A man is dividing the internet after revealing that he cuts long books in half to make them more portable.
Alex Christofi posted the picture of the carved up books on Twitter – and people feel really strongly about it.
‘Yesterday my colleague called me a “book murderer” because I cut long books in half to make them more portable. Does anyone else do this? Is it just me?’ tweeted Alex.
In his defence, the books he has chosen to hack in half are pretty hefty.
Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace has 1,079 pages. Dostoevsky: A Writer in His Time by Joseph Frank has a huge 2,500 pages.
So, if you’re reading on-the-go you can understand why carting all that weight around all day might not be too appealing.
‘It’s more about the unwieldiness,’ Alex tells Metro.co.uk. ‘When you are armpit-deep in another commuter at Oxford Circus, there is no part of you that wants to whip out your copy of Ducks, Newburyport.’
Which seems fair enough. But the book purists are not happy.
Yesterday my colleague called me a 'book murderer' because I cut long books in half to make them more portable. Does anyone else do this? Is it just me? pic.twitter.com/VQUUdJMpwT
— Alex Christofi (@alex_christofi) January 21, 2020
‘I hate everything about this,’ said Aimee in the comments under the Twitter post.
‘You legit scare me,’ added Joan.
‘I’m pretty sure you can get arrested for this,’ said Jimmy.
This should be an imprisoning offence. books should be loved and cared for not hacked to pieces by some sort of book psychopath....
— drone_57 (@negaburt) January 21, 2020
This is demonic
— Jackie Phamotse (@JackiePhamotse) January 21, 2020
But Alex, who is an author himself (his new novel is called Let Us Be True) says this system of book butchery ensures that he reads the books that otherwise would have been languishing on his shelf.
‘I used to find that I almost never read long books,’ Alex tells us. ‘I would buy them and they would sit on my shelf and I wouldn’t take them outside.
‘This way they actually get read, which is surely the best compliment I can pay an author.’
Alex says cutting his epic volumes into bitesize chunks simply makes them more readable, and more sharable. And he’s struggling to understand the outrage.
‘I just want an efficient mechanism for getting more good words into my skull,’ he adds.
But not everyone’s against it. Some people commented under the post saying it was a genius idea:
‘I really like this Alex, and am completely ok with it,’ said Rhiannon. ‘In fact, it undercuts their hubris in writing such a bloody long book in the first place.’
Yes! I have done it before and I will do it again. Just tape them back together afterwards.
— Judi Dench’s human hand (@Lollyfist) January 21, 2020
But the overwhelming majority appear to be deeply unsettled by the segmented books, with lots of people asking why he doesn’t just invest in a Kindle and leave the poor books alone?
‘To the haters, I would say: the book is just a mortal husk, it’s the story itself that is the soul,’ says Alex.
So what do you think about this divisive reading hack? Genius or blasphemous?
MORE: Dog sniffs out tumour the size of a rugby ball in his owners leg and saves her life
MORE: Aldi launches first completely vegan Lacura skincare range
MORE: Pre-mixed cocktails and tinnies contain as much as eight or nine teaspoons of ‘hidden sugar’
source https://metro.co.uk/2020/01/21/man-called-book-murderer-slicing-long-books-half-make-easier-carry-12095000/
0 Comments