92. A Very Brief History of the Proust Questionnaire

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KIM: Hey, everybody, welcome to another Lost Ladies of Lit mini episode! I’m Kim Askew, here with my co-host Amy Helmes…

AMY: Hi, everyone! Kim, I was trying to think of a topic for this week’s mini episode, and I I don’t know, as part of my brainstorming, I was like, “maybe some of our listeners might want to know more about us.” And then I thought, yeah no probably not. We’re better off sticking to more interesting topics.

KIM: I’d rather talk about other people, personally.

AMY: Yeah, but anyway, this train of thought got me thinking about something else: the Proust Questionnaire. You’re familiar with it, right?

KIM: Oh, yeah. Vanity Fair magazine, famously, ends each of its issues by having a celebrity fill out the Proust Questionnaire. It’s a list of thought-provoking and kind of fun questions which are hopefully going to reveal a bit of the interview subject’s personality. (And typically, I think they do.)

AMY: Yeah, it’s usually the first thing I read whenever I pick up a copy of Vanity Fair. But then I started wondering, okay, why is it called the Proust Questionnaire? I gotta assume Proust, the French novelist, must have come up with the list of questions or something like that.

KIM: Yeah. I felt like maybe, um, he had a similar thing that he did and they took the name from that. But Yeah. I wasn't really sure. I'm curious to talk about it more in this episode. 

AMY: Yeah, so that’s what we’re going to do. And turns out he did not create the questionnaire. All he did was answer a few of them, because it turns out this questionnaire was a popular pastime in the Victorian Era. Some refer to it as a “parlor game,” 

KIM: They loved those games. They loved those parlor games!

AMY: Well, they had nothing else… they didn’t have Netflix! They had nothing else to do. THey had to come up with stuff if they had people over.

KIM: Yeah. They had their little science experiments and Blindman’s Bluff.

AMY: Yes. Ooh! We should do a mini episode on all the different Victorian parlor games!

KIM: Yeah, I think they all make an appearance in Dickens’s novels. We could probably just do Dickens novels and parlor games. Anyway, making a note of that.

KIM: Yes, okay, so this questionnaire actually has its origins in a printed book. It was called a “confession album.” I think there were various versions of them. But they would feature pre-printed questions with blank spaces that your friends and guests to fill out. (It feels very slumber-party-ish to me!)

KIM: Yeah, all of a sudden when you were saying that I was thinking Burn Book or something like that.

AMY: Yeah, exactly. Kind of. Yeah. So, for example, Kim, you would come over to my house one evening and then I’d give you this book and be like, “Here, fill this out!” It kind of keeps a memento of the person that came to visit you, but it’s also fun and something to do. And a lot of famous people from the era have filled these out and some have been saved. So there are examples from notable people like Oscar Wilde (which, I didn’t really have time to do a deep-dive looking for his responses, but can you imagine how good his must have been?)

KIM: Oh my god. I’ve got to go read those. 

AMY: He’d be really good at filling out this form. Umm…Arthur Conan Doyle…

KIM: Ooh! I want to read Arthur Conan Doyle’s!

AMY: Yeah. Paul Cezanne. Karl Marx did one. The author A.A. Milne also remembered them from when he was a boy.

KIM: That’s so interesting, but it still doesn’t answer why this questionnaire is now called the Proust questionnaire. Is it because his answers were particularly enlightened or amazing?

AMY: Yeah, that’s kind of what I was thinking. You know, maybe he somehow answered these questions SO REMARKABLY that he came to be associated with it.” Well, I found his responses, and I will let everybody judge for themselves. He first filled out the questionnaire when he was around 14-years-old. And it was from a book called Confessions. An Album to Record Thoughts, Feelings, Etc.” It was printed in English but he wrote his responses in French. So then when he was in his early 20s he filled out a second one which had slightly different questions. So I’m going to read you some of the answers and his questions from both of these just to give you a little bit of an idea. And you might hear my paper rattling a bit while I do this, so just disregard that. Okay, so I’ll just run through some of these:

So… your favorite virtue? His second one, he responded “the need to be loved more precisely the need to be caressed and spoiled much more than the need to be admired.”  

