Bring them back from the grave [Archive] - Literature Network Forums

Asa Adams

03-29-2007, 02:39 PM

I saw this thread regarding "who would you call up after reading their book"
And I thought that maybe I could ask this:

Who would you bring back to life for a tea, or brandy, or anything in your choice of a sitting room, or Pub, or again, anything you want?
It has to be a writer of some sorts (eg. Poet, short story, playwright, Novelist, Historian....etc) And you only get 12 hours! How Horrible!

I would Probably choose J. R. R. Tolkien.

Sitting room, stained Oaken walls. Large and cozy. Two, very large armchairs with accompanying drink table to the right and left. Assortment of food and drink on a large cart to the back of us. An endless supply of books cradeling the walls. A massive fireplace orverwhelming the room in front of us. I would chat about the weather, about his books, his hobbies. Whether or not he likes tulips, or roses? The simplicity of it makes me shiver! If only I could do it!

And right Here you can! Who would you bring back for a day, and what would you both do?
Have fun!

I hope this wasnt done before. And if it has, then we can do it again with different writers!

Asa

manolia

03-29-2007, 03:23 PM

Nice thread Asa!

Since you already picked Tolkien (my first choice also, but i would choose a Hobbit-hole to receive him. :lol: If i can ressurect Tolkien why can't i have a Hobbit-hole, eh?).

So i choose Lovecraft (He he i anticipated Mc Grain!!).
I would receive him in a nice moist, badly lighted cavern with assorted coffins as background decoration.

andave_ya

03-29-2007, 07:13 PM

Tolkien would be lovely but I wouldn't know what to say to him. I pick....
Dorothy L. Sayers!!!

We'd meet in the dustiest darkly lit corner of the Oxford library....two high backed leather chairs waiting to receive two girls....lovely old books with no titles on the spines surrounding us....the heady aroma of old books wafting around the place...an old, fine port decanted and on a table beside us....the conversation would start tentatively with questions and answers and eventually we'd realize we have a lot in common though I'd play Watson to her Sherlock...oh how lovely!

Scheherazade

03-29-2007, 07:27 PM

Dame Barbara Cartland!

There isn't enough pink and love in the literary world since she's gone...

http://www.biography-clarebooks.co.uk/usrimage/0barbaracartlandth.jpg

Logos

03-29-2007, 08:02 PM

hahahahaaa ! :lol:

Virgil

03-29-2007, 08:32 PM

Who would you bring back to life for a tea, or brandy, or anything in your choice of a sitting room, or Pub, or again, anything you want?
It has to be a writer of some sorts (eg. Poet, short story, playwright, Novelist, Historian....etc) And you only get 12 hours! How Horrible!

What a great idea for a thread. Actually I had a similar thread in who woud you like to spend time in heaven with. I would have many, and over time I may post several. I already said Shakespeare in that thread so let's bfreak away from that and choose someone else.

I'll pick Joseph Conrad. Arm chairs, tea, (he suffered from gout, so no liquor) biscuits, and story telling. Go through his marvelous life, his journeys, his adventures, his novels, his characters (I love Lord Jim), and of course, Captain Marlow.

http://www.anisn.it/scienza/evoluzione2005/images/conrad1.gif

kilted exile

03-29-2007, 08:43 PM

George Orwell, stood atop a slag heap overlooking Wigan. I really just want to pick his brain about what has happenned in the world since he died. I think it would be fascinating

Asa Adams

03-29-2007, 10:27 PM

Nice thread Asa!

Since you already picked Tolkien (my first choice also, but i would choose a Hobbit-hole to receive him. :lol: If i can ressurect Tolkien why can't i have a Hobbit-hole, eh?).

So i choose Lovecraft (He he i anticipated Mc Grain!!).

HAHAH Very nice. I read lovecraft, but had to stop before going insane ;)

What a great idea for a thread. Actually I had a similar thread in who woud you like to spend time in heaven with. I would have many, and over time I may post several. I already said Shakespeare in that thread so let's bfreak away from that and choose someone else.

