The Death of Civilization

"The Death of Civilization" has nothing to do with Donald Trump's early April statement about military action in Iran. Others, far more surgical than I, have applied sharp scalpels to those comments already.

No, this is about books.

More specifically, about what is happening to books. As in... their demise.

The downfall of reading

Some notes on the post below:

True — I once taught this guy who could distinguish book publishers by smell, quite the party trick. After graduation, the young man found a job as a librarian. For him perhaps like working in a perfume shop.

This column ran in 2013. I have since undergone "the change." Meaning I now read nothing but ebooks. It was either that or move to a bigger house.

Besides, with smartphone and Kindle app in hand, I now find I have a bookstore with me wherever I go. I can read anything, anywhere at any time. More than books then, this column hints at the demise of reading.

And if you haven't bought one of my Kindle ebooks yet, what's up? I promise it won't make your phone any heavier. Think of it like buying me a cup of coffee via Amazon. I'll buy you one back whenever we meet. Deal? Plus... you know... you can even read them.

I am not an Amazon fan oh so much, but with English books in Japan in short supply, I admit I browse their selections often.

The Southern Paiutes were the Native American tribe that once roamed the area of current day Las Vegas.

I have been to Vegas more than once but this is from the time when I almost died there — twice in the same day. That's a Japan Times column for the future.

SF writer and book-lover Ray Bradbury's most renowned novel is Fahrenheit 451, a dystopian tale about a dark age in which all books are burned.

If you flew into the Las Vegas airport in the 90s or the first dozen or so years of our current century, you might well recall the bookstore I mention here. It was marvelous. Not the kind of store one often finds at an airport. The place was packed with high quality titles, fiction and non-fiction both. And, indeed, I walked in on the very morning they closed it down.

This time my title and that of The Japan Times are the same.

---

The Death of Civilization

Jun 22, 2013

I once had this Japanese student who could tell a book's publisher from the smell.

He would close his eyes, crush a paperback into his face and inhale. Deeply. As if sucking down a cold beer after a hot day on the street.

And he would sigh and pronounce: "Ah… this is a Kodansha." Or: "Oh my, a Kadokawa. How sweet."

I myself do not possess such fine-tuning. But books fill all my shelves, so much that my wife complains our house may collapse. She urges me to "edit" them down.

Yet that would be like kicking out a friend, an act I am loath to do.

And while my personal schnoz cannot tell a Penguin from a Doubleday, I too enjoy the delicious odor of a book. I also like the feel, the sound of ruffling pages, and the clean sight of black ink on white paper. No e-readers for me.

Thus Japan — which still has a bookstore at almost every train station — would seem to be my paradise. For here, print culture continues to persevere in the face of nonstop digital assaults. At least for the moment.

The problem? I need English books and those stores are not quite at every station. And Amazon — God bless it — cannot yet let me touch, hold and smell.

So when I make a trip home to the States, a nice bookstore is one of my prime targets. And, yes, they are getting harder to find.

Especially on my last trip. Which had me landing in Las Vegas.

How I got to Vegas is another story. The upshot is I had a full day in Sin City to do exactly what I like to do best: hunt for books.

The concierge at my hotel had to ask me twice. "You want what?"

"A bookstore," I said. Over my shoulder showed the never-sleeping glitz of the casino.

"You want what?" she asked yet again. But then shook herself and said there had indeed been a bookstore on the strip in years past. Her pupils grew, as if she were gazing into history and the noble days of the Southern Paiutes.

"But now you'll have to take a cab into the city."

A notion I scoffed at. "Oh surely, somewhere on this enormous strip of hotels and arcades, I'm going to find some books!"

"Wanna bet?" she said. A wager I accepted in spirit, not dollars.

So I was off into the dry Nevada air. You can already guess what I didn't find. Here's what I did:

I found Darth Vader, Spiderman, Sponge Bob and more, all willing to say "Cheese!" for loose change. I found lines of men offering me "Girls, Girls, Girls" and their phone numbers on handy, wallet-sized cards. I found every retiree in North America, mincing along in search of the next buffet.

And I found a befuddled concierge at each hotel/casino I stopped at on the long Las Vegas strip.

"You want what?"

"It's called a 'book.' You know… it has a cover. And in between are words that tell a story. No pictures. No CG. Just words."

"Are you sure you don't mean, 'bookie?' "

Finally, at a Walgreen's I found a thin rack of romances, with about 50 words per printed page. I bought some chapstick instead. Helpful with the dry air and with headier reading material on the label.

I trudged back to my hotel, thinking Sin City was truly sinful. The tackiness and sleaze I didn't mind. But… no books?

Here was a place where books had been extinguished not by fire but by slot machines. Somewhere, Ray Bradbury was spinning in his grave.

Yet, I had an ace in the hole. A proud bookstore I had spied at the airport on the way in. In the morning, I would depart two hours early and gorge myself within.

At 9:00 a.m. I stepped into that store to be stopped by a man with both hands raised.

"Sorry. We're closed."

More than closed. They were shutting down — forever. Behind him, workers were sticking books into cardboard boxes.

"Not enough sales," he said. "It's the times we live in."

"Can't you let me browse for just a minute? Please?"

He could not. In fact, all he could do was commiserate.

"It's the end of civilization," he told me. "As we know it."

I sunk my sorrows in some airport coffee. Shoeless, beltless, hopeless, I slumped my way through the security check to my departure gate. Thinking: "I guess I'll just read my chapstick."

And there — beyond security, beyond the glitz, beyond the tomb of civilization — stood a bookstore. Small to be sure, yet with more than enough menu for the starving.

As if leaving the Las Vegas strip meant reentering the civilized world.

"Can I help you?" said the clerk, unaware I was thinking of buying her out.

"Maybe later," I said and then inhaled.

"First," I told her, "all I want to do is smell."

In a better world

© Thomas Noah Wood

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