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The Company You’d Most Like to Keep

March 7th, 2009 at 02:04pm McB

Tonight we set our clocks ahead one hour.  Tomorrow YOU WILL CHANGE THE BATTERIES IN YOUR SMOKE DETECTORS. 

We now return you to your regularly scheduled blog post. 

You might have seen a variation on this making the internet rounds before.  I think it was maybe four or five years ago when I first saw it.  The idea was to ask people to name five famous people they would most like to meet at a party.  At the time I thought it was intriguing because it made me think.  And now that a few years have passed, I realize that the names I’d come up with today would be a little different.  But famous doesn’t necessarily mean interesting (Sometimes the famous are the least interesting.  Um, so what are they famous for?)  And anyway, if I get to choose the five people I want to sit down to dinner with, why limit myself to reality?  So much better to thumb through the pages of fiction and assemble my guest list from a much more entertaining group.  Here’s my list, which is subject to change almost hourly as I think of yet another very cool fictional character:

1. The Dowager Duchess from Dorothy Sayers’ Lord Peter mysteries.  Of all the books in the series, my favorite passage is the letters to and from the DD at the beginning of Busman’s Honeymoon.  She’s a much sharper cookie than she appears at first glance.

 

2. Brother Cadfael from the Ellis Peter’s series.  I’d love to spend some time talking with him.  But not in the 12th century.  He’ll have to come to me.

 

3. Moist von Lipwig from Terry Pratchett’s Going Postal and Making Money.  I really think he and Brother Cadfael would hit it off. 

 

4. Archie Goodwin from Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe mysteries.  Because the Yanks need representing, too, and it would be interesting to pit him against Moist in the wise-cracking department. 

 

5. Laurie R. King’s Mary Russell character.  That will even the numbers up, and I think both the Duchess and Brother Cadfael would like her.

And, of course, all of you are invited, provided I can come to your party, too.  What would your guest list look like?

Entry Filed under: Books, Useless Fun