In these two excerpts from Katrina Guliver's review of Meet Me By the Fountain by Alexandra Lange, online at City-Journal.org, she describes the best and worst of American malls:
In their ideal form, malls offer a smorgasbord of shopping options in a safe, climate-controlled environment. Around the next corner is another store, with another window, offering something new. Meantime, one finds places to eat, places to sit, and piped-in music to maintain the mood. What you want is not simply the object you shop for but to be at the mall. The “Gruen Transfer,” named for mall designer Victor Gruen, is defined as the point in time that mall-going ceases to be about running an errand and becomes about enjoying the visit itself.
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For me, malls are now sites of occasional desperation, as when I find myself in a strange town and need to get something quickly. I’ll wander into a Macy’s or a Nordstrom Rack, where the lingerie department looks like the aftermath of a police raid. Finding anything that fits is like picking a winning lottery ticket. Meantime, my meeting is in two hours, and I’m trying to remember where I parked the rental car (Blue 12? Green 9?). No Gruen transfer here.
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