If you could have dinner with any fictional character, who would it be?

This is slightly cheating but I would ask AI to write a novel where the male protagonist was exactly like my father. I would then edit out the glitches and inaccuracies, print out a small run of the books  and then invite the character, that would, in truth, be him. Then I would invite him for dinner and natter away. He was the steadier half of my gene pool and would reliably turn up. My mum would be almost as interesting to meet up with but might at the last minute find something better to do.

He and his wisdom have been  deceased for more than 30 years . The same for my mum. The conversation would not be all one way. I have five more years of life experience than them.  They might want advice on retirement or travel and grandchildren. Something they had briefly but were never really well enough to enjoy. I, for certain, would be taken to task for living a life as an artist and designer, when they skipped off this earth  I had a sensible career. One they pushed me towards to protect me from the giddiness of life as an impoverished creative.

However if I stick to the rules I would go for a much more tricksy diner companion. John-Baptiste Grenouille from Patick Suskind’s 1985 novel. Perfume. Let me be honest the dinner date would scare my pants off. And not in a good way. He is the one character that really lives on in my  head and Perfume is a book I re read more than any other. There is no accounting for this choice. I am not by nature a lover of literary horror. I don’t speak 17th century French or any other French for that matter. I can no more explain my choice to you than I can justify it to myself. He is just a character that slipped into a fissure in my brain and refuses to leave. Maybe, by confronting him over a meal I might get some insight into this curious decision. Maybe I would not even survive the meal.