I'll pick Joseph Conrad. Arm chairs, tea, (he suffered from gout, so no liquor) biscuits, and story telling. Go through his marvelous life, his journeys, his adventures, his novels, his characters (I love Lord Jim), and of course, Captain Marlow.

http://www.anisn.it/scienza/evoluzione2005/images/conrad1.gif
Good choice, Virgil! A brilliant man he was

George Orwell, stood atop a slag heap overlooking Wigan. I really just want to pick his brain about what has happenned in the world since he died. I think it would be fascinating

Good one, Kilted! Orwell would enjoy the knowledge that some of his prose was coming to life. To his delight. To our dismay:lol:

manolia

03-30-2007, 04:16 AM

HAHAH Very nice. I read lovecraft, but had to stop before going insane;)

Aaah! That explains why i've been feeling a bit strange lately (you know, i've been reading his stories veeeery slowly:lol: ).

Asa Adams

03-30-2007, 01:00 PM

Aaah! That explains why i've been feeling a bit strange lately (you know, i've been reading his stories veeeery slowly:lol: ).

You're too much, Manolia! :lol:

aeroport

03-30-2007, 01:22 PM

Hmm, pour moi, I can think of no one I should more like to hold convo with than cher maitre himself - Henry James!
I do not think we could even begin to cover in twelve hours all the things I would like to talk to him about - the man wrote a lot of stuff. But I would almost just like to let him pick a subject and roll with it, since his conversational style was reputedly so amazing. I would, however, have to find out his thoughts on Ulysses and on postmodernism, assuming he'd had time to consider these things while waiting for me to bring him back.
I should, of course, love to hear his thoughts on his own works - I mean, the specifics, not just stuff I can read in his Prefaces. Especially on the later novels. Plus, he would give me an opportunity to test my French, as he was supposedly almost as good with it as he was with English! (Scary thought)

http://i88.photobucket.com/albums/k190/Trevor87_2006/james_henry_photograph.jpg

Tuesday

03-30-2007, 03:02 PM

I'll pick Joseph Conrad. Arm chairs, tea, (he suffered from gout, so no liquor) biscuits, and story telling. Go through his marvelous life, his journeys, his adventures, his novels, his characters (I love Lord Jim), and of course, Captain Marlow.

Great choice. I'd especially like to hear him speak...I read that despite his impressive command of the English language on paper he spoke a rather guttural and strange dialect due to his familiarity with Polish and French.

optimisticnad

03-30-2007, 03:43 PM

Raymond Carver: empty cafe, id ask if he would mind having a brain transplant with me.
Anton Chekhov

Maybe Hitler too! Teach him some sense and grammar. Take him to Auschwitz, ask him, 'bringing back memories huh? those weret he days..........' Can I kill him? And bring him back?

optimisticnad

03-30-2007, 03:44 PM

Jane Austen: why'd you never marry? Never too late!

I'm sorry mine doesnt have so much deatil.

Asa Adams

03-31-2007, 01:02 AM

Jane Austen: why'd you never marry? Never too late!

I'm sorry mine doesnt have so much deatil.

Yeah it is a little short. Care to eloborate, Opti?

Asa Adams

03-31-2007, 01:03 AM

PeterL

03-31-2007, 08:47 AM

Interesting. I have been working in Providence, RI recently, and I would love to walk some of the streets with Lovecraft. We probably would end up in a cemetery or a church. We certainly would complain about the traffic.

metal134

03-31-2007, 12:04 PM

Wow, tough choice. But I might have to go with William Faulkner. His novels are so multi-layered and disoriented, I would love to have his insight as to why he did things a certain way and what he was thinking at the time.

Niamh

03-31-2007, 12:33 PM

Probably J.M.Synge(surprise:lol: ) I'd probably ask him so much about his travels, and why the hell after years of being with molly algood,who he was engaged to before he died, could he not truely have the guts to turn around and say to his mother 'this is the woman i love and am going to marry. i dont care if she comes from a working class or that you dont like her. tough cookies!!'

bazarov

03-31-2007, 01:18 PM

http://www.sennaya.com/images/dostoevsky310.jpg

After seeing my avatar, some of you are maybe confused; is he trying to meet himself? No...
My pick would surely be Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky, in my opinion; the greatest writer ever, and I doubt that anyone could ever become close to his genius.
We would meet in some quite place, big room with big armchairs, shelves around us filled with books( that's my imaginary personal library :D )
I would go down on my knees and I would tell him: Thank you!

