Junto Boys

E's FICTION LIST

On this date in history, MARY SHELLEY'S FRANKENSTEIN was published in 1818. Which reminds me that Tom (I think it was Tom) asked me in Orlando what my favorite works of fiction were. I get asked that from time to time, and it always kind of embarrasses me, because although I do a fair amount of reading, I do very little reading of fiction. I read what I like, and I like to learn, so I read nonfiction and opinion almost exclusively, yet I always feel somehow that I *should* be reading fiction, even if just for balance. But the books that catch my interest are generally "serious" books, and I can never quite shake the notion that fiction is a poor use of my time. Just the way I'm wired, I guess. And I'm just talking about *my* time, not yours.

Anyway, I'm trying to think of fiction books that I really liked, and here's my little list.

FRANKENSTEIN by Mary Shelley. I love the way this book was written, back when English prose was majestic, lofty, precise. The Creature in the original is articulate, sensitive, and searching, not the grunting brute he became in the movies. It is really a story about man's relationship with his creator -- a probing, engaging, and moving treatment of that timeless subject.

OUT OF THE SILENT PLANET by C. S. Lewis. A short science fiction tale with a nice message.

TARZAN OF THE APES and its many sequels by Edgar Rice Burroughs. I wish I still had all those paperbacks with the classic cover art.

THE GRAPES OF WRATH by John Steinbeck. One of those books I had to read and liked anyway. I have never seen the movie version -- got it for Christmas 2004, will do that soon.

THE PUPPET MASTERS by Robert Heinlein. At the time I read this, I could really relate. Alien beings attach themselves across their victims' shoulders and take over their minds. I was in late drunkenness or early sobriety at the time.

DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE by Robert Louis Stevenson. I reread this last year and it was just as good.

THE EDUCATION OF LITTLE TREE was a humorous little book that fit my liberal mindset circa 1994 before I grew up and went conservative. I remember giving it as a gift.

I loved AGATHA CHRISTIE'S HERCULE POIROT mysteries as a kid. Haven't read one since, though, so I'm putting her at the bottom of this list.

It may not be much, but that's all I have to offer. That I am going back to college and high school to compile such a meager lists tells you and me that I'm just not into works of fiction. As Dude laments, I'm always asking what's the point, what's the payoff, what's the practical application. In recent years I've kept a list of the books I've read, and of the 144 entries, I see 3 works of fiction, and even those had a serious bent. Again, not sure why I feel I should apologize, but I do.