What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?
Watching helplessly as someone I love suffers.
Where would you like to live?
A large city, preferably one that has been large for several hundred
years, marked by history, readily explored on foot, comparatively mild in climate, with grand architecture, innumerable cafes, restaurants, bars, bookshops, and libraries, and adjacent to a significant body of water.
What is your idea of earthly happiness?
To reach the end of my life and know I’ve done everything I was capable of doing.
To what faults do you feel most indulgent?
Self-indulgence, particularly in artists.
Who are your favorite heroes of fiction?
Charlie Marlow, John Self, Bucky Wunderlick.
Who are your favorite characters in history?
T. E. Lawrence, Bruce Chatwin, Sean Flynn, Sabbatai Zevi.
Who are your favorite heroines in real life?
My wife.
Who are your favorite heroines of fiction?
The narrator of Denis Johnson’s The Stars at Noon, Leni (The Trial).
Your favorite painter?
Kandinsky, Howard Hodgkin, Vermeer, Mark Rothko.
Your favorite musician?
Leonard Cohen, Richard Thompson, Glenn Gould, Bill Frisell.
The quality you most admire in a man?
The ability to confront and impede the evil, cruelty, and ugliness of
the world without becoming evil, cruel, and ugly.
The quality you most admire in a woman?
All of the above, plus she’s beautiful and likes me.
Your favorite virtue?
Courage and decency, taken together; separately they’re of limited use.
Your favorite occupation?
Writer.
Who would you have liked to be?
A more courageous writer.
2 comments:
Answer number 3, loosely interpreted: "I will never be happy."
-Purslane
Not far off the mark.
- Not Purslane
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