I have a list of writers I really want to meet, including Dostoyevsky, Kafka, Charlotte and Emily Brontë, and Camus. But the one I’d choose above all is **Osamu Dazai**. I connect with his writing. “No Longer Human” was such a powerful book. It made me question what it means to be human, to fit in. Does it mean being good at lying? Wearing the right mask at the right time? The book is partly based on Dazai’s life, adding a layer of depth. It’s heartbreaking, considering the struggles he faced.
Another book of his, “The Setting Sun”, hit me hard, especially the part where the mother dies. I lost my own mom four months ago, and the grief was overwhelming. To sum it up, I would like to ask him: Do you regret ending your life? Is life that unbearable? In one chapter, a character ends his life, and there are quotes I keep coming back to:
“I should have died sooner. But there was one thing: Mama’s love. When I thought of that I couldn’t die. It’s true, as I have said, that just as man has the right to live as he chooses, he has the right to die when he pleases, and yet as long as my mother remained alive, I felt that the right to death would have to be left in abeyance, for to exercise it would have meant killing her too.”
“Oh, life is too painful, the reality that confirms the universal belief that it is best not to be born.”
― Osamu Dazai, The Setting Sun
by Ready-Challenge7480
26 Comments
Steven Erikson. Probably ask him about what scifi stories he wants to write and maybe ask about what inspired some of my favourite characters from his series.
Holy shit, I came here to write Osamu Dazai. The Setting Sun is my absolute favourite book. I don’t think I’d ask anything specific necessarily. I’d just want to break myself down with him, unravel through the conversation. You have immaculate taste 😁
My other answer might be the poet Hafez. I’d want to know more of his life and experiences, firsthand.
EDIT: One of my favourite Dazai quotes for you:
“…But if you will please try to think of my joy at being liberated completely from the suffering of living and this hateful life itself, I believe that your sorrow will gradually dissolve”
– Osamu Dazai, The Setting Sun 159
Sir Terry Pratchett and I would ask him “Do you want another bananana dakry?”
Brett Easton Ellis
“What the F#$&, Man?”
Patrick Rothfuss.
“Don’t you feel even the slightest shred of shame?”
Robert Jordan: Just to talk about how the Wheel panned out and to say thanks.
>!The Bible authors: to ask why write such a thing and how does it feel to have written the most well known, probably best selling fantasy in history /s!<
Scott Lynch
where is the thorn of emberlain
George RR Martin and just one question – good god man when the fuck is Winds of Winter actually coming out?
Vladimir Nabokov but I think the conversation could end quickly under certain circumstances. A man with many strong opinions 😀
Marcus Aurelius
Id ask what his thoughts are about the publishing of meditations and how it’s closely studied today.
I would love to have a sit-down with William Burroughs and Hunter S. Thompson. That would be truly epic.
JK Rowling, and I’d lecture them on trans rights.
I would love to have a conversation with Stephen King. Not about writing necessarily but just about mundane things like the weather and grocery shopping and gas prices. I think it would be a fascinating glimpse into a brilliant mind.
MXTX. She’s too mysterious. Her fans don’t know her real name, her age, if she’s still writing, or how she’s doing. All her books have been translated internationally, and most of them have several adaptations (animated series, audiodrama, graphic novel, and live action series).
Agatha Christie. I’ve read almost all her books. I’d also like to meet Jane Austen.
I’d ask Hemingway if he’d ever met a woman. Jk.
To be honest it would be between Joyce carol Oates and David Sedaris. Two contemporaries, but I just want to know more about them both generally.
Thankfully, they’re both prolific writers so I can get my juice there.
I want to go back in time and talk to John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester about atheism and religion. I do not believe that he converted on his death bed — I think that was a lie by someone who had a significant motive to make it appear that he had “converted” him.
I would have a conversation with the author who asked, but I can’t seem to find him anywhere
I would’ve liked to have talked with Cormac McCarthy, and ask him about his writing process, or more specifically, how he managed to write some of the things he did and stay even remotely sane
Patrick Rothfuss: have you seriously considered therapy?
Anthony Bourdain, and talking to that man about anything is sure to be fascinating
Thucydides. I would nail that sucker’s feet to the floor until I squoze enough information out of him to write a really good 800 page biography of the dude.
Shakespeare. I mean, there’s a lot we don’t know about him!
I would like to ask Sir Terry if Death showed up for him.
Thomas Pynchon, I’d ask him if we could go bar hopping pretending to be Mason & Dixon, doing bits in character.
Author of the Voynich manuscript just so I know exactly who and when and why.
My money’s on a coded recipe book by someone who really didn’t want their recipes stolen, early speculative fiction, or a fantastic prank.