Two years ago, I bought a subscription to Vanity Fair magazine. As Noodle Talk‘s creator, I was naturally drawn to its monthly back-page feature, ”The Proust Questionnaire,” in which a celebrity shares his/her brief answers to a small collection of personal questions. Although I always wondered why the questions remained mostly the same from issue to issue — and weren’t half as interesting as those in Noodle Talk — I never pursued the matter until last month.
Perhaps it was the publishing zeitgeist I was tuning into for I suddenly found myself wondering what Proust’s connection was to this questionnaire. A little Googling quickly turned up this nugget of information:
At the end of the 19th century, French novelist Marcel Proust was still in his teens when he answered a questionnaire at two social events — one when he was 13, another when he was 20. At that time, it was quite the fad to answer such a list of questions that revealed the tastes and aspirations of the taker. Proust did not invent the questionnaire; he is simply the most extraordinary person to respond to them . . . . He answered the questionnaire several times in his life, always with enthusiasm.
These are the questions Proust was working with and which Vanity Fair draws from for its questionnaire:
What is your current state of mind?
What do you consider the most overrated virtue?
On what occasion do you lie?
What do you most dislike about your appearance?
Which living person do you most despise?
What is the quality you most like in a man?
What is the quality you most like in a woman?
Which words or phrases do you most overuse?
What or who is the greatest love of your life?
When and where were you happiest?
Which talent would you most like to have?
If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
What do you consider your greatest achievement?
If you were to die and come back as a person or a thing, what would it be?
Where would you most like to live?
What is your most treasured possession?
What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?
What is your favorite occupation?
What is your most marked characteristic?
What do you most value in your friends?
Who are your favorite writers?
Who is your hero of fiction?
Which historical figure do you most identify with?
Who are your heroes in real life?
What are your favorite names?
What is it that you most dislike?
What is your greatest regret?
How would you like to die?
What is your motto?
I had no idea when I began my investigation that Vanity Fair was soon to publish a compilation of celebrity answers that have appeared since the questionnaire became a magazine feature 16 years ago. (About the same time, it turns out, that Noodle Talk was being independently developed.) You can read all about the book, and its provenance in 19th century French parlors, in the magazine’s November, 2009 issue. Who woulda thought that Noodle Talk and Marcel Proust shared DNA!
By all means buy the book if you want. But if you’d like to hear answers that are a thousand times more endearing, enlivening, enriching, and entertaining, pick up a set of Noodle Talk and share its questions with your family, friends, neighbors, or colleagues. They may not be movie stars, taste makers, artists, or politicians but their responses will mean more to you. And your relationships will be forever in your debt.
Personal Note to Graydon Carter: If you ever want to reinvigorate the Proust questions and take them to another level, here’s how you can reach me: www.noodletalk.com/contact.htm.
P.S. — Wikipedia also has a good entry on The Proust Questionnaire.
Tags: conversation game, conversation starters, conversation stirrers, Graydon Carter, ice breakers, Marcel Proust, Noodle Talk, Proust, The Proust Questionnaire, Vanity Fair, Vanity Fair's Proust Questionnaire
I had heard that Proust developed a sort of noodletalk of his own. I can’t remember who told me but I meant to ask you if you knew that Proust engaged in this way of conversing. And now I know you do know. I would imagine that P would make up questions as well. Hope you find out everything about his involvement.
What more do we know about Proust and his approach to noodle talking? I like his questions almost as much as yours….