What do you appreciate the most in your friends? “To have tenderness for me, if their personage is exquisite enough to render quite high the price of their tenderness.” (Not really sure what he's going for there.)

Um, what is your idea of perfect happiness? “Not, I fear a very elevated one. I really haven't the courage to say what it is and if I did, I should probably destroy it by the mere fact of putting it into words.”

Who is your favorite hero of fiction? “Hamlet.”

KIM: I would probably have answered that at different points. I don't know. I'd have to think about it now, but yeah.

AMY: ​​Uh, what are your favorite names? “I only have one at a time.” (I don't think he really answered that one.)

 Um, which talent would you most like to have? “Willpower and irresistible charm.”

KIM: He put all of his work into his writing, not into this.

AMY: Well, I mean, remember that he was 14 for one of them, but…

KIM: Yeah. That’s true.

AMY: What is your current state of mind? “Annoyance at having to think about myself in order to answer these questions.” (I kind of sympathize with that.)

KIM: Oh yeah, for sure.

AMY: But then we have ones like, “Your favorite color and flower?” and he wrote, “I like them all. And for the flowers, I do not know.” (I mean, you could do better than that!)

KIM: He wanted to get into the party.

AMY: Yeah. He's like, come on. He was starting to get over it. Yeah. Um, let’s see. 

Your idea of misery? “Being separated from Mama.”

KIM: I was going to say something about his mom had to come up. If you didn't read one where his mom was the answer, I was going to be shocked. 

AMY: His favorite qualities in a man? “Feminine charm.”

KIM: That’s funny.

AMY: Favorite qualities in a woman? “Manly virtues.”

KIM: I love that he swapped that that's also very fitting as well. I'm very revealing. That's great. 

AMY: I'm trying to find a few more good ones. Oh:

If not yourself, who would you be? “Since the question does arise I prefer not to answer it. All the same, I should very much have liked to be Pliny the Younger.” It’s like, okay!

Anyway, so I don’t know. I’m not getting any major “genius” vibes with his answers.

KIM: No, no, no. I think he did save all of the good stuff up for his novels, which is fine with me.

AMY: And truly the whole concept of this questionnaire, when you hear the genesis of it, it feels very junior high, actually. Here I was reading Vanity Fair thinking it was this intellectual exercise and had, you know, something very “Proustian” about it. And no, it was just really  some dumb confession albums that the Victorians were doing. And I guess by the end of the 19th century, if you asked a guest to fill one out, they would probably roll their eyes and be like, “Really? Oh my God, this lame guy is still into this?”

KIM: Yeah, as would happen now, like I think it would be too silly at this point.  

AMY: Yeah, it’s kind of forced. There’s one line from a novel by the Canadian novelist Annie Sevigny in which she writes: “did any of you ever come under the torture of that modern Inquisition, the 'Confession Book?'”

KIM: I love it. 

AMY: So she’s kind of being snarky about it. 

KIM: She’s over it. Okay, so we haven’t quite gotten to the burning question, which is why Proust’s name came to be associated with the questionnaire? I still don’t know.

AMY: Right.  Because it's like yeah, he filled some out, but so did all these other writers.

KIM: Yeah, why is it not the “Oscar Wilde Questionnaire?”

AMY: Yeah, okay. I kind of have an answer, and that is that the first one Proust filled out when he was 14, that was a confession album belonging to his friend, Antoinette Faure. (And her father Felix eventually went on to become the president of France.) So Antoinette’s son eventually found that confession album in 1924 (two years after Proust’s death) and he ended up having Proust’s page published in a French literary journal. Now Antoinette’s son was a psychoanalysis, so alongside Proust’s answers he published an article sort of parsing out Proust’s responses with a psychoanalytic bent. 

KIM: Remind me to burn my papers, one, and two, that’s pretty funny. That’s pretty interesting to take that and do that. But yeah, I wonder what Proust would have thought of that. 

AMY: Yeah, so while confession albums kind of went the way of the dodo, the proust questionnaire made this resurgent comeback and it got people interested in this idea of the questionnaire again. started appearing in French literary magazines, sort of as Vanity Fair does now where intellectuals would answer the same list of questions. A German newspaper started running it and so did England’s Saturday Correspondent paper. Vanity Fair started featuring it in 1993, which is actually pretty recent all things considered. So then the idea of the questionnaire has also cropped up on TV a bit. I don’t know if you remember the TV show Inside the Actor’s Studio?