He was a gambler and boozer, so after some roulette( i hate that play, I really don't understand why is anybody playing it) we would start our chat, with a lot of vodka in front of us.
I would ask him did he ever killed anybody because I don't understand how could he describe Raskolnikov so good, why didn't he finished those two novels what he started to write, what does he think about mushrooms in Anna Karenina, does he believe in happiness, does he believe in destiny or everything happens by an accident...
I doubt that 12 hours would be enough for everything, and on his way out he would give me 500 novels which he never published, just for me!:)

Virgil

03-31-2007, 01:24 PM

Great choice. I'd especially like to hear him speak...I read that despite his impressive command of the English language on paper he spoke a rather guttural and strange dialect due to his familiarity with Polish and French.

Yes, English was Conrad's third language, and he learned as an adult. He is supposed to have had a very strong accent which may not be comprehensible to many of us. But so what. It actually makes his achievement as a writer in English so much more impresive.

Asa Adams

04-02-2007, 10:45 PM

bazarov

04-03-2007, 04:07 AM

Great choice Baz. Try not to offend his genius too much :lol: Just kidding!:thumbs_up

You can see in his bear that his a cool guy!:D

Bysshe

04-03-2007, 05:13 AM

Percy Bysshe Shelley

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y27/rabidoveryou/pbsss.jpg

Just to sit and talk about life and love in general. I can't actually think of any specific question to ask him, although I'm sure many people would. Hmm. I might ask him about the people he knew - Byron, Mary Shelley, Keats...and Leigh Hunt - to see what he really thought. Otherwise I think I'd just like to enjoy his company, and see what he was like as person.

If I could somehow work it out so the meeting took place before 1822, I would probably advise him to steer clear of boats, too.

Asa Adams

04-03-2007, 12:01 PM

lol...That would be a good bit of advice, Bysshe!

kathycf

04-05-2007, 12:55 PM

I would choose Agatha Christie. I would like to sit with her in a cozy room of a quiet country house. Outside would be grey and misty, but inside would be warm and fragrant with the scent of Earl Grey tea. We would hang out and knit (although I knit badly) and discuss the neighbors and which one we think commited "the crime".

Dame Barbara Cartland!

There isn't enough pink and love in the literary world since she's gone...

You say that like it's a bad thing!!! :lol: :lol:

andave_ya

04-05-2007, 06:22 PM

That would be rather nice. But she was shy...you'd have to charm her into speaking....well, for you that shouldn't be hard.:thumbs_up :D

kathycf

04-05-2007, 07:30 PM

Heck, she might not have liked Earl Grey tea and knitting too, for all I know. :lol: I guess I can't help but think of her as a "Miss Marple" type although that is wildly inaccurate of me.

ennison

04-05-2007, 07:38 PM

joseph conrad
rob donn
padruig grannd
r c hutchinson

Asa Adams

04-06-2007, 12:05 AM

I would choose Agatha Christie. I would like to sit with her in a cozy room of a quiet country house. Outside would be grey and misty, but inside would be warm and fragrant with the scent of Earl Grey tea. We would hang out and knit (although I knit badly) and discuss the neighbors and which one we think commited "the crime".:

How exciting. That would be very neat. I can picture the sweet and quiet sunday morning, the mist rising past the sheep and their sheppard, passing the old farm fences, and past the stone house. Lovely choice. How relaxing! :thumbs_up

whatsername

04-06-2007, 08:02 AM

JRR Tolkien
C.S Lewis
Jane Austen

Asa Adams

04-06-2007, 08:15 PM

very nice, whatsername. C.S. Lewis would be very cool!

Virgil

04-06-2007, 08:36 PM

OK, here's another for me. David Herbert Lawrence. I would like to be on a midland english farm discussing literature as we pile hay or milk cows or some farm activity. We would talk about love and religion and life. After the farm work we would take a hike an explore the countryside looking for some of the natural flowers.

http://ds.dial.pipex.com/town/parade/abj76/PG/images/royal_court/lawrence/lawrence-2.jpg

Asa Adams

04-06-2007, 09:02 PM

I knew it Virg. Great times! What would D.H.L be serving for lunch after tossing bails?

Virgil

04-06-2007, 09:13 PM

I knew it Virg. Great times! What would D.H.L be serving for lunch after tossing bails?

I don't know what he liked to eat. I will have to ask Janine. She's read a number of his biographies.

Dante Wodehouse

04-06-2007, 09:32 PM

Jonathon Swift, Mark Twain, and P.G. Wodehouse simultaneously. We would discuss the world as it has changed and mock every step it has taken while sitting in an uncrowded starbucks. Maybe Oscar Wilde too....

