In June 2011 Open Book Toronto asked the author to take the Proust Questionnaire, a much-loved game of the French author and his contemporaries. It was believed the answers reveal the respondent’s true nature. This is an updated version of that storied questionnaire.
What is your dream of happiness?
I don’t really believe in “happiness,” and I certainly don’t dream of it, but I do believe in “contentment,” which I think is the best we can expect in this life. All things considered, I think I am that. I believe those expecting happiness might be disappointed.
What is your idea of misery?
Likewise, I don’t have an “idea” of misery, although I’ve seen enough of it. Some of it was in the countries where I’ve lived and worked in, or just visited, but some of it was in the eyes of people here in Canada, rich and poor alike. Except for brief spells, I don’t believe I’ve experienced true misery, at least not yet. Knock on wood.
Where would you like to live?
In Vancouver, my hometown. My office window looks up at the North Shore mountains. If I climb onto my roof, which my kids recommend I don’t do anymore, I can glimpse the sea. The city’s 37,000 cherry blossom trees begin blooming in March. I’ve had neighbors from Eritrea, Portugal, the Philippines, China, Malaysia, Iraq, Italy, and Columbia. Our immediate neighbors are First Nations, and my wife is Korean. I’ve lived in places where there is little or no immigration. The result is a deadly sameness. Same language, same food, same point of view, same fear of the Other. Give me the vibrant multiculturalism of a Vancouver any day.
What qualities do you admire most in a man?
Compassion, wisdom, independence, courage, humour, creativity, and curiousity. Resilience, and the willingness to evolve.
What qualities do you admire most in a woman?
The same qualities I admire in a man. Plus form, effervescence, stoicism, warmth, and the magic embedded in the X chromosome.
What is your chief characteristic?
Curiosity.
What is your principal fault?
I have been known to be impatient. I tend to see the proverbial glass as half empty, but I don’t see that as a fault. Some sage said an optimist is someone who doesn’t have all the facts.
What is your greatest extravagance?
Don’t have one.
What faults in others are you most tolerant of?
As I grow older I’ve become more tolerant of youth and the many delusions common to that demographic. I try not to get upset about our flaws. We are imperfect beasts. Why sweat the small stuff?
What do you value most about your friends?
Their acceptance of me, their generosity, humour, and patience, particularly when I vent. I appreciate people trusting me with their life stories. I love to hear the ingenious way people navigate rough seas.
What characteristic do you dislike most in others?
Hubris, selfishness, bitterness. Greed, vanity, and ignorance.
What characteristic do you dislike most in yourself?
As mentioned, I’m in the autumn of my life — the homestretch, as they say at the racetrack. Though it hasn’t always been the case, I’m reasonably satisfied with who I’ve become. It’s a never-ending challenge, becoming.
What is your favourite virtue?
Charity, compassion, generosity, courage, modesty.
What is your favourite occupation?
Making stuff up.
What would you like to be?
A fellow who makes stuff up. I also wouldn’t mind having the superpower to make myself invisible.
What is your favourite colour?
Shades of blue.
What is your favourite flower?
The carnation.
What is your favourite bird?
Young Soon, my wife of 45 years.
What historical figure do you admire the most?
More than one, beginning with The Unknown Soldier. There’s also Spartacus, Cesar Chavez, the Canadian labour activist Albert Goodwin, Muhammad Ali, Dr. Anthony Fauci, Maria Ressa, Noam Chomsky, Nelson Mandela. There are just so many people I admire, I can’t possibly name them all.
What character in history do you most dislike?
Donald Trump tops my list. Right behind him is the war criminal and terrorist George Bush the Younger, Yale University’s most famous C- student.
Who are your favourite prose authors?
Here’s but a few: Henry Miller, Ryszard Kapuscinski, James Salter, Hunter Thompson, Joan Didion, Carlos Fuentes, Gunter Grass, John Banville, Louis Ferdinand Celine, Charles Bukowski, Carl Hiassen, Ann Patchett, Samuel Beckett Hilary Mantel, Richard Ford, Kevin Barry, Cathal Kelly, Nicole Hannah-Jones, Mark Bowden, Carys Davies, Claire Keegan, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, David Bergen, William Trevor, Chalmers Johnson, Rashid Khalidi, Anthony Doerr, Elizabeth Strout, Tessa Hadley.
Who are your favourite poets?
Pablo Neruda, Al Purdy, Alden Nowlan, Patrick Lane, Walt Whitman, Tom Wayman, Pete Trower, Bud Osborn.
Who are your favourite heroes in fiction?
Jesus Christ. I’m not Christian, but where would this world be without his message of kindness and compassion? I’ve also long admired the idealism of Miguel de Cervantes’ Don Quixote of La Mancha.
Who are your heroes in real life?
First, my eldest daughter Melissa Campbell, a high school special needs teacher with a heart the size of Texas. Second, my late uncle and namesake, who in the 1930s was a catcher in Vancouver’s Senior City Baseball League and a highly touted amateur boxer frequently written up in the daily paper. (I have the clippings.) As a teenager he served as a gunner aboard a Lancaster bomber on seventeen air sorties over Germany; prior to enlisting, he’d never been in a plane or a building taller than a three-storey building. Also, David Suzuki, Tommy Douglas, Greta Thunberg, Edward Snowden, and all librarians for their guardianship of our greatest treasures.
Who is your favourite painter?
I’m unqualified to answer this one, but I do appreciate Alex Colville, Banksy, Matthew Wong, Claude Monet, and my wife, Young Soon.
Who is your favourite musician?
My daughter Michelle, who sings under the name Michi and whose voice has been heard in a number of movies, including on Netflix and BBC London, where a recent song of hers was one of the station’s Picks of the Week. See YouTube Music/Michi-LaLa Land and Michi-Not Sleepin’ Soon.
What is your favourite food?
Oriental.
What is your favourite drink?
Dark roast grande java in a large mug. Enjoyed best alongside a wide slab of fruit pie topped with a snowball of vanilla ice cream.
What are your favourite names?
All the names I’ve used in my fiction.
What is it you most dislike?
I was raised in a war veterans’ housing project, so war and its armada of enablers, all of whom should be made to stroll through a battlefield littered with corpses.
What natural talent would you most like to possess?
To play several instruments beautifully, and without having to practice.
How do you want to die?
Painlessly, but does it matter?
What is your current state of mind?
One should consult the sages before answering heady questions. I’ve talked with one who said people should judge their lives not on where they’ve landed in life, but what heights they may have reached compared to where they started. It works for me.
What do you consider your greatest accomplishment?
Survival.
What is your motto?
Try.