Michael Rock Answers The Proust Questionnaire—Book Edition
By Michael Rock December 11, 2013
This November marked the 100th anniversary of the publication of the first volume of Marcel Proust’s opus, In Search of Lost Time (A la recherche du temps perdu), originally known in English as Remembrance of Things Past. To honor the occasion, we developed the Designers & Books version of the eponymous Proust Questionnaire, which we’ve sent out to various contributors and friends. Rather than including the questions from the original that asked about a wide array of “thoughts and feelings,” our adaptation focuses solely on the respondent’s relationship to books.
View the complete questions asked in The Proust Questionnaire—Book Edition
Here are the answers Michael Rock sent in response to the Proust Questionnaire—Book Edition:
1. Of these, your reading preference: fiction, nonfiction, poetry, drama:
Fiction.
2. Your favorite childhood book (or favorite childhood author):
Roald Dahl.
3. Your favorite book character:
May Kasahara in The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle.
4. Your favorite book title (because you like the sound of it):
Ada, or Ardor.
5. A book you could never finish:
A la recherche du temps perdu.
6. A book you will never start:
The Way Things Ought to Be.
7. If for some reason it turned out that you could save one and only one book from among those you own, which would it be:
Super Triplets, vols. 1–4 by Silas Rock.
8. A book you should have read but haven’t:
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.
9. The best “book as object” you own (how it looks over what it says):
Irma Boom’s early catalogue for the Dutch PTT.
10. Your reading speed: very slow, slow, moderate, fast, very fast:
Very slow.
11. While you read, are you a note-taker?
No.
14. If you could be any author:
Vladimir Nabokov.
16. Your favorite writer of the gender opposite yours:
Julia Child.
17. The last book you bought:
Light Years by James Salter.
18. Your favorite place to purchase books:
Amazon.
19. The book you are currently reading:
1Q84 by Haruki Murakami.
20. The book you will read next:
Chéri by Colette.
21. The current location of the book you will read next:
Strand Book Store.
22. Your favorite format for books: paper or pixels:
Paper.
23. If you could have written any book:
Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov.
24. A book that was particularly meaningful to, or highly recommended by, an acquaintance of yours:
The Patrick Melrose novels but Edward St. Aubyn.
25. If you have the chance to plan it, the last book you’ll read:
A la recherche du temps perdu. (Because it would take so long to finish.)
Also see “Celebrating a Proust Anniversary with The Proust Questionnaire—Book Edition.”
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