In June 2011 Open Book Toronto asked Don McLellan to take the Proust Questionnaire. It was not invented by Marcel Proust, but it was a much-loved game of the French author and his contemporaries. It was believed the answers reveal the respondent’s true nature. McLellan retook the questionnaire in 2020. His updated answers are in italics.
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 still don’t dream of happiness. Those who expect it will likely 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 I have 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. (There is more money and toys and comforts in this world than ever before. There is also more misery)
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, I can glimpse the sea. The city’s 37,000 cherry blossom trees begin blooming in March. I’ve had neighbours from Eritrea, Portugal, the Philippines, China, Malaysia, Iraq, Italy, and Columbia. Our immediate neighbours 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 multiculturalism of a Vancouver any day)
What qualities do you admire most in a man?
Compassion, wisdom, independence, courage, humour, and creativity. (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. (Ditto)
What is your principal fault?
I have been known to be impatient. (I often see the glass as half empty rather than half full, though I don’t consider it a fault. Some sage said an optimist is someone who doesn’t have all the facts)
What is your greatest extravagance?
I love to buy books when I want them. I don’t like waiting for them to be available at the library. (A few years ago I started getting all of my reading material from the public library. I consider it a treasure chest, and wish I’d started years earlier)
What faults in others are you most tolerant of?
As I age I have become more tolerant of youth and the many delusions common to that demographic.(Ditto)
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 ways people navigate rough seas)
What characteristic do you dislike most in others? Hubris, selfishness and bitterness. (Greed, vanity, and ignorance)
What characteristic do you dislike most in yourself?
As mentioned, I’m in the autumn of my life. Though it hasn’t always been the case, I’m reasonably satisfied with who I have become. (I’m now in the home stretch, as they say at the racetrack, and I feel the same way)
What is your favourite virtue?
Charity. (Compassion, generosity, courage, modesty)
What is your favourite occupation?
Journalism. (Making stuff up)
What would you like to be?
What I am – a journalist. (Invisible)
What is your favourite colour?
Shades of blue. (All of ’em)
What is your favourite flower?
Carnation. (All of ‘em)
What is your favourite bird?
Young Soon, my wife of 34 years. (Young Soon, my wife of more than 40 years)
What historical figure do you admire the most?
The Unknown Soldier. (Spartacus, Cesar Chavez, and the Canadian labour activist Albert Goodwin, who was murdered by police in 1918)
What character in history do you most dislike?
The war criminal and terrorist George Bush the Younger, Yale University’s most famous C- student. (Donald Trump, the anti-Christ, and ‘self-licking ice cream cone’)
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)
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 subscribe to no religion, but what other fictional character has made such a lasting impact on the real world? Where would we be today without his message of kindness and compassion? Who cares if the man was mostly make-believe? I’ve also long admired the idealism of Miguel de Cervantes’ Don Quixote of La Mancha)
Who are your heroes in real life?
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. Also David Suzuki, Nelson Mandela, and Tommy Douglas. (Muhammad Ali, Greta Thunberg, Edward Snowden, and all librarians)
Who is your favourite painter?
Alex Colville. (Banksy, and Edmonton’s Matthew Wong, who committed suicide at age 35)
Who is your favourite musician? My daughter Michelle, who sings under the name Michi and who recently signed a recording contract. Her single, a European dance number called “Hysteria” (available on iTunes) is about to debut on the radio in Holland, Luxembourg and Belgium. (These days Michelle sings and composes jazz and pop, and is currently based in Hanoi, Vietnam while performing in the resort hotels and clubs of Southeast Asia. She was recently featured at a Thai music festival, and has had several of her songs picked up by the movies in Asia, Canada, and the U.S., including a Netflix series and a Levi’s jeans commercial)
What is your favourite food?
Oriental. (Ditto)
What is your favourite drink?
Coffee. (Dark roast, grande)
What are your favourite names?
Hymie Toomer, Howie Bowles, Jean Lepinski, Edna Crumb, Dwayne Scales, Fenton Oswald, Wilbur Stark, Lonnie Swarmes, Rubin Snow, Archie Pell, Bevilacqua and Dewey Foster – all characters from my fiction. (Characters from my most recent fiction)
What is it you most dislike?
I was raised in a war veterans’ housing project, so war. (War and its profane enablers, admirers, promoters, instigators, and financiers. All of them should be made to walk through a battlefield littered with corpses)
What natural talent would you most like to possess?
The ability to hit a curve ball. (The ability to hit any ball, even a beach ball)
How do you want to die?
Does it matter? (Without pain hopefully, and with a smile on my face)
What is your current state of mind?
Troubled. I’ve been running for more than 20 years and have been religious about my eating habits. I don’t smoke, drink, or do drugs, yet two weeks ago I was diagnosed with an aggressive cancer, which has metastasized. While I’m not in any physical pain – not yet, at least – the doctor says my prognosis is ‘not good.’ (After a difficult treatment, I have been cancer free since 2011. I’ve lost a step or two, but I returned to running and am still at it.)
What do you consider your greatest accomplishment?
Survival.
What is your motto?
Try. (Try harder)