If you could talk to any deceased author...?

Cafe Society
1

One of my slightly strange reading habits (or what seems to be a strange habit when compared to those around me) is that I often am as or even more interested in the personal lives of my favorite authors than I am in their published works. This includes biographies but even more so it means letters and journals. As I was reading the letters of Emily Dickinson recently it struck me that even though I am facinated with the lives and works of these people there are very few of whom I have thought, I really wish I could meet this person. In fact as I scan over my bookshelves the only deceased authors (I am restricting myself to those departed as I like to hold out hope that I may one day meet Salman Rushdie or Sarah Vowell or one of many other living authors) that I wish I could have met are Fyodor Dostoevsky and Emily Dickinson. I am sure that there are many others that would be very interesting people but I can’t think of any others that I actually lament not being able to have a conversation with.

So are there any deceased authors that you wish you could meet and converse with?

2

Any the four Evangelists would be interesting.

Two favourites from my classics studies at school: Sophocles and Virgil.

3

For me, it’d have to be Douglas Adams, it’s just so unfair that he died before his time, he still had many more stories to tell, many more books to miss deadlines on…

So Long and Thanks for all the Fish, D.N.A.

4

I read that as “diseased” at first. I came into this thread wondering what the hey??

5

Crimeny! I can’t believe I didn’t think of Douglas Adams. He most certainly has a place on my list as well. I’ve read quite a bit about him and seen interviews with him and he seems to have been a very interesting person.

6

Isaac Asimov first popped into my head but I think he’s too smart for me and I wouldn’t want to fall asleep on him if he started talking about physics or the Foundation books. I’d definitely go with Douglas Adams but it looks like he’s going to be one busy dead guy.

7

I would want to spend a long time talking to Professor Tolkien. I would want to know more about his youth, his time in the ‘Great War’, his life and his interests. Mainly, I would want to pick his brains about a thousand different Middle-Earth related things.

Jim

8

Thomas Jefferson. I’m sure Robert E. Lee wrote something, somewhere (his memoirs count, right?), so he would be next.

9

I hadn’t even thought of including philosophers. On that list (I would consider it a seperate list from fiction authors and poets I guess) would be Thomas Paine, Immanuel Kant, and Soren Kierkegaard, and Thomas More.

10

:smack: I forgot about Tolkien. Eh, I’m just too tired to think. Still Douglas Adams would probably be the most entertaining.

11

I’d trade at least one important body part to have two hours with Robert Heinlein, even if one to say thanks for turning me into what I am.

12

He is my second favorite Author, but I have no major questions for him or about him.

13

Vladimir Nabokov, or Shakespeare. Meeting Shakespeare might be disenchanting, but from the little I know about Nabokov, I think he’d be as brilliant and erudite as his books, and I couldn’t help but learn about writing from talking to him.

14

I don’t like talking to deceased authors. They smell funny and they leave body parts all over the place.

15

James Redfield, author of The Celestine Prophecy.

16

When did he die?

C.S. Lewis, Ayn Rand & Taylor Caldwell here.

17

Did a quick check- Redfield still lives.

Lewis, Rand & Caldwell still do not.

18

Perhaps you can see the advantage of putting him on my list, then.

:smiley:

19

No doubt: Geoffrey Chaucer. THEN I’d want to revisit my dissertation!

20

I was going to say Piers Anthony, but turns out he’s still alive! Woohoo!