the world is a dying dung heap. B) If you do have kids, what will your kids learn? They will learn that they were born into a moribund culture where corpse evangelists daily take to the stage to pontificate in absurd, puerile, pugnacious, and rambling diatribes, and they call it "News" broadcasts... They will learn that virtue is dead, and the Tao has been lost for ages. They will learn that women are valued as mere sex objects, and masculinity can be measured solely by muscle and phallus size. They will know pain, hopelessness, and despair. They will slowly watch the world die around them. They will watch the seas die. They will the watch global climate shift. They will watch on TV as massive famines hit the third world. They will learn, also via the media, that it's not important to actually care - what's important is to pretend to care while they buy more stuff, even though it's made in the third world. They will learn that their worth as a person is determined by the amount of material objects they can accumulate... they will learn to try to fill the void in their souls via material possessions... they will learn all this and more. Thus I repeat my original position: A) don't have kids
Shaman stakes the course of human civilization as reflected in Zula Peace's observations of man's greatest achievement: literature. Two roads diverged -- no doubt -- do they even have poetry sections in book stores now?
One of the fears I always get before the holidays and birthdays is that someone will get me a gift card. I am an avid reader and my family knows this, but they can not begin to realize the trepidation their kind offereing gives me. Too many books give me the feeling that there is not enough time. The gift cards often fill up in my kitchen drawer unused, not because I don't appreciate them, but because if I use them, I will realize how large a mountain, like Zula Peace, I have to climb to fully appreciate the art form of writing and worst, the exploitation and ridiculous nature of its marketing scheme that publishers use to attract readers away from the "boob tube" (my dad's old cant).
I need to borrow books from friends. I need a conversation after the book with someone who has read it. I need to share books and give them away to friends. I need to question why I read even before I read. I want to share beers with random people with the only connection is the book.
Your observations could have been mine, but your tone was light and understanding, as you display your wisdom of literature because you understand its value and its misunderstanding. Can capitalism ever treat literature of reading with respect? One walk through Borders or BN or any box store tells us.
The Library is still for me. There I feel a element of respect and conversation. You have inspired me to look for those cards and try to go back to a book store. I will look for the poetry section and blow it all, just so maybe a poet can eat. I would give you a million dollars for your thoughts. Thanks for the adventure that I will probably do during my lunch break. Maybe I'll come back and write down more thoughts on the topic.
Let us not be too quick to forget the value of the book store and its employees in all their 21st century gothic, emo-hybrid attire. Your piece ends with a glimmer of hope, that there are in fact people who have no need to know such obscure literary facts as Albert Camus being the writer of The Stranger, but they do any way. Maybe because they read it in high school and it surprisingly had an impact, or have been asked about it by hundreds or even thousands of other dubious parents and therefore know it by the virtue of its obscurity and the necessity of their job. Or maybe, just maybe, there are still individuals out there that admire the fire of our conscience and the core of our civilization- literature. And regardless of all the colors and glimmering covers used to allure and sell readers, the words are still the same and carry with them meaning beyond the mere tawdry superficial of life.
Either way, you are right to point out that this is a good thing, as most seemingly small acts are, and one that should truly be valued more than Shaman would have you believe. There is hope misanthropic, there is hope!
That is all I want is a little hope to pass on to Albatross and Dominic! Thanks Patrick