Proust/May

This week’s Proust Questionnaire contestant is a new member of the Corresponding Society, Ryan Doyle May, who just read with us last week and has a chapbook forthcoming from our What Where series. Answers below!

Meet Ryan Doyle May

Ryan Doyle May's work has appeared in Almagre Literary Journal, Guilty As Charged, Bombay Gin, and Ganymede. His chapbook, The Anatomy of Gray is forthcoming on Corresponding Society Press. He has MFA in Creative Writing at The New School and blogs at thereckoningroom.blogspot.com.

Ryan Doyle May Answers the Proust Questionnaire

Your favorite virtue.
Humility.

Your favorite qualities in a man.
Weakness.

Your favorite qualities in a woman.
Violence.

Your chief characteristic.
Bangs.

What you appreciate the most in your friends.
Loyalty.

Your main fault.
Procrastination.

Your favorite occupation.
The business of words.

Your idea of happiness.
Depends on how much I have written.

Your idea of misery
Creative impotence

If not yourself, who would you be?
I have never been myself.

Where would you like to live?
In a pillow book

Your favorite prose authors.
Bhanu Kapil, Margaurite Duras, Milan Kundera, Anais Nin

Your favorite poets.
Anne Sexton, Federico Garcia Lorca, Akilah Oliver, Anne Carson

Your favorite heroes in fiction.
Odysseus, Humbert Humbert, The Little Prince

Your favorite heroines in fiction.
Ava, Anna Karina, Sabina (Nin’s Sabina)

Your favorite painters and composers.
Andrew Wyeth, Francis Bacon, Robert Mapplethorpe, Eric Satie

Your heroes in “real life.”
Bhanu Kapil

What characters in history do you most dislike?
Hitler and Dale Peck.

Your favorite names.
Symphony.

What do you hate the most?
Indifference.

What military event do you admire the most?
I wouldn’t call it admiration.

What reform do you admire the most?
Reform is another word for stagnation. Revolt!

The natural talent you’d like to be gifted with.
I would like the ability to switch gender at will.

How do you wish to die?
I wish to die like the sun.

What is your present state of mind?
Red.

For what fault do you have the most toleration?
Egotism.

Your favorite motto.
“Perhaps I am doomed to retrace my steps under the illusion that I am exploring, doomed to try and learn what I should simply recognize, learning a mere fraction of what I have forgotten.”