The Year of Reading Proust discussion

As a teenager, Marcel Proust answered a questionnaire that has since been posed to guests on the French TV show Apostrophes and to celebrities in the pages of American magazine Vanity Faire.

For a bit of fun - and since I've noticed other groups on Goodreads have an 'introduce yourself by answering these questions' thread - I thought we could do the same for Proust 2013.

Let's kick it off with Proust's own answers, taken from English Wikipedia. The translations are bit odd - his original answers in French are on the French Wikipedia. (Funnily enough, according to French Wikipedia, the original questionnaire was in English, so Proust translated the questions himself into French!)

If you feel like joining in, you can probably copy and paste and replace his answers with your own. Or, I have placed the goodreads-HTML of the questions below (with gaps for your answers) online for ease of use, here. That way the formatting will be retained.

The principal aspect of my personality:
The need to be loved; more precisely, the need to be caressed and spoiled much more than the need to be admired.

The quality that I desire in a man:
Feminine charms.

The quality that I desire in a woman:
Manly virtues, and frankness in friendship.

What I appreciate most about my friends:
To have tenderness for me, if their personage is exquisite enough to render quite high the price of their tenderness.

My main fault
Not knowing, not being able to "want".

My favorite occupation.
Loving.

My dream of happiness.
I am afraid it be not great enough, I dare not speak it, I am afraid of destroying it by speaking it.

What would be my greatest misfortune?
Not to have known my mother or my grandmother.

What I should like to be.
Myself, as the people whom I admire would like me to be.

The country where I should like to live.
A country where certain things that I should like would come true as though by magic, and where tenderness would always be reciprocated.

My favourite colour.
The beauty is not in the colours, but in their harmony.

My favorite bird.
The swallow.

My favorite prose authors.
Currently, Anatole France and Pierre Loti.

My favorite poets.
Baudelaire and Alfred de Vigny.

My heroes in fiction.
Hamlet.

My favorite heroines in fiction.
Bérénice.

My favorite composers.
Beethoven, Wagner, Schumann.

My favorite painters.
Leonardo da Vinci, Rembrandt.

My heroes in real life.
Mr. Darlu, Mr. Boutroux.

My heroines in history.
Cleopatra.

My favorite names.
I only have one at a time.

What I hate most of all.
What is bad about me.

Historical figures that I despise the most.
I am not educated enough.

The military event that I admire most.
My military service!

The gift of nature that I would like to have.
Will-power, and seductiveness.

How I want to die.
Improved—and loved.

My present state of mind.
Boredom from having thought about myself to answer all these questions.

Faults for which I have the most indulgence.
Those that I understand.

My motto.
I should be too afraid that it bring me misfortune.

P.S. Let's try and keep this thread fairly clean with the each post just showing the answers to the questionnaire - that way it'll be easy to read :)

@Proustitute
Yes - I've edited the top post to show a link.

Sooo, anybody taking the jump and answering the questions? How are you going to sound better than Proust?

No need to try and sound 'better' - it's just for fun :)

Someone jump in? I have to wait till I finish work, but I'll start it if necessary.

I might be a bit ruthless with this thread and delete posts that aren't answers to the questions. I want to keep this thread as just a series of answers to the questionnaire. Hope no-one will be offended?

Actually I think I was being silly - I won't delete anything. I thought I had already posted in the Lounge about this - I see that I haven't, so I will do so now.

Annoyingly enough I started typing up some answers as I was finishing work and now I've gone and left the file there!

The principal aspect of my personality:
Placid stubbornness.

The quality that I desire in a man:
The quality that I desire in a woman:

(Unfortunately I have to quibble with these two questions. I don't think it's possible to isolate one quality and prioritise it over all the others; good personal qualities are mutually reinforcing and dependent.)

What I appreciate most about my friends:
Different with each!

My main fault
Fecklessness.

My favorite occupation.
Eating new dishes and drinking new cocktails.

My dream of happiness.
An endless gift card to Abbey's bookshop and an equally infinite supply of rye whiskey.

What would be my greatest misfortune?
A specific kind of brain damage that - wait, I'm far too superstitious to put this into words.

