The Book is But A Body; The Story is the Soul

Why it’s perfectly fine to “butcher” a book.

Photo by Dominik Scythe on Unsplash

You’ll see it every now and again on social media, somebody will post a picture of a book. Only the book has been converted or used as a means for an end — maybe somebody’s hollowed it out, or they’ve blackened out words, or they’ve written across the pages.

Something like this.

Courtesy of Wikihow.

You get the idea. And in the comments, invariably, there will be a number of bibliophiles cringing and expressing their horror that a beloved book has been defiled.

It makes me roll my eyes so hard that it hurts.

The book itself isn’t anything special.

Unless we’re talking about a special, illuminated manuscript from the days before the printing press, a book itself isn’t anything more than paper, a bit of cardboard, and some drops of ink here and there.

Maybe you think that’s a calloused perspective for a writer and author to take, but that’s the fucking truth!

These books are produced by big, huge machines that shoot out thousands of miles of paper…