COLUMN: Wandering into the book wars

From Binyamin Appelbaum's, "Carving Marble," Fall '99 From Binyamin Appelbaum's, "Carving Marble," Fall '99You have to feel sorry for Amazon.com. The on-line bookseller never even saw the train coming down the tracks. But then, how could they have? Amazon eventually acquiesced to repeated demands that any future paid-for promotions carry a "tag" and agreed to offer refunds to misled consumers. And all because our hyperventilating culture of consumerism has a weak spot. We can accept the sale of the hometown sports hero -- or his team, for that matter -- and we are immune to the irony inherent in purchasing grandma's apple pie in cardboard boxes at highway rest stops. But come hell or high water, books, the people who write them and the vaguely dusty four-eyed folk who sell them are all supposed to orbit outside of the materialistic loop. They are the guardians of a tradition set apart from our modern economy and however capitalist we become, we expect them to remain firmly set in the clouds. We measure bookstores by the number of volumes crammed onto unreachable shelves. By the depth of the dust coating the gilded leather bindings on the last set of shelves at the back of the store. By the lack of light filtering in between two tilting stacks of texts on subjects so obscure the books can't be shelved. And we've come to love those who work in our literary rabbit warrens -- vaguely musty human beings with a grasp of literature that far exceeds their hold on reality. It follows that our national psyche has been deeply depressed by the rapid proliferation of chain stores with none of the deficient charms of our treasured independent booksellers. You can tell me that Burger King has replaced Mom and Pop's Diner and Wal-Mart has shut down the local five and dime. I won't shed a tear. But tell your average cold-blooded banker that Barnes & Noble has just caused Ye Olde Reading Shoppe to close its wooden door for the last time and a tear will doubtless roll down his cheek. One wonders if Amazon.com had any idea how many hopes were piled on its unprofitable shoulders. The company quickly came to stand for far more than cheap and easy book shopping. No, Amazon was the anointed giant-slayer, meant to challenge Barnes & Noble and its grinch-like, monopoly-minded brethren. Amazon was supposed to be a customer-friendly site that restored the bookworm to the bookstore. And when Amazon set out to build a "community of readers," many assumed that the company had signed on to do battle with capitalism. Of course, for Amazon.com that role was both unwitting and unwelcome. No, what company officials wanted were profits -- being customer-friendly was a means to an end, not a political statement. And so, when the firestorm first broke, the company seemed amazed -- a wolf trying to puzzle out why everyone kept on calling it a sheep -- until company chairperson Jeff Bezos finally acknowledged the obvious: Amazon is being held to a higher standard, at least in part because the company asked for it. This sorting out mistaken identities will come as little consolation to those who hoped Amazon would take the store out of bookstore. But those who criticize Amazon for its promotional policies are missing the point: In a real sense, Amazon and its on-line kin are our guarantee that Barnes & Noble will never have the power to stop a book from being published. After all, why not publish almost anything? The Internet has enough shelf space for an infinite amount of literature and enough storefronts for dealers in rare, controversial and generally unprofitable books to boot. In short, you just need to make a profit on the book itself. Overhead is going out of style. Will on-line bookstores all dance with capitalism? Probably not. There will doubtless be sites motivated by a love of literature rather than lucre. But the Internet never promised to put an end to capitalism. That vision has been imposed upon its world wide web by those who fail to recognize the need for profit-based motivation. Instead, think of the Internet's promise as an insurance policy on expeditions to the local bookstore -- go and enjoy the tactile pleasures of book browsing. But rest assured, if you come home empty-handed, you can always log on to Amazon and find yourself the perfect fireside companion.