Alphabetical Borders
The book on Borders seems to be closing, with news of the chain's woes snowballing. But, bad puns and cliches aside, the saddest notion, for me, about the Borders war is that I have to refer to the company as a chain.
Certainly, I was not above watching the publishing news warily to make sure I still had time to use my Borders gift cards_thank goodness Christmas came when it did. But the Borders I relinquished those pieces of plastic to is not the Borders I became acquainted with as a sophmore in college.
OK, now you'll know I'm old when I tell you that my first several visits to Borders occurred back when it was just the one store, on State Street in Ann Arbor, Michigan. It was, hands down, the go-to college bookstore for any student of English language and literature, whether studying at the U-M or, as I was, at Eastern Michigan University in Ypsilanti. The professors and upperclassmen told us the same thing: don't even bother to look for Thomas Pynchon's V at the campus bookstore, or Walter Abish's Alphabetical Africa, or Michael Ondaatje's Coming through Slaughter; Borders will have it.
Just recalling these titles, among others from my post-modern lit class with Paul Bruss at EMU, makes me just about weep for the creaky floor, the cramped shelving, the attic-like mezzanine level in the back half of the Borders store.
Mind you, it's been a long time since I_or anyone by now, I guess_last stepped foot inside that first Borders store, so I have just vague memories, poorly focused snapshots from which to describe the scene, but the lingering sense of browsing in this small-town, big campus storefront was one of warmth; gentle, cafe au lait-gold lighting; the smell of fairly levitating literary fiction_there's a smell to it, trust me. It would get crowded in the evenings and on weekends, a place where I never minded rubbing elbows, literally, with world-renowned scholars and Birkenstock-and-wool-sock-wearing grad students (not that I could ever tell one from the other). It was like digging in a gold mine for the treasure you knew was there. And it was so much cooler to get your books in Ann Arbor at Borders than at the dumpy EMU campus bookstore in the basement of the Union (and before that, there was that store on Cross Street, wasn't there? That place, at least, had some character, and windows).
But then there came the big gray box. Replacing the haunt of Borders the First, it imposed enduring disappointment that only multiplied the further beyond the Ann Arbor city limits it grew. After a while, I accepted the store that was no more, though I'd often feel a strong pull to avoid the gray box in favor of After Words, a reduced-price/remainder bookstore on Main Street that has even creakier floors and some equally fulfilling finds. (Full disclosure: I eventually worked at After Words for about six months before I moved to Chicago; what a treat that experience was.)
Yes, I could accept time moving on, progress marching forth, all that. I'd enjoy my infrequent visits to the Borders on North Michigan Ave in Chicago and not mind my forays into the store at State and Randolph. Then last year I stepped into a Borders store in a nearby suburb. I was distressed to see that the store was a mess. Not just a mess, with browsed books left scattered on the floor, toys and other nonbook items idling in crackpot disarray on and off the shelves, but a filthy mess. The floor was dirty, the carpet worn and dismal in appearance. The store was shabby and dingy, and the few staff who were there seemed oblivious to it.
I left the store a very sad person and waited for the news that I now knew was inevitable, that Borders had no hope of living robustly in the world of books. Sure, the mismanagement; the halting, whining dismissal of technology; the tilt-a-whirl of executives all provide concrete cause for Borders to perhaps perish. But that careless disregard for the book environment that Borders was to have taken responsibility for signaled that Borders no longer wanted my business.
I'm not sentimental (I have been known to be emotional and a fool), but I feel compelled to recall the personal side, the meeting place side (and not for coffee), the gravitational pull side of the Borders that once was. Please, any patrons of that first A2 store, share with us, if you'd like, your experience of and sensibilities regarding time spent there. I really think our collective memory, and the specter of Borders behaving badly, will usher in the re-emergence of the indie as the go-to bookstore.
Certainly, I was not above watching the publishing news warily to make sure I still had time to use my Borders gift cards_thank goodness Christmas came when it did. But the Borders I relinquished those pieces of plastic to is not the Borders I became acquainted with as a sophmore in college.
OK, now you'll know I'm old when I tell you that my first several visits to Borders occurred back when it was just the one store, on State Street in Ann Arbor, Michigan. It was, hands down, the go-to college bookstore for any student of English language and literature, whether studying at the U-M or, as I was, at Eastern Michigan University in Ypsilanti. The professors and upperclassmen told us the same thing: don't even bother to look for Thomas Pynchon's V at the campus bookstore, or Walter Abish's Alphabetical Africa, or Michael Ondaatje's Coming through Slaughter; Borders will have it.
Just recalling these titles, among others from my post-modern lit class with Paul Bruss at EMU, makes me just about weep for the creaky floor, the cramped shelving, the attic-like mezzanine level in the back half of the Borders store.
Mind you, it's been a long time since I_or anyone by now, I guess_last stepped foot inside that first Borders store, so I have just vague memories, poorly focused snapshots from which to describe the scene, but the lingering sense of browsing in this small-town, big campus storefront was one of warmth; gentle, cafe au lait-gold lighting; the smell of fairly levitating literary fiction_there's a smell to it, trust me. It would get crowded in the evenings and on weekends, a place where I never minded rubbing elbows, literally, with world-renowned scholars and Birkenstock-and-wool-sock-wearing grad students (not that I could ever tell one from the other). It was like digging in a gold mine for the treasure you knew was there. And it was so much cooler to get your books in Ann Arbor at Borders than at the dumpy EMU campus bookstore in the basement of the Union (and before that, there was that store on Cross Street, wasn't there? That place, at least, had some character, and windows).
But then there came the big gray box. Replacing the haunt of Borders the First, it imposed enduring disappointment that only multiplied the further beyond the Ann Arbor city limits it grew. After a while, I accepted the store that was no more, though I'd often feel a strong pull to avoid the gray box in favor of After Words, a reduced-price/remainder bookstore on Main Street that has even creakier floors and some equally fulfilling finds. (Full disclosure: I eventually worked at After Words for about six months before I moved to Chicago; what a treat that experience was.)
Yes, I could accept time moving on, progress marching forth, all that. I'd enjoy my infrequent visits to the Borders on North Michigan Ave in Chicago and not mind my forays into the store at State and Randolph. Then last year I stepped into a Borders store in a nearby suburb. I was distressed to see that the store was a mess. Not just a mess, with browsed books left scattered on the floor, toys and other nonbook items idling in crackpot disarray on and off the shelves, but a filthy mess. The floor was dirty, the carpet worn and dismal in appearance. The store was shabby and dingy, and the few staff who were there seemed oblivious to it.
I left the store a very sad person and waited for the news that I now knew was inevitable, that Borders had no hope of living robustly in the world of books. Sure, the mismanagement; the halting, whining dismissal of technology; the tilt-a-whirl of executives all provide concrete cause for Borders to perhaps perish. But that careless disregard for the book environment that Borders was to have taken responsibility for signaled that Borders no longer wanted my business.
I'm not sentimental (I have been known to be emotional and a fool), but I feel compelled to recall the personal side, the meeting place side (and not for coffee), the gravitational pull side of the Borders that once was. Please, any patrons of that first A2 store, share with us, if you'd like, your experience of and sensibilities regarding time spent there. I really think our collective memory, and the specter of Borders behaving badly, will usher in the re-emergence of the indie as the go-to bookstore.
"the smell of fairly levitating literary fiction"--brilliant! I'm with you--there's a smell to bookstores and books and gone but not forgotten days. Let's hope the indie bookstores come back and those that exist stay open.
ReplyDelete