KIM: Oh yes.

AMY: With James Lipton. Yes. They made fun of that on Saturday Night Live, too, but he always ended his show with those sorts of questions. And today it kind of signifies that you are “somebody,” if you get asked to answer one of these today, right? Which makes it even more funny because it just started as this dumb pastime, as we said. I want to credit a 2016 New Yorker article by Evan Kindley, which provided some of the information that I've relayed here in this episode. And if you want to learn more about the Proust questionnaire and that story of how it came to light we'll link to that in our show notes.

KIM: It was interesting. I'm definitely wanting to read some more of these answers from famous people. 

AMY: Yeah.  And Kim, I don't know if you know this, but when I worked at, I had my magazine job for like 20 years that I did, um, one of my sections that I was in charge of it was called StarTalk, but it was basically, we would ask one question each week in the vein of, one of these Preuss questionnaire questions, , it's like a fan magazine.

KIM: Yeah, you’ve got to sound really interesting and pithy and a short answer. Like it's gotta be set sort of revealing. And if you want to present who you are, you want to come across as intellectual or whatever. That's a lot of pressure.

AMY:  You're always going to think of the correct cooler answer later that night when you’re lying in bed.

KIM: Yes.

AMY: Right. But part of the fun of it is that you do have to answer on the fly.

KIM: Right.

AMY: So that said, I know that we said we didn't want to bore listeners with anything about ourselves, Kim, but maybe we should try to do a few.  Maybe we should end the show answering a few of the Proust questionnaire questions, and I did not plan for this, so I have not premeditated my, um, answer so well, we'll just do a few and see if we come up with anything amazing. So we’ll just ask a few back and forth if you want.

KIM: Okay.

AMY: Um, I'll start easy. Your favorite color and flower?

KIM: My favorite color is black.

AMY: It is?! That is so dumb!

KIM: It’s a flattering color!

AMY: Okay. All right. Like your favorite color to wear, I’m guessing? Or anything?

KIM: Both. I like the darkness of it. I like it. Yeah.

AMY: Oh my gosh. I am getting real insight into you.

KIM: Oh, okay! So what else can we find out? Okay, so let’s see…

AMY: You didn’t do flower.

KIM: Oh, I didn't do flower. Um, my favorite flowers are Ecuadorian roses.

AMY: Oh, that’s specific.

KIM: Dark red and gorgeous.

AMY: Okay. Since that's an easy one, I'm going to answer it too, because I can just, I know the answer already. So my favorite color is yellow, cheerful. Happy. And then, yeah, I know, like you'll never see me wearing yellow, but it's my favorite color.  And then, um, flower is tulip.

KIM: A tulip is a cute flower, and yellow and tulip seem to go great together. I like it. I think it does show a little bit of who you are as well.  Okay. So, oh yeah. I think I see some of these that could be funny for you to ask me.

AMY: Which one?

KIM: Your favorite name? Do you remember the time? Long before I had my daughter…

AMY: Yes, I don't. I, you don't even need… does it start with a W?

KIM: I just, I had announced during… when we were shopping or something. And I said, “You know what I think would be a great baby name?”  And you said no. And I said, “Well, Waverly.” And you said “What?” And then later at dinner you were like, “Oh yeah, Kim said, um, that she wanted to name her kid Waverly.” And I was like, “Wait a second.

No, I didn't.” And then I was like, “Oh yeah, you're right. I did.”AMY: It sounds very Bronte-esque…like “Waverly climbed the moors.”

KIM: I used to love all those really dramatic names. Victoria Elizabeth, or queen leanings. Those were always my favorite. I don't know if that's going to sound funny to anyone besides us, but Waverly. I immediately thought of Waverly when I saw that question. Okay. Where would you like to live?  

AMY: England.

KIM: That doesn't surprise me. 

AMY: London.

KIM: The Anglophile in us. Yes.You know, what's crazy is you didn't come to visit me when I was living in London. It wasn't for that long. 