Janine

04-06-2007, 10:57 PM

I knew it Virg. Great times! What would D.H.L be serving for lunch after tossing bails?

Ok, I would say Lawrence, too. I know so much about him by now, he would be a jolly good chap to meet. He loved playing scherades, so I would like to spend an evening with he and his guests playing the game and seeing him ham it up; they say he did so and was quite hilarious. Later there would be time for some philosophical talk and his theories on life and living. Maybe he would give a recitation of one of his poems. That would be splendid!
Ok, he liked to eat a variety of food. Probably for scherades he would order in or make some type of sweet dish (English of course) sconces or some type pastry and biscuits, and of course plenty of English tea. He also would serve coffee - he liked it very much.
Generally he ate all types of food and he cooked and baked, as well. I know what he liked to eat - it was in the travel books - I got a sense of it right away. He liked milk and ate lots of eggs when he could (felt they would help his lung problems), he ate a variety of meat and cheese and liked coffee, and of course the English like their tea, with milk. He pretty much liked most foods, I think. He even made homemade bread when he lived in New Mexico. I have a picture of him doing so. I should scan it for this thread. He loved to cook and bake.
I also will scan a nice photo of him in his early days. He was quite handsome at say age 21.
Virgil, did you know L knew all about botany and all the names of the plants. He had studied botany in school. He adored it. No wonder his stories are colored with vivid descriptions of plants and flowers. He would love come back in the spring.

Virgil

04-06-2007, 11:07 PM

Virgil, did you know L knew all about botany and all the names of the plants. He had studied botany in school. He adored it. No wonder his stories are colored with vivid descriptions of plants and flowers. He would loved have the spring.

Yes I did. That's why I said I would like to walk about the countryside with him. And yes he loved sherades and was very good at it. He was very good at mimicing people, imitating their characteristics and speech. I think that served him very well as an author since writing characters is an act of mimicing.

Janine

04-07-2007, 12:28 AM

Yes I did. That's why I said I would like to walk about the countryside with him. And yes he loved sherades and was very good at it. He was very good at mimicing people, imitating their characteristics and speech. I think that served him very well as an author since writing characters is an act of mimicing.

Virgil, I figured you knew that about the botany. I was just checking. L was really something wasn't he? I think all his books have flowers and plants in them. I love that part of his persona, having kept a garden myself. I also like the idea of you and he tossing around a few bales of hay. I would love to walk the paths L walked in his beloved countryside and see the wheat fields and the streams and the profussion of color in the flowers. I recall in Lady Chatterly's Lover the scene where Connie goes to see the daffodils blooming behind the keeper's house. How lovely that scene was to me. You could smell the woods and the scent of the flowers the way L described them.

I was thinking this same exact thing - "He was very good at mimicing people, imitating their characteristics and speech. I think that served him very well as an author since writing characters is an act of mimicing." Yes, he was quite a mimic and could get the others in the room in a roar of laughter. I can just imagine. You very elequotely put this into words. His manorisms and his electric personality drew many a friend to him. He was like a magnet attracting people with his lively blue eyes and sensitive lively personality.

Asa Adams

04-08-2007, 11:07 PM

Hippolite

04-10-2007, 12:17 PM

Probably Doestoevsky. I want to know if he really believed in God, because I have serious doubts. He's too gloomy and pessimistic, yet practically every page oozes biblical allegory. Man, I love that stuff. He's currently one of my top two favorite authors, Proust being the other. Proust, however, I have no desire to meet. First of all he's already gone over every intimate facet of his thought in his novel so there's not much more to talk about. Secondly he'd probably spend the whole time discussing trivial matters in minute detail, say, the color of my shirt or something.

Shoot... I can't believe I forgot Borges. Now that would be an interesting guy to talk to. So erudite and strange, and such a copious imagination. I bet he could spin up stories on the spot that would leave you just barely thinking he had revealed the essence of eternity and the meaning of life, yet in reality leaving you even more befuddled than ever.

Asa Adams

04-10-2007, 09:50 PM

What about Mr. Taine, Where you get your name? :lol:

Good choice. I love Doestoevsky, Watch out for old Bazarov, hes nuts about him....He'll corner you and talk for hours about the colour of the shirts Doestoevsky used to wear! :lol:

Just kidding Baz, Ol' Buddy! :lol:

Janine

04-10-2007, 11:52 PM

H. D. Thoreau. Sitting upon the shores of Waldon. We would eat mixed veggies grown from the garden. He would teach of the simplicities in life, that do so easily blow past my very eyes. We slow down and enter a peace as the sun hits the waves and angers the tree line with shredded bits of light and shadow.

