The fun some writers have

Beckett told me last night he'd meant for close readers to read what he'd written as, "science-fiction." So I took down his late great trilogy from the shelf and started reading with that in mind; sure enough, aliens abound in each of the three texts with speech patterns brought down from far distant planets, uttered by beings from other worlds.

At an earlier point in literary evolution Trollope posed as a mailman, the kind that delivers mail in a small country with a nascent, democratically elected government that still has deep ties to the monarchy. The mail gets through – all of it – even the stuff you'd rather not think about or see.

These days it seems everyone wants to write-or direct or paint or make videos or conceptual art like Cindy Sherman –and pseudonyms are old fashioned.

Thomas Fuller (pseudonym and writer) loves to tell a story about his grandmmother, Gama Smith, a Christian Scientist devoted to the literary works of Mary Baker Eddy.

"Gama," a young Mr. Fuller said at the dinner table one evening not long before Gama Smith's death at the age of 99, eating the chicken dumplings he so loved and she so loved to make for him, so long as he asked for her chicken dumplings by telling her how much he loved them, "as far as I can see Christian Science is science fiction."

"No, it's Christian Science," Gama Smith said, providing the end to this little story.