AMY: It wasn't’ for that long. 

KIM: Yeah, I’m surprised.

AMY: I was engaged at that point and…

KIM: You were planning your wedding. 

AMY: There was a lot going on.

KIM: Yeah, because I flew back for your wedding and then not long after that I ended up moving.

AMY: Yeah.

KIM: But anyhow…

AMY: I love how I answered that so quickly. That must truly be like, I didn't even miss a beat on that. Okay. 

KIM: We don’t need to analyze that one. That’s just right there for the taking.

AMY: I mean, Simon Thomas, the offer still stands. Subletting your house. Okay. I have one for you, Kim. What is your pet aversion? 

KIM: Cats.

AMY: What?

KIM: I know, that’s not the question.

AMY: Cats? Oh, like “pets.” Okay, okay.

KIM: Um, But it would actually be making any phone calls after 11:00 AM. I think it's kind of an introvert thing. I hate calling to make appointments or doing anything like that after 11, like I just don't have the energy for it. 

AMY: But before 11 is fine?

KIM: I only want to do it before 11, Like when I'm highly caffeinated and everything after that,  just, I just can't do it. 

AMY: I hear you. I don't even like to do it before or after 11. I would prefer neither. Yeah, I get it. I was always nervous as a kid, too, when I would have to make a phone call. 

KIM: Me too. I still am. Yeah. I don't know how we interview all these amazing people now. It just becomes it's become so, so fun and easy. But, 

 If you had told me this when I was like, you know, 21, even that I'd be doing this, like no way. What about your misery? The thing that is, what is the question…? Um….

AMY: Right. Where he said, “Mama.” My idea of pure misery.

KIM: What is your idea of pure misery?

AMY: Um,  accidentally taking someone's life, like hitting somebody in a car.

KIM: Oh, wow. You went, I did not expect you to go there. I was literally going to say being at the DMV without a book!

AMY: Kim! I’m taking these very seriously!

KIM: Oh my God. I'm like, I mean, I'm, I'm having heart palpitations because I can't even think about that.

AMY: The depth of human misery?

KIM: I can’t even go there. It’s awful. 

AMY: I’m taking it real dark!

KIM: I love that your colors are yellow and your flowers, the tulip, and

you're getting really dark. And I'm the one who's like black with Ecuadorian roses. And I'm like “My pet aversion is a cat!” Anyway. 

AMY: Okay, on that note…

KIM: Yeah, we should go. 

AMY: I need to go have a drink while I contemplate deep, morbid thoughts.

KIM: Yeah.

AMY: If you're still listening, we want you to join us next week when we'll be joined by a Hollywood screenwriter, Bridgette Hales, to discuss the life and work of Ruth Prowler job Vala. She's a Booker prize-winning novelist, and two time Oscar winner who pinned the lion share of Merchant-Ivory films. I didn't know that until we started looking into doing her for this episode!

KIM:  So, so crazy, so amazing. It's going to be such a great episode.

We both love Merchant-Ivory movies. So if you're loving this podcast, do us a favor and leave us a five-star review over an apple podcasts to let us know you're out there. We might even give you a shout out in an upcoming episode to thank you. 

AMY: We will.

KIM: We promise. Let’s just say we will.

AMY: Bye, everybody! Our theme song was written and performed by Jennie Malone and our logo was designed by Harriet Grant. Lost Ladies of Lit is produced by Amy Helmes and Kim Askew.

AMY: So that’s all for today’s podcast. Join us next week when we’ll be joined by Hollywood screenwriter Brigitte Hales to discuss the life and work of Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, a Booker Prize winning novelist and two-time Oscar winner who penned the lion’s share of Merchant-Ivory’s films!

KIM: I can’t wait for this episode! We both love Merchant-Ivory movies! Also, if you’re loving this podcast, do us a favor and leave us a five-star review over at Apple podcasts to let us know you’re out there! We might even give YOU a shout-out in an upcoming episode to thank you!

AMY: Bye, everyone! Our theme song was written and performed by Jennie Malone and our logo was designed by Harriet Grant. Lost Ladies of Lit is produced by Amy Helmes and Kim Askew.