Reader Friday: Your Dinner With…

“By the mere fact that we bother to read a novel, thus expending time which might otherwise be passed in company with actual people, we are going out of our way to meet the characters to whom the novelist wishes to introduce us. He therefore owes us an assurance that they shall be even more worth our while than the average actual person.” – Clayton Meeker Hamilton, A Manual of the Art of Fiction 

What fictional character would you most like to have dinner with? What would you talk about? 

18 thoughts on “Reader Friday: Your Dinner With…

  1. Patrick Kenzie, Angela Gennaro, and Bubba Rogowski. Just because together the three of them can, as Lehane once put it, “…out-glib the Marx Brothers.”

  2. I’d like to meet my sleuth, Marla Shore, and ask her about her life. We’re similar in many ways but different in others. So I’d like to pick her brain and get to know her better. Maybe she has secrets she hasn’t told me about. And this reminds of a movie about a mystery writer whose fictional alter ego detective came to life. Wish I could remember the name but it was funny. Nobody else could see the guy but the protag could talk to him.

  3. Is it cheating to pick our own characters? I think I’d like to have dinner with Father Tim and Cynthia from the Mitford books, round about the era of book 3 before the series went downhill. Or Christopher Chant from the Chrestomanci books. LOVE that guy!

  4. I’d like to meet Ned Stark, John Snow, and Tyrion Lannister from the Game of Thrones series (not the TV actors although they all seem pretty cool, but the book characters).

    Also, I’d very much like to meet Dirk Gently from Douglas Adams’ books I think he and I have a lot in common.

  5. Hmmm. What a great thought–something like Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee. And what would these characters have to say about you and your books? Well, you got my wheels turning there!!

    • Jim = I envy you. JLB is incredible.

      Joe – I just finished “Light of the World”.
      The characters you mention are all world!

    • Joe, I was thinking the same thing. Out on the bayou with those two at sundown with a thunderstorm coming in from the Gulf and two sixpacks of Dixie.

    • Jim, I’m extremely envious! Hope you enjoy!

      Lance, that sounds terrific. Though I fear that given Clete’s capacity for the ale, you won’t have anything to drink!

      Tom, hope you enjoyed Light of the World as much as I did. If it’s the end of the series, it’s a great way to end it.

  6. Okay, so no other trashy chick-lit readers here, huh?

    Like any other Janet Evanovich fan, a date with Ranger would be top on the list. What would we talk about? Who cares? Ummm……where he gets all his nice cars. Sure, we’ll go with that. And, I’d invite Grandma Mazur to join us for dessert and coffee.

    If I’m not being shallow, I would love to have dinner with Atticus Finch and give him the opportunity to talk about how difficult it is to be a single dad and a lawyer in his world. (And, I’d give him a hug before we parted.)

  7. Jesus from Christopher Moore’s “Lamb. The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal”. And Biff of course as well. In fact the best would be a dinner with two of them together would be hilarious, unforgettable and in every sense eye-opening. 🙂

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