Asa, that is just beautiful....all of what you wrote but especially "the simplicities in life, that do so easily blow past my very eyes". So poetic. Makes me want to go to the shores of Walden and just sit and absorb it all forever.

Bye the way, what color shirts do you wear?:lol:

Asa Adams

04-11-2007, 09:31 PM

Asa, that is just beautiful....all of what you wrote but especially "the simplicities in life, that do so easily blow past my very eyes". So poetic. Makes me want to go to the shores of Walden and just sit and absorb it all forever.

Bye the way, what color shirts do you wear?:lol:

Thanks I fancy myself alittle wannabe poet :blush: :lol:
Funny....Actually wearing my Blue sleeve shirt with the tie Firmly tied around my head! Party time! :lol:

I have a blood red shirt, Blue, White, Green, Black......and many others! Im a shirt and tie, blazer kinda chap! ;) :lol: Except for after hours when I let loose and tighten the ties around my head! :lol:

Orual

04-11-2007, 09:57 PM

My two favorite authors, Dostoyevsky and C.S. Lewis, have already been mentioned. I think I would enjoy a conversation with Lewis, but I'm not so sure about Dostoyevsky. I think he would find me rather boring and shallow and might request returning to the dead early.

My guest would be the author of The Odyssey, just because I would want to see if a single person comes back. Or maybe the author of Beowulf.

Asa Adams

04-11-2007, 10:16 PM

I never thought about Homer. Good one, Orual!

bazarov

04-12-2007, 02:39 AM

Asa Adams

04-18-2007, 12:23 AM

Baz. What would you do if Orwell came to you, and asked your thoughts of Animal Farm? :lol:

You would probably admit to translation difficulties! :lol::lol: ;)

Janine

04-19-2007, 05:56 PM

Know what I would do --- I'd moo :lol:

Asa Adams

04-23-2007, 10:52 PM

Nice. I would crack a whip and make some plans on further land development. Can't forget the bowler either. :lol:

Janine

04-23-2007, 11:47 PM

Someone at my library tonight told me the film version of "Animal Farm" is great - it is really serious and well done. I have to see it now. I read the book yrs ago and loved it. Orwell is one of my favorites, along with Huxley. What visionaries they were. How unique Animal House was when it first came out.

Did anyone bring Walt Whitman back yet?

Janine

04-29-2007, 07:46 PM

Thanks I fancy myself alittle wannabe poet :blush: :lol:
Funny....Actually wearing my Blue sleeve shirt with the tie Firmly tied around my head! Party time! :lol:

I have a blood red shirt, Blue, White, Green, Black......and many others! Im a shirt and tie, blazer kinda chap! ;) :lol: Except for after hours when I let loose and tighten the ties around my head! :lol:

Asa, somehow I missed this post before and it really cracked me up finding it tonight. :lol: :lol: Well, you pretty much described yourself and your mode of dress - quite a variety - you are especially daring with that blood red shirt. How did I ever come to ask you to begin with? Guess I will just have to read back more posts. Blue is nice - wear it to the Lawrence discussions, will you, since Lawrence had lively blue eyes! About the ties - how inovative to wear them on your head:D Could you revise your photos or add to them in the "Photoalbum" thread to show one with this particular mode of dress? I have to see it to believe it!:brow: I must ask - blazers with the patches on the elbows, like real authors wear? You are so spiffy!

CountingSheep

04-29-2007, 09:53 PM

I'd like to meet Dickinson, Orwell, Oscar Wilde, Poe... oh damn I could go on forever. Lets not forget the man responsible for my love of reading...Theodor Seuss Geisel.

bazarov

04-30-2007, 07:01 AM

Baz. What would you do if Orwell came to you, and asked your thoughts of Animal Farm? :lol:

You would probably admit to translation difficulties! :lol::lol: ;)

He would be shocked how could someone get his ideas sooooooooo good:lol:

chaplin

04-30-2007, 05:30 PM

Out of all the Russian writers, I would choose Chekhov. Turgenev would be too daintily European, Dostoevsky would brood the whole time and talk about nothing but 19th century newspapers, Tolstoy, post-A Confession, too strict, and Tolstoy, pre-A Confession, too haughty.

