If you could go back in time and talk with any author(no longer alive) who would it be and what would you ask?

Question

I would love to listen to Mark Twain tell stories. Hemingway would be my second choice.

Hal Holbrook puts on a great Mark Twain performance. He is as close as I will ever get to meeting the real author.

Answer 1

Dr. Seuss.

I would ask him if Horton was really content wandering through the Jungle of Nool. I would ask him how I, too, could make a truck like Sylvester McMonkey McBean. I would ask him what it was he actually saw as a child that inspired his first book, "And To Think That I Saw It On Mulberry Street."

I would ask him how much of a challenge it was to only use the "225 new reader vocabulary words." I would ask him if his illegal partying at Dartmouth while under prohibition had any influence over his partying Cat in the Hat?

I would ask him exactly how one makes green eggs and ham. I would ask him how many places he thinks I'll go. I'll ask him if he ever hopped on pop. And I'll ask him who inspired his character of the grinch. I'll ask him if he can moo like Mr. Brown. I'll ask him the exact date of Diffendoofer Day. *sigh*

Oh the questions I'll ask...
They're so much and so many....
He'll be overwhelmed...overturned like a penny.

He'll hustle and bustle and put me task...
To write down his answers as quick as I ask.

But what will I learn... will I know him much better?
Will he take me to Whoville or just write me a letter?

One things for sure, it'll be a day to remember....
There's no Seuss like good Seuss from May to September!

Answer 2

If you ever get a chance to see a revival of the production Mark Twain Tonight, do, i was in high school when i saw it with Hal Holbrook, it was wonderfully funny. However the person I would chose is Carl Sagan, who wrote the wonderful Cosmos. I would like to see how he feels about the changes in the information we now have about the universe.

Answer 3

Mark Twain is a great choice,but I think I would want to talk to Shakespeare and I would ask him if "the shrew" was based on a real person. Perhaps Queen Elizabeth the I?

Answer 4

I too love Mark Twain. There is nobody like him. He saw a lot of stuff and wrote about all of it.

Answer 5

Edgar Allen Poe. "Why do you drink?"

Colette. "Do you think your characters are timeless?"

Emily Bronte. "What inspired your poetry?/Who wrote what?"

Shakespeare. "Is it better to have spent so much time writing, or would you in hindsight prefer to have spent the time living?"

Benjamin Franklin. "Are you satisfied by the way your plans for self-improvement have been modeled?"

Thor Heyerdal (sp?). "What should people take away from the thinking about your travels?"

Answer 6

Wallace Stegner . . .

I'd like to hear his ideas on current environmental issues.

Answer 7

Leo Tolstoy. I'd ask him about his religious views.