It probably comes as no surprise that I have been reading naturist fiction for a number of years. To be exact, it was in 2013 that I became aware that books had been written that are what I could almost call naturist fiction. It began with Will Forest’s book, Co-ed Naked Philosophy [2012], and John Harding’s books, Going Bare [2012], and Bare Necessities [2013]. I had been writing for decades, mostly non-fiction to do with either education or psychology. Yet, tucked away in my bits and pieces of poetry and snippets of wanna-be novels were naturist scenes.
As a youth, I had read so many books, usually Science Fiction [usually Robert Heinlein] that had nudity written in scenes that were non-sexual, scenes that were natural and almost unremarkable other than the characters not having clothing on. Incidental nudity, unremarkable nudity. I wasn’t reading naturist fiction for the genre hadn’t existed back in those days. What I was reading was a mindset that unconsciously included naturism as a legitimate focus. And naturally, what I read as a youth influenced my writing style as an adult.
But, it was poetry and philosophy books that mostly informed my writing style and content. One of the first books I bought myself as a teenager was Kahlil Gibran’s book, The Prophet. The poetry in his book and the illustrations seemed to be the purest form of love and spirit. I was hooked and began to write my own poetry. Also included in these first book purchases was Frederick Nietzsche’s. Thus Spoke Zarathustra. My imagination boiled over as I read and re-read these two books. And when I then included Dostoyevsky’s books, Crime and Punishment, and Brothers Karamazov, as well as Tolstoy’s War and Peace, and Anna Karenina, my writing began to have a strange psychological twist.
Now, if you have been following my blog posts written over the last twelve years – yes, I’ve been writing blog posts on various platforms such as Planet Ranger, Blogger, and then WordPress since 2006 – you will have noted that I write is strongly influenced by the Russian novelists, the existential philosophers, poets, and more recently, by Buddhism and Jungian Psychology. What you read is vital when it comes to writing. Other writers chart the way forward, providing examples of what to do, what to say, what not to do, what not to say for the emerging author. It is my hope that sometime in the future, at least one of my books will serve as a stepping stone for an author yet to be born. It is in what we leave behind that we find the essence and spirit of a person who no longer walks on planet Earth.
I encourage you to read not only my books, Will’s books, and Paul’s books, but to include other writers who are writing using nudity as a backdrop to their stories, as well as other writers both dead and alive. Perhaps at some point, you will find your story begin to emerge.
Thanks for writing this post, Robert! I appreciate you mentioning Co-ed Naked Philosophy. What I find interesting about it is that for me, it seemed to be such a long process (about a decade on and off) to finish that book and get it out there into the world. And yet in this post, that novel gets to appear as the beginning (or influencing the beginning) of something else – your process for writing about naturism. As you say, books are like stepping stones in a long line, and as authors we become to large or small extent products of what we read. Here are just a few books that come to mind that influenced me as a boy and as a young man: The Jungle Book, The Halloween Tree, The Lord of the Rings, books about animals in their natural habitats, A Wrinkle in Time, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Don Quixote… Fun to remember!