Sunday, January 20, 2008

You can huff and puff all you want, but from our first encounter with those three little ones, pigs have continued to capture the imagination. They're curiously familiar and alien, serious and ridiculous. Here's a list of their various roles in fiction -- some are sweet, others will curl your tail:

The Amityville Horror, by Jay Anson (1977). Who can forget Jodie's beady red eyes in the window?

Animal Farm, by George Orwell (1945). Napoleon and the Old Major are frighteningly brutal political operatives.

Charlotte's Web, by E.B. White (1952). Wilbur is a wise spider's best friend.

The Chronicles of Prydain, by Lloyd Alexander (1964). This Newbery Medal-winning series inspired by Welsh mythology features the young keeper of an oracular pig.

A Day No Pigs Would Die, by Robert Newton Peck (1972). Heart-wrenching story about a Shaker boy and his beloved piglet.

The Ethical Assassin, by David Liss (2006). A corrupt police chief hides the odor of his meth lab by building it on a pig farm.

Freddy Goes to Florida, by Walter Brooks (1927). The first of many children's books to feature the adventuresome porker.

Hogfather, by Terry Pratchett (1996). Four boars pull Hogfather's sleigh to bring gifts to good little boys and girls on that special night.

The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair (1906). Shocking descriptions of a hog-processing factory helped enact sweeping new food laws in America.

Lord of the Flies, by William Golding (1954). A pig's skull symbolizes the devil in this classic boyhood dystopia.

Olivia, by Ian Falconer (2000). The debut of the irrepressible piglet in the classy outfits.

On the Black Hill, by Bruce Chatwin (1982). The twins never forgive dad for killing their beloved pig.

The Pig Poets: Porcine Parody for Pig-Lovers, edited by Henry Hogge (1995). Verse from such masters as William Porker Yeats, Percy Bygge Belley and Lord Baconbum.

The Sheep-Pig, by Dick King-Smith (1983). Source for the movie "Babe."

Summer Lightning, by P. G. Wodehouse (1929). One of several comic novels featuring that porcine paragon, the Empress of Blandings.

That Old Ace in the Hole, by Annie Proulx (2002). A real estate developer helps set up industrial hog farms.

The Tale of Pigling Bland, by Beatrix Potter (1913). Pigling Bland and his brother Alexander have an exciting day in town.

The True Story of the Three Little Pigs, by Jon Scieszka (1989). A revisionist tale told by A. Wolf.

Winnie-the-Pooh, by A.A. Milne (1926). The bear of very little brain needs his anxious friend Piglet.

Have I left out your favorite fictional pig? Send the title and author to charlesr@washpost.com. I'll hog space on our Web site to list them all.