Twitter Debates: Is Cutting Books In Half To Make Them Portable Genius Or Sacreligious?

So, you're a busy person. You're carrying around a lot of stuff: papers, files, briefcases, cellphones, babies, who knows. You want to dig into a classic, lengthy piece of literature while you commute but these dang books are too long. So you saw them in half.

This is the situation Twitter has been grappling with today after Twitter user Alex Cristofi shared his creative solution to making books portable.

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

As Cristofi noted, some might consider this a form of "book murder." Indeed, many are comparing Cristofi's method to "absolute psycho shit."

Absolute psycho shit https://t.co/6jI9LmVsfp

— Connor MacDonald (@SamuraiCorndog) January 21, 2020

you deserve to be in PRISON https://t.co/QbBvrw5eoy

— antonio (@antoniodelotero) January 21, 2020

You are a horrible person. https://t.co/YMuLhjkU90

— Dapo (@adedapoX) January 21, 2020

Others noted that the practice is particularly ill-fitting for David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest, a notoriously long novel that features copious footnotes that require the reader to flip to the back of the novel often.

But what did you do about the footnotes in Infinite Jest??

— Carrie Plitt (@PlittyC) January 21, 2020

doing this for infinite jest makes no sense. https://t.co/FnBUHX4zfO

— ron laflamme (@the_bi_lebowski) January 21, 2020

Surprisingly, a wide swath of Book Twitter was cool with Cristofi's idea, based on the idea that it's fair to do anything that grants you access to the text.

Destroying books is fine and OK if there's an even slightly decent reason. They're just books. https://t.co/5OC4aFmcF0

— Luke Bailey (@imbadatlife) January 21, 2020

It's a novel approach. https://t.co/aN0g5aBof1

— The Bodleian Libraries (@bodleianlibs) January 21, 2020

As a booksellers daughter: ain't nobody care about the paperback dostoevsky that you got at WH Smith, do what you need to access the text https://t.co/x1f9HJfeJ0

— elf on the shelf (@veneficaultrix) January 21, 2020

Like many Twitter arguments, today's great book debate will never be solved and will be swept aside to the sands of time. But whether you think it's good or bad to cut books in half in order to make them portable, doing this will almost definitely get you weird looks.