Chekhov was probably the most enjoyable to be around, and the only one who wouldn't, voluntarily or involuntarily, make you feel like a peasant at the feet of the master. He could crack an irreverent joke and delve into the hopeless hope of the future or the eventual triumph of life. All the others would find it difficult to make that transition. He possessed within himself both extremes of Russia: the maudlin, philosophizing and the devil may care galavanting.

downing

02-16-2008, 06:55 AM

I would ask him did he ever killed anybody because I don't understand how could he describe Raskolnikov so good, why didn't he finished those two novels what he started to write, what does he think about mushrooms in Anna Karenina, does he believe in happiness, does he believe in destiny or everything happens by an accident...

the mushroom part is hilarious :lol: :lol: :lol: Good ideas, baz!:thumbs_up

Gibran

02-16-2008, 09:01 AM

I'd choose nobody but Oscar Wilde (before he was put in Reading jail).
Only one fairy tale of his will absolutely fullfill the whole tea time with "odour of roses". :yawnb:

http://manolomen.com/images/Oscar%20Wilde%20with%20bow%20tie.jpg

Lioness_Heart

02-16-2008, 09:34 AM

Jane Austen (I know she's already come back once). We'd sit very demurely in my sitting room and drink tea. Not that I like tea, but I'm sure I could make the sacrifice...

I'd like to find out which of her heroines she is most like... and what it was like for her trying to become an author. And also why her stories always have happy endings. I love her books but sometimes they can seem a little 2D after a while; it would be nice to find out about the woman behind them.

Erichtho

02-16-2008, 10:07 AM

I would like to meet Franz Kafka. First we would go to cinema and then we'd spend the rest of the evening in a café in the old town of Praha. :)

byquist

02-16-2008, 02:26 PM

I'd go for a chat with Emily Dickinson.

Janine

02-16-2008, 11:47 PM

D.H.Lawrence, aka Bert Lawrence, aka Lorenzo Lawrence, aka DHL, aka David Herbert Lawrence

By now, I sure would have a lot of questions to ask him. We would definitely have a nice cup of tea in a garden, somewhere in England, Nothinghamshire or Cornwall, as he would have remembered it.

Virgil

02-16-2008, 11:52 PM

Etienne

02-17-2008, 12:10 AM

Rabelais, Cervantes, Diderot, Voltaire or Baudelaire I believe.

Janine

02-17-2008, 02:42 AM

I think I would like to sit with him in Italy somewhere. He loved Italy.

Well, we would just get on the magic carpet and spend the evening in Italy. He loved his England too, but just not what it had become to him. His remarks in "Kangaroo" about England made me see it even clearer. It was sad reading it and how displaced he actually felt. You could feel his longing for the wild flowers and the hills and the fields. England was his first 'native' home, so tea there would be nice and then off to Italy we would fly to have dinner in a great Italian restaurant. ;) :lol: It would be a balmy evening and we could really talk about what he meant by all his stories we have been discussing. We might just be surprised by his comments.

Simao

02-17-2008, 04:34 AM

Another title for this thread is "Who is your most favourite writer and why".

bazarov

02-17-2008, 04:49 AM

Another title for this thread is "Who is your most favourite writer and why".

:D :D

Etienne

02-17-2008, 02:05 PM

Actually no, for example, Gogol, I mean I would probably find the conversation as boring as him.

amalia1985

02-17-2008, 04:37 PM

J.R.R.Tolkien.

I adore people whose imagination creates miracles and masterpieces.

Ryduce

02-17-2008, 06:01 PM

I think Dostoevsky would be kind of a downer.

I'd like to be with Hemingway,off in some exotic land,hunting dangerous game.

Seems like a good time.

Dori

02-17-2008, 07:12 PM

Probably Doestoevsky. I want to know if he really believed in God, because I have serious doubts. He's too gloomy and pessimistic, yet practically every page oozes biblical allegory. Man, I love that stuff.

Dostoevsky most certainly did believe in God. Wikipedia: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fyodor_Dostoevsky#Post-prison_maturation_as_writer)

Dostoevsky's experiences in prison and the army resulted in major changes in his political and religious convictions. Firstly, his ordeal somehow caused him to become disillusioned with 'Western' ideas; he repudiated the contemporary Western European philosophical movements, and to instead pay greater tribute to traditional, rural-based, rustic Russian 'values'. But even more significantly, he had what his biographer Joseph Frank describes as a conversion experience in prison, which greatly strengthened his Christian, and specifically Orthodox, faith (Dostoevsky would later depict his conversion experience in the short story, The Peasant Marey (1876)).

