
I remember before I moved to Toronto, I had a friend who lived there who was (and is) a great enthusiast of the philosopher Gilles Deleuze. He'd swing by Pages bookshop on Queen West with astonishing regularity to see if new Deleuze stock had arrived. Pages is where such intellectual capital could disperse itself beyond the dusty halls of academia. He would take note that, say, three copies of Capitalism and Schizophrenia had arrived and, a few days later, note with equal or greater joy that one had been sold.
He successfully passed on the Deleuze meme to me. When I came to live in Toronto, I would also monitor the Pages' Deleuze collection as something of a guide to the rise and fall of his popularity, of a way to feel that there were other people out there who shared my interest. I would also browse the art books, first looking for naughty bits, then architectural porn, which I'm not sure is any more wholesome. I'd also track the books of people I knew. And end up buying a few magazines or remainders. Or the occasional splurge.
So it was a sad moment when I swung Pages by on closing day. I must admit my motivation was predatory. I felt a moment of personal disappointment; I was hoping for a better discount than the 35 percent off they were offering. Then I took a look at the empty shelves, the oddball handful of remaining stock and I was a little choked up. The bookstore at the beating heart of the city is no more. It makes it much harder, and much less fun, to take our collective cultural pulse.
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