5 April 2020

Life under "Lockdown" - A London Diary #2

Marcel Proust

The Proust Questionnaire ...

When he was still only a youngster, Marcel Proust was asked to write his responses to a series of questions in a friend’s commonplace book. It was a popular kind of parlour game at the turn of the last century, rather like the personality tests people find on-line today. More often than not the kind of thing beloved of teenagers the world over. Characterised by a canny mix of the frivolous and the serious. They are often good for a giggle if you don’t take them too seriously, because if you do take them too seriously they could potentially open a whole can of psychological worms! 

However, not too long ago the Proust Questionnaire, as it’s since become known, was revived by Vanity Fair magazine, who asked various celebrities – such as David Bowie, Aretha Franklin, Arthur Miller, Jane Fonda, Allen Ginsberg, Shirley MacLaine, Sidney Poitier, Emma Thompson, Paul Newman, Lauren Bacall, Martin Scorsese, and Joan Didion – to answer it. 

Vanity Fair
There are various versions with differing questions floating around, none of them is definitive – even Proust himself answered more than one version – but they are essentially all shaped by a balance of enquiry which tends towards the personal and the literary. Exactly the kind of topics you’d imagine would appeal to artists, actors and writers. Having read about it and looked out a few examples on the web, the Proust Questionnaire seemed like the perfect thing perhaps to while away an idle evening spent locked away on my own during the current Coronavirus quarantine here in London, so feeling somewhat self-reflective, I thought I’d give it a go ...

  1. What is your idea of perfect happiness?
Zero obligations.
  1. What is your greatest fear?
Having too many obligations.
  1. What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?
Self-absorption.
  1. What is the trait you most deplore in others?
Self-absorption.
  1. Which living person do you most admire?
Up until very recently I would have said Aung San Suu Kyi, but, very sadly, she has unfathomably confounded all expectations beyond repair. Perhaps we shouldn’t expect so much of other people?
  1. What is your greatest extravagance?
In financial terms, probably air travel. Otherwise, I’m fairly moderate or even frugal.
  1. What is your current state of mind?
Hermitose.
  1. What do you consider the most overrated virtue?
Charity. In the sense that Clement Attlee did. Charity shouldn’t be a humane society’s moral crutch, nor a virtue-signalling “get out of jail” card.
  1. On what occasion do you lie?
When answering Proustian questionnaires, naturally.
  1. What do you most dislike about your appearance?
Everything. All of it, top to bottom, inside-out.
  1. Which living person do you most despise?
Most politicians, sadly – particularly most of those in the current UK Government.
  1. What is the quality you most like in a man?
Honesty, openness, kindness, patience – which I suppose equates with decency.
  1. What is the quality you most like in a woman?
Ditto. Honesty, openness, kindness, patience – decency.
  1. Which words or phrases do you most overuse?
When writing: ‘then’ and ‘as such,’ and, worst of all, ‘nuanced’ – When speaking: ‘something like that’ (it brings out my ancestral cockney, which my wife thinks is hilarious).
  1. What or who is the greatest love of your life?
My wife.
  1. When and where were you happiest?
I have lots of happy memories of holidays and days out with my wife, such as a really sunny afternoon wandering around the rose garden in Regents Park, and similarly Shinjuku Gyoen, also a really lovely day trip to Rye, and winter retreats to Japanese onsen. Childhood trips to visit my grandparents, and family holidays in Cornwall when I was a kid.
  1. Which talent would you most like to have?
I wish I could play a musical instrument. I’ve tried lots of times on all sorts of instruments, but I’m hopelessly incompetent.
  1. If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
I wish I was better at basic maths, but I’m dyscalculaic.
  1. What do you consider your greatest achievement?
Proving that my nicest teachers were right, and that my nastiest ones were wrong.
  1. If you were to die and come back as a person or a thing, what would it be?
Probably a rock at the bottom of a clear, fast flowing stream. Or a sparrow. Or both.
  1. What is your favourite type of cuisine?
I like many, but I’m 100% sure I’d never tire of eating Turkish cooking.
  1. Where would you most like to live?
I’m fortunate in that I can legitimately regard both Britain and Japan as home. But if I could pick my paradise, it would be an island somewhere safe, sunny and warm, with a barbeque.
  1. What is your most treasured possession?
Home.
  1. What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?
A life without books would be no life at all.
  1. What is your favourite occupation?
Reading. Cooking, eating. Travelling. Sleeping. But most of all, reading.
  1. What is your most marked characteristic?
The constant duel between pessimism and optimism.
  1. What do you most value in your friends?
The relaxed, unspoken understanding that comes naturally from having known one another for such a long time.


  1. Who are your favourite fiction writers?
Joseph Conrad, first and foremost. Then Albert Camus, Natsume Soseki, Paul Bowles, Yasunari Kawabata, Mervyn Peake (but not necessarily in that order). Realising that those are all men, I’d also add: A. S. Byatt, Andrea Barrett, and Virginia Woolf. 

I quite like Marcel Proust too.
  1. Who is your favourite fictional hero?
Razumov in Conrad’s Under Western Eyes. I re-read it once every ten years and feel differently about him each time. Only a year or two away now from my fourth reading of it.
  1. Who are your favourite composers?
Beethoven (especially the 7th); Chopin; Rachmaninoff’s 2nd; Faure’s Requiem; Falla’s Nights in the Gardens of Spain; Respighi’s Pines of Rome; Steve Reich’s Duet. Chuck Berry, Muddy Waters, and The Doors.
  1. Who are your favourite poets?
Keats; Byron (especially Don Juan); Marvell; Shakespeare (especially the Sonnets and Phoenix & Turtle); Basho.
  1. Which historical figure do you most identify with?
I’m with Camus on this one – Sisyphus. Or Basho.
  1. Who are your heroes in real life?
Family and close friends are the only heroes you can ever be truly certain of.
  1. What is your favourite bird?
Sparrows and Goldfinches.
  1. What is your spirit animal?
When I was a kid it was definitely a Polar Bear, but my wife would probably say it was now an Otter.
  1. What are your favourite names?
Jezebel and Helmut.
  1. What is it that you most dislike?
Auto-correct functions on modern smartphones and computers (typing this has been a total nightmare, a constant battle), and the fact I have no idea how to turn auto-correct off. My original answer to this question was ‘Pernod’, but it keeps changing it to ‘period.’ – F*ck it! – Authoritarian injustice.
  1. What is your greatest regret?
The fact that I have so many regrets, and that they replay so frequently in the dark recesses of my brain.
  1. How would you like to die?
Peacefully … but I’d prefer it much more if I’d been born immortal like the Highlander and could have lived through all the eras of history.
  1. What is your motto?
Never pour yourself a glass of water which you don’t intend to drink.


Limehouse, London. Sunday. 29 March 2020.



"...the true paradises are the paradises that we have lost."
- Marcel Proust, 'Time Regained'




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