There you have it. :)

Did anyone bring Walt Whitman back yet?

No, but I would. :) I would love to meet anyone who said "America is essentially the greatest poem." :D We would walk out on lectures by a learn'd astronomer, "tired and sick" of "charts" and "figures," and experience the stars by ourselves. :D

Rabelais, Cervantes, Diderot, Voltaire or Baudelaire I believe.

Diderot and Voltaire would be excellent people to bring back, no doubt. :thumbs_up

Janine

02-17-2008, 09:28 PM

Has anyone mentioned Shakespeare? Now that would be interesting communing with Shakespeare. I would like to ask him many, many questions about Hamlet.

I also was thinking 'could the person we bring back be other than an author?' I was thinking of interesting people like Gandi or the Roosevelts, Lincoln, JFK.

Hi Dori, yes, wouldn't Whitman be great? At one time he lived in the next town over from me. I wish I had been alive at that time.

I would like to talk with Willa Cather and Streinbeck, since I read many of their novels. I think they would be great conversationalists.

APEist

02-18-2008, 02:35 AM

It's too hard to choose between Voltaire, Vonnegut, Hemmingway, and Joyce.

If I chose Joyce, I'd smack him on the head and inform him that word play and puns for 600 pages is a major pain in the *** for the reader. After that I'd congradulate and thank him for Dubliners, Portrait, and Ulysses.

If Voltaire or Vonnegut, I'd ask how they setup their satires. I actually might wanna call Swift and Orwell back too... damn!

If Hemmingway, I'd ask how in the hell can you put so much into so few words.

bazarov

02-19-2008, 03:26 PM

Dostoevsky most certainly did believe in God. Wikipedia: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fyodor_Dostoevsky#Post-prison_maturation_as_writer)

There you have it. :)

Or just read Karamazov's...

Janine

02-19-2008, 04:29 PM

Oh Yes, APEist's post has reminded me now that I would very much like to visit with Huxley (Orwell and Huxley always relate in my mind to each other). I have read "Brave New World" twice, and "Brave New World Revisited". Wow, I would have tons of questions for him on both novels; and since he was very close friends with D.H.Lawrence, we would have so much to discuss. Another friend of Lawrence and author would be Katherine Mansfield. Definitely, she would be invited to our tea. This way I could get a lot of inside information on my author.

Dori

02-19-2008, 05:05 PM

Or just read Karamazov's...

There's that way too. Whichever floats your boat. :p

Etienne

02-19-2008, 08:23 PM

Well Dostoevsky did have a somewhat ambiguous relation with God, which is somewhat well represented by the ambiguous and maybe even evasive psychology of Dostoevsky's characters, I believe. And to loop back to the topic: we could bring him back from the dead to have a discussion about it.

Homyrrh

02-19-2008, 08:51 PM

I'd resurrect the Apostle Paul. Saw it all and lived to tell about it ;)

Etienne

02-19-2008, 10:02 PM

I'd resurrect the Apostle Paul. Saw it all and lived to tell about it ;)

Why not simply Jesus? Oh you want to skip those parables :p

Homyrrh

02-19-2008, 10:54 PM

No, the Christ never wrote anything official :D

Thus the scribes...though parables were'n't the most convenient.

jasons123451

02-20-2008, 12:48 PM

Edgar Alan Poe in an opium den. Would be very interesting to see were the inspiration came from.

Etienne

02-20-2008, 08:40 PM

Edgar Alan Poe in an opium den. Would be very interesting to see were the inspiration came from.

And why not Poe, Baudelaire and De Quincey together? Well, my choice goes for this trio, in the end!

JBI

02-20-2008, 09:20 PM

I'd resurrect the Apostle Paul. Saw it all and lived to tell about it ;)

Did he?

superunknown

02-20-2008, 10:25 PM

Oscar Wilde and Joseph Heller would make for very entertaining company.

I'd love to have a chat with Orwell too.

I'd say Hemingway but he didn't seem like much of a people person.

Homyrrh

02-20-2008, 10:55 PM

Did he?

