Thursday, August 5, 2010

PROUST QUESTIONNAIRE: GORE VIDAL

Another Magazine published an interesting Proust Questionnaire ( adapted by Jefferson Hack)  with the writer Gore Vidal that I couldn't ignore because Gore Vidal is one of the most prolific literary thinkers of our generation. Author, playwright, essayist, screenwriter and political activist, Gore Vidal, now 85, shows no signs of slowing down and he keeps his mind so fresh, lucid and controversial as always he use to be.



What are you thinking of right now?

I’m thinking of a lovely house in France.

What makes you laugh?
The thought that a house can make any difference to anything.

What makes you cry?
The death of potential citizens in wars that our rulers want to wage.

What do you consider to be the greatest invention?
It is yet to come.

Do you have a mentor or inspirational figure that has guided or influenced you?
Thucyclides.

Where do you feel the most at home?
In sleep.

Where are you right now?
Close to sleep.

What is your proudest achievement in work?
That I have never killed anyone.

What is your proudest achievement in life?
That I have never killed someone despite provocation.

What do you most dislike about contemporary culture?
The fact that it does not exist.

What do you most like about the age we live in?
Nothing.

At what points do life and work intersect?
Every time I pick up my pen.

What’s the best advice you’ve been given?
I was not listening.

What is the biggest risk you’ve ever taken?
To be myself.

Recommend a book or poem that has changed your perspective on life.
The Peloponnesian war.

What is your earliest childhood memory?
Being unable to recall my memories.

What’s the most important relationship in your life?
With my pen.

What’s the most romantic action you’ve taken?
I enlisted in WWII.

What’s the most spiritual action you’ve taken?
I wrote the life story of Julian.

If you could wish for one change in the world what would it be?
To find a new human race.

If you could add one question to this project questionnaire, what would it be?
Real questions do not need answers.

2 comments:

  1. What are all these questionnaire used for? I mean to know what they get from a person? Any suggestions,,thanks!

    ReplyDelete
  2. The Proust Questionnaire is a questionnaire about one's personality. Its name and modern popularity as a form of interview is owed to the responses given by the French writer Marcel Proust. A similar questionnaire is regularly seen on the back page of Vanity Fair magazine, answered by various celebrities. In October of 2009, Vanity Fair launched an interactive version of the questionnaire, that compares your answers to various luminaries.

    http://fashionheroines.blogspot.com

    ReplyDelete