Proust Questionnaire

Rowan Tree

Rowan Tree

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So, I thought some of you might enjoy doing the Proust Questionnaire, a pre-internet online quiz. Below I give the questions and then mine and Proust's answers.

1. The principal aspect of my personality:

Proust: The need to be loved; more precisely, the need to be caressed and spoiled much more than the need to be admired

RT: Introverted intuition as it relates to narrative creation. Even as a child I told the stories my siblings used to create games.

2. The quality that I desire in a man:

Proust: Feminine charm

RT: I can’t best Proust’s answer.

3. The quality that I desire in a woman:

Proust: Manly virtues, and the union of friendship.

RT: See above.

4. What I appreciate most about my friends:

Proust: To have tenderness for me, if their personage is exquisite enough to render quite high the price of their tenderness

RT: Exploring associative ideas in quick succession during long conversations that feel too short.

5. My main fault:

Proust: Not knowing, not being able to "want".

RT: Not seeing the trees for the forest.

6. My favourite occupation:

Proust: Loving.

RT: Spontaneously writing a story.

7. My dream of happiness:

Proust: I am afraid it be not great enough, I dare not speak it, I am afraid of destroying it by speaking it.

RT: Being part of a story that is larger than me.

8. What would be my greatest misfortune?

Proust: Not to have known my mother or my grandmother.

RT: Being stuck in highly alienated, team-based work without any social function.

9. What I should like to be:

Proust: Myself, as the people whom I admire would like me to be.

RT: A stoic sage.

10.The country where I should like to live:

Proust: A country where certain things that I should like would come true as though by magic, and where tenderness would always be reciprocated

RT: The ultimate nowhere, utopia.

11.My favourite colour:

Proust: The beauty is not in the colours, but in their harmony.

RT: Blue

12.The flower that I like:

Proust: Hers/His - and after, all of them.[3]

RT: Nelumbo nuciferia

13.My favourite bird:

Proust: The swallow.

RT: Great white heron

14.My favourite prose authors:

Proust: Currently, Anatole France and Pierre Loti.

RT: Besides Proust, Thomas More, Ágota Kristóf, Ursula K. Le Guin, etc.

15.My favourite poets:

Proust: Baudelaire and Alfred de Vigny.

RT: Rumi, William Blake, Charles Simic, Fernando Pessoa, Christina Rossetti, too many.

16.My heroes in fiction:

Proust: Hamlet.

RT: Prince Myshkin, Uchiha Itachi, Gwynplaine, Matsugae Kiyoaki, Arkady Bogdanov, Orlando, Loki, far too many.

17.My favourite heroines in fiction:

Proust: Bérénice.

RT: Antigone, Hiroko Ai, Lyra Belacqua, Artemis, Lusheeta Toel Ur Laputa, Orlando, Loki, far too many

18.My favourite composers:

Proust: Beethoven, Wagner, Schumann.

RT: Ruggero Leoncavallo, Richard Wagner, Johann Sebastian Bach.
 
Ren said:
Just as an aside, I'm almost a million percent certain that Proust was INFP.
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Is that why you're afraid of going full mustache mode? Lol.

Anyway, looking forward to answering these @Rowan Tree ! Haven't dug into anything like this in a bit :)
 
Ren said:
Haha, man if that made me the new Proust, I'd go full moustache today. But I'm afraid that ain't gonna happen. :sweatsmile:
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You don't know until you try man. Just sayin. Lol.
 
Okay, my turn.

1. The principal aspect of my personality:

Insight.

2. The quality that I desire in a man:

Charisma.

3. The quality that I desire in a woman:

Warmth.

4. What I appreciate most about my friends:

To understand who I am and what I can do for them.

5. My main fault:

Delusions of grandeur.

6. My favourite occupation:

Contemplating.

7. My dream of happiness:

Profound mutual love.

8. What would be my greatest misfortune?

To lose the faculty of sight.

9. What I should like to be:

An inspiration to people.

10.The country where I should like to live:

Castalia, as portrayed in Herman Hesse's Glass Bead Game.

11.My favourite colour:

Green.

12.The flower that I like:

The rose.

13.My favourite bird:

The wren.

14.My favourite prose authors:

Fyodor Dostoyevski.

15.My favourite poets:

Paul Verlaine, Ezra Pound.

16.My heroes in fiction:

Raskolnikov.

17.My favourite heroines in fiction:

Petra von Kant.

18.My favourite composers:

Rachmaninov, Philip Glass.
 
Last edited:
Fantastic answers, @Ren.

Ren said:
Castalia, as portrayed in Herman Hesse's Glass Bead Game.
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Oooh, interesting. I haven't read that one—in fact I've criminally neglected Hesse, as I've only read Siddhartha and I loved it. Would you say Castalia is utopian? Either way, I've put Glass Bead Game on order—I saw that Mann likes it, which is always good enough for me.

Ren said:
To lose the faculty of sight.
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That would terrify me.

Ren said:
Fyodor Dostoyevski.
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Ren said:
Raskolnikov.
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:mclap:
 
1. The principal aspect of my personality:

Curiosity

2. The quality that I desire in a man:

Equanimity

3. The quality that I desire in a woman:

Potency

4. What I appreciate most about my friends:

Reflection

5. My main fault:

Sloth

6. My favourite occupation:

Contemplation

7. My dream of happiness:

Steadfastness

8. What would be my greatest misfortune?

Improvidence

9. What I should like to be:

Generous

10.The country where I should like to live:

Anywhere

11.My favourite colour:

Green

12.The flower that I like:

Lotus

13.My favourite bird:

Raven

14.My favourite prose authors:

Dostoyevski, Mervyn Peake

15.My favourite poets:

Shel Silverstein, Saul Williams

16.My heroes in fiction:

Beowulf, Odysseus, Batman

17.My favourite heroines in fiction:

Frigg, Barbara Gordon, Arya Stark

18.My favourite composers:

Chopin,Tchaikovsky, Vivaldi
 
Rowan Tree said:
Fantastic answers, @Ren.
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Why thank you! :blush: I tried to be economical with my answers.

Rowan Tree said:
Oooh, interesting. I haven't read that one—in fact I've criminally neglected Hesse, as I've only read Siddhartha and I loved it. Would you say Castalia is utopian? Either way, I've put Glass Bead Game on order—I saw that Mann likes it, which is always good enough for me.
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Yes, Castalia is certainly utopian in a sense. But I guess it depends how you understand Utopia. It is a spiritual Utopia, let us say.

I think the book is great, I got quite excited about it and ended up reading all of Hesse's major novels. I really love his style and depth. I'm not surprised Mann enjoyed the Glass Bead Game as it's easily the densest and most wordy of Hesse's books, and I'm currently reading Mann and find him quite verbose! ha, I'm sure I'll get used to it. I just started Death in Venice and I'm planning to read the Magic Mountain after that.
 
Ren said:
Magic Mountain
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That's one of the books that really stayed with me. It's remarkable. I also love his Doctor Faustus, although it made me feel quite melancholic.
 
Rowan Tree said:
That's one of the books that really stayed with me. It's remarkable. I also love his Doctor Faustus, although it made me feel quite melancholic.
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Good to know! Yeah, I'll also get around to Doctor Faustus, I've heard good things. :)
 
I read (in the following order): Glass Bead Game, Narcissus and Goldmund, Steppenwolf, Demian, and Siddartha.

Impossible to say which one of my favorite. I loved them all except Demian, which I still liked a lot. It's a wonderfully strange book.

Also, no one book is quite like the other, and yet it's all very Hesse. I've enjoyed Hermann. INFJ for sure! :p
 
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