Which author would you love to have dinner with?

An Evening with Tolstoy: Dinner at the Table of a Giant

If I could invite any author, living or dead, to dinner, my choice would be Leo Tolstoy.

I would not choose him merely because he wrote War and Peace and Anna Karenina, two of the greatest novels ever written. I would choose him because Tolstoy spent his life wrestling with the questions that trouble every thoughtful human being: What is a good life? What makes us truly happy? Why do we suffer? What is the meaning of love? And how should we live when the world around us is full of contradictions?

I imagine the dinner would begin quietly. Perhaps Tolstoy would arrive without ceremony, dressed simply, carrying the unmistakable presence of someone who had spent a lifetime observing human beings. I would probably have hundreds of questions, but I suspect I would first simply listen.

I would ask him about War and Peace. How did he manage to weave together history, war, politics, love, family, philosophy and ordinary human existence on such an enormous canvas? I would want to know whether he believed history was really shaped by great leaders or by millions of seemingly insignificant decisions made by ordinary people.

Then I would turn to Anna Karenina. I would ask him about love and society, about judgement and forgiveness, and about why human beings sometimes destroy what they love most. Tolstoy’s characters are never merely good or evil; they are wonderfully, painfully human. They make mistakes, repent, hope, deceive themselves and search for meaning.

But perhaps the most important question would be about happiness.

Tolstoy understood that wealth, status and recognition do not necessarily bring contentment. He increasingly believed that a meaningful life was found in simplicity, compassion, honest work and service to others. I would ask him whether, after all his searching, he had finally discovered the secret of happiness.

I suspect he might smile and say that happiness is not something we possess but something we create through the way we live.

I would also ask him about ageing. What does one learn when the years begin to outnumber the years ahead? Does wisdom really come with age, or does age merely teach us how little we know?

That question would probably lead us towards death.

Tolstoy wrote repeatedly about mortality, but he did not treat death simply as an ending. He saw the awareness of death as a powerful reason to examine the way we live. I would ask him whether knowing that life is temporary makes it more precious.

Perhaps he would tell me that the real tragedy is not that life ends, but that we sometimes spend too much of it without truly living.

And then, inevitably, I would ask him about writing.

What makes a story immortal? Is it beautiful language, unforgettable characters or profound ideas? Tolstoy might answer that the greatest stories survive because they reveal something truthful about human nature. Centuries may change our clothes, technology and circumstances, but jealousy, love, ambition, loneliness, courage and compassion remain remarkably familiar.

By then, dinner would probably have grown cold.

Because the real feast would not be on the table. It would be in the conversation.

I would want to tell Tolstoy how his books have travelled across generations and continents, reaching readers who were born long after he died. I would tell him that a writer may leave this world, but his questions can continue living in the minds of strangers.

Perhaps, before leaving, I would ask him one final question:

“If you could give one piece of advice to a person approaching the later chapters of life, what would it be?”

I imagine he might pause for a moment before answering.

Perhaps he would say, in his own way, that we should stop worrying about how much of life remains and concentrate instead on how truthfully, compassionately and meaningfully we live the days that are given to us.

That would be enough.

I would not need an autograph.

I would not need a photograph.

I would simply be grateful for the privilege of having shared a meal with a man who spent his life trying to understand the human soul.

Some dinners feed the body.

Some conversations feed the mind.

And, once in a lifetime, perhaps, there is a dinner that feeds the soul.

That is the dinner I would choose—with Leo Tolstoy.