Reference the majority of the New Testament. Regardless of your faither or belief in the validity of the text, the fact is that he at least wrote it, right? Right!

Homyrrh

02-20-2008, 10:56 PM

Oscar Wilde and Joseph Heller would make for very entertaining company.

I'd love to have a chat with Orwell too.

I'd say Hemingway but he didn't seem like much of a people person.

And, in reagrds to Hemingway, you're also most hopefully not a female human or male bovine.

Janine

02-22-2008, 11:06 PM

Ernest Shackleton, the arctic explorer....what amazing tales he could tell. I would love to hear of his survival story first hand.

Ernest Shackleton counts because he wrote several books, one being "SOUTH The Endurance Expedition". I read it and loved every word. Fascinating and inspiring!

hellsapoppin

02-23-2008, 12:07 AM

... why not Poe, Baudelaire and De Quincey together? Well, my choice goes for this trio, in the end!

Bingo! GREAT choice!!

PabloQ

02-23-2008, 12:34 AM

I also was thinking 'could the person we bring back be other than an author?' I was thinking of interesting people like Gandi or the Roosevelts, Lincoln, JFK.

Theodore Roosevelt was an historian and a novelist so he counts. Kennedy wrote Profiles in Courage so he's game too.

Now to answer the original challenge.

I'd like to board a steamboat in St. Louis and travel down the Mississippi with Mark Twain. Side by side, we'd lean against the railing and he can point out the inspirational points of interest along the way. Eventually, he'd tire of that, light his pipe, and set into telling his view of the world today. Laughter ensues.

One other note to Jamesian from way back in the thread -- it be an honor and a privilege to escort Mr. James back to whence he arose, if for no other reason than to slap him one for all my time he wasted with "The Wings of the Dove".

JBI

02-23-2008, 01:45 AM

Reference the majority of the New Testament. Regardless of your faither or belief in the validity of the text, the fact is that he at least wrote it, right? Right!
The fact that the events in the bible actually happened are up for debate, but not here. I was just pointing out that there is a lack of evidence, and evidence against the notion that Paul actually penned any all the works attributed to him in the bible. The closest I can come to believing he wrote that stuff is that he passed the legacy down by word-of-mouth.

HowlingMan

02-23-2008, 01:50 AM

Kurt Vonnegut or Philip K. Dick, both in a pub.

I'd say being in a pub with either of those fellas would be the greatest night ever.

Janine

03-01-2008, 04:58 PM

The Pre-Raphalite poet and artist, Dante Gabriel Rossetti

The man was so deep and so illustrative in his writing and illustrations.

I would also like to bring back his sister, Christina Rossetti, who also painted and wrote beautiful poetry.

tractatus

03-01-2008, 08:42 PM

How many i can count?
Put us in same room please;
Baudelaire, Poe for sure. W.Blake, Cortazar, Calvino, Lermontov, Woolf...
Only I m not sure about Byron, i cant take the risk of him try to molesting all my guests, that s scandal.

El Viejo

03-07-2008, 12:51 AM

Holy smoke! Just one?

Definitely Twain, or Bierce. Maybe Poe. Or Dow Mossman. Might have a chance with him since I wouldn't have to resurrect him.

How about if some of you let me just sit and listen during your visits?

SirRaustusBear

03-07-2008, 01:29 AM

I can't believe no one has said this yet but I gotta go with a night bar hopping with Jack Kerouac. When he got drunk he would supposedly ramble on about his theories of writing and I would love to have that conversation.

Second is probably Camus, though I would probably spend the whole time just staring in awe and be unable to speak to him.

Of live authors, gotta be going hiking with Gary Snyder.

aeroport

03-07-2008, 02:34 AM

Second is probably Camus, though I would probably spend the whole time just staring in awe and be unable to speak to him.

I'd be up for that - I'll sit in and translate.

For me, I could go for a chat with Wallace Stevens at the moment...

ballb

03-07-2008, 03:24 PM

I`d bring back Christopher Marlowe. We`d spend the afternoon talking literature and revolution in a pub in Deptford. Then I`d ask him to settle the bill. :)

Apart from Marlowe I would like to organize a dinner party for Virginia Woolf, Anthony Burgess, Oscar Wilde, Sir Francis Bacon, Montaigne, Michael Foot and Chaucer. Shouldn`t be too many lapses in the conversation. I wouldn`t even ask them to bring a bottle.