What I should like to be.
A Renaissance man.

The country where I should like to live.
Spain (or if the people so decide, Catalonia).

My favourite colour.
Cobalt blue.

My favorite bird.
The pelican.

My favorite prose authors.
Borges, (Amit) Chaudhuri, Goscinny, Eliot, Heidegger, Proust, Tolkien.

My favorite poets.
Heaney, Milton, Tagore, Walcott.

My heroes in fiction.
Beowulf, Dr. Manhattan, Omar Little, Puck.

My favorite heroines in fiction.
Úrsula Iguarán, Lyra Belacqua, Lata Mehra.

My favorite composers.
Beethoven, Debussy, Wagner. (And if I stretch the definition a bit, Mala and Ramadanman.)

My favorite painters.
Raphael, Kandinsky, Picasso.

My heroes in real life.
Bevan, Mandela, Gandhi.

My heroines in history.
Boudica, Judith, Kaurwaki.

My favorite names.
Siegfried, Kalila, Brunhilde, Shiva.

What I hate most of all.
Filling out this questionnaire for a second time.

Historical figures that I despise the most.
Pétain, Thatcher, Stalin.

The military event that I admire most.
Emperor Ashoka's remorseful renunciation of violence.

The gift of nature that I would like to have.
Decisiveness.

How I want to die.
Hmm. To quote the Irish proverb, in bed at 105, shot by a jealous wife.

My present state of mind.
Pensive.

Faults for which I have the most indulgence.
Clever nastiness.

My motto.
I don't have one. (Cop-out!)

Not sure if I should have included prose authors whose work I'm reading in translation. But I decided there's nothing to say it's the prose itself, rather than the ideas, that I am nominating them for!

The principal aspect of my personality:


The quality that I desire in a man:

Self confidence.

The quality that I desire in a woman:

Openness.

What I appreciate most about my friends:

That they tolerate my faux-unsociableness

My main fault

Telling people stories when they merely want the time of day

My favorite occupation.

Walking nowhere in particular with intent.

My dream of happiness.

To be comfortable and happy; to have extinguished my need for 'something better'; to have a dog and a wood burning stove and a well stocked library; to be with a person whose opinions don't irritate me, and if that happens to be myself then all the better.

What would be my greatest misfortune?

To not recognise the pleasures of life under my nose.

What I should like to be.

A madman locked up in an attic, or a baby in a cot.

The country where I should like to live.

Canada.

My favourite colour.

Lilac.

My favorite bird.

The magpie

My favorite prose authors.

Calvino, Murakami, Dickens

My favorite poets.

Fernando Pessoa, Edmond Jabes, Roger Mcgough, Anna Akhmatova

My heroes in fiction.

The Count of Monte Cristo, the Sheep Man

My favorite heroines in fiction.

Little Dorrit, April Wheeler

My favorite composers.

Rachmaninoff, Moondog, Philip Glass, Debussy

My favorite painters.

Gerhard Richter, Manet

My heroes in real life.

William Adams, Marco Polo, Kublai Khan

My heroines in history.

Salome, Murasaki Shikibu, Katharine Hepburn

My favorite names.

Lucas, Godfrey, Elsepeth, Ruaridh

What I hate most of all.

Intolerance.

Historical figures that I despise the most.
Elizabeth Leveson-Gower, Duchess of Sutherland; Kim Il-Sung, Margaret Thatcher

The military event that I admire most.

The Siege of Constantinople

The gift of nature that I would like to have.

light-heartedness.

How I want to die.

Unaware of the fact that I am dying.

My present state of mind.

Foggy

Faults for which I have the most indulgence.

Vanity, lateness, aloofness

My motto.

This too shall pass.

Ha! Maggie gets two votes already.
Thanks Saz for doing the questionnaire :)

Haha! I didn't even realise.

The principal aspect of my personality:

Love to learn new things.

The quality that I desire in a man:

Kindness.

The quality that I desire in a woman:

Kindness.

What I appreciate most about my friends:

Kindness.

My main fault

Not feeling loved.

My favorite occupation.

Learning.

My dream of happiness.

