Andrei Pleșu: Notes, states, days
I have, daily, many occasions for astonishment. One of them is to discover my own texts that I had completely forgotten about. (The excuse would be that I have also written quite a lot...) The text below appeared in Dilema veche, at the beginning of 2013. I no longer recognize myself, necessarily, in all of its ideas. But I prefer to offer the reader (of today) minor reasons for surprise, even if they are not necessarily amusing... It’s a way of dialoguing without pretensions with him. It crossed my mind to also revisit a more clumsy version of the memoirs: the hilariously absurd qualifications I have had (and still have) over time, regarding my public activity. I have also had, on various social networks and through some hyper-vigilant newspapers, a radical portrait: I am a Sorosist, Băsist, securist, a mănăcu, "a lord of the mind" (elitist), a plagiarist and several other radical bombshells, useful so that I don’t take it to heart. Maybe someday I will make an anthology with them...
January-February 2013
My own answers to "Proust's Questionnaire." (Proust's Questionnaire originated as an English game, created during the Victorian era, in the mid-19th century, and has had successors in various cultures. Marcel Proust answered it in two sessions, once at 15 years old and again at 19, to essential questions about love, death, happiness, and the meaning of life. The manuscript was discovered only in 1924, two years after the writer's death. In the meantime, other writers, artists, and celebrities of all kinds have found it amusing to join in the game). Here I go:
1. My main trait: I am, in general, dissatisfied.
2. The quality I wish to find in a man: Good breeding and character.
3. The quality I prefer in a woman: Cheerful reasonableness. And a few more...
4. What I appreciate most in my friends: Loyalty and good humor.
5. My main defect: I don’t like myself.
6. My favorite pastime: Chatting with friends, interrupted by some readings.
7. The happiness I dream of: To have time and inclination.
8. What would be the greatest misfortune for me: To have to travel all the time.
9. The place where I would like to live: Bucharest, with a vacation home in Ireland.
10. My favorite color: The color of well-cooked roast beef.
11. The flower I like: Grass.
12. My favorite bird: The goose and its liver.
13. My favorite prose writers: Plato and Caragiale (including Mateiu).
14. My favorite poets: Shakespeare. But (don’t get annoyed!) also Eminescu and Topârceanu.
15. My favorite heroes from literature: Athos, Porthos, and Cyrano de Bergerac.
16. My favorite heroines from literature: Sașa Comăneșteanu, Natasha Rostova, and (God forgive me!) the lady Marghiolița Mânjoloaia.
17. My favorite composers: Mozart, Rossini, and Ionel Fernic.
18. My favorite painters: Raphael, Bruegel (the Elder), Van Gogh. (In our country: Andreescu, Pătrașcu, C. Baba, Horia Bernea.)
19. My favorite heroes from real life: Churchill and His Holiness John Paul II. (But also P.P. Carp.)
20. What I hate the most: Diligent stupidity.
21. The quality I would like to have by nature: What do you mean?
22. How I would like to die: On time.
23. The mistakes that inspire me the most indulgence: Mistakes without consequences.
24. My motto (unrealized): Nothing forced!
ȘTIRI PE ACELEAȘI SUBIECTE