A comfortable home on the beach in a temperate, sunny climate, with a beautiful chef's kitchen to entertain with delicious food and an art studio where I can indulge in any creative passion I like, with friends and family who are kind to, caring and tolerant of each other, people who I can freely show the depth of who I am, near a metropolitan area with hopping culture.

What would be my greatest misfortune?

To have never achieved my dream of financially supporting myself in the creative art.

What I should like to be.

A kind and generous but discerning person, who is living an abundant and happy life of doing fulfilling work, and who can bring others happiness.

The country where I should like to live.

Doesn't matter as long as it fits the criteria of making me happy.

My favourite colour.

All colors have their place depending on the context.

My favorite bird.

The hummingbird.

My favorite prose authors.

Joseph McElroy, Mark Danielewski, Marcel Proust, William Faulkner, Vladimir Nabokov

My favorite poets.

Robert Frost, Rumi, Lao Tzu, Emily Dickinson, Edgar Allan Poe

My heroes in fiction.

This is hard considering that I mostly like fiction in which the characters are in the gray. There are sides that you dislike and sides that are redeeming. The only heroes, for me, are in the fantasy/children realm. Frodo, Bilbo, Aragorn, Wilbur the pig, Louis the swan.

My favorite heroines in fiction.

Same situation but better. Mary Poppins, Francie Nolan, Jane Eyre, Pippi Longstocking, Charlotte the spider.

My favorite composers.

Rachmaninoff, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Bach, J. Strauss. But my favorite piece is Smetana's The Moldau.

My favorite painters.

Michelangelo, Da Vinci, Utamaro, Hokusai, Picasso, Kahlo, Alice Neel, Jennifer Bartlett, Klimt, Mucha, O'Keefe, Kirchner, Munch, Turner, Van Gogh, Monet, Basquiat, Magritte, Pollock, Matisse, Durer, de Kooning, Klee, Rauschenberg, Kiefer, Beatrix Potter.

My heroes in real life.

Anybody's moment when they've shown extreme kindness or ability to overcome obstacles gracefully and with fortitude. I have never met a person who's a hero all the time.

My heroines in history.

Rosa Parks, Anne Frank, Helen Keller, Susan B. Anthony, Amelia Earthart, Georgia O'Keefe, Marie Curie

My favorite names.

Names of flowers.

What I hate most of all.

Controlling people.

Historical figures that I despise the most.

Hitler, Khan, Pol Pot, Stalin, Idi Amin, Milosevic

The military event that I admire most.

Vo Nguyen Gap's strategy of guerrilla warfare that helped defeated the French and U.S. powerhouses. Brilliant tactics that lay out cunning over might.

The gift of nature that I would like to have.

Artistic genius.

How I want to die.

Leaving my loved ones in good hands, happiness and security. Plus not leaving anything behind that may distress them.

My present state of mind.

Anticipatory

Faults for which I have the most indulgence.

Absorbing myself in distractions.

My motto.

Look back on your life and what you most fondly remember and what you most dislike. Indulge yourself in things you love and find ways to lessen the things you dislike.

Aloha wrote: "The principal aspect of my personality:

Love to learn new things.

The quality that I desire in a man:

Kindness.

The quality that I desire in a woman:

Kindness.

What I appreciate most about my..."

A beach house in Malibu or Southampton would fit well for your happiness question.

I'll have to investigate. Thanks, Jim.

Marcelita wrote: "Proustitute wrote: "Love this, thanks, Joshua. Great idea.

Let's kick it off with Proust's own answers (taken from Wikipedia - the translations are bit odd)

Do we have his responses in French?"

Not the clearest...but the truest.
http://marcelproust.pagesperso-orange...

Marcelita wrote: "Do we have his respoo we have his responses in French?"
Not the clearest...but the truest.
http://marcelproust.pagesperso-orange... "
Proust's answers to these questions from Antoinette Faure's English album are really interesting and complement perfectly the sections we've been reading where we have been discovering just such aspects of the Narrator's state of mind as are outlined in this questionnaire. And while the narrator's accounts of himself are filtered by the years and the fictionalised nature of the writing, the page from the English album tells us exactly how Proust felt, at about thirteen, about life and love and particularly about reading.