Take Nabokov’s personality test
In July 1926, Vladimir Nabokov sent his wife, Vera, a letter from Berlin. She was staying at a Swiss sanatorium and was in need of a healthy distraction from her bodily woes. Her loving and ingenious husband decided to compose a personality test to ease the stress of mental stagnation that inevitably ensues during a period of recuperation. By doing so, he managed to causally entertain and enlighten his wife in the same way he would thereafter for readers across the world.
Nabokov’s reputation for intricacy and insight is evident in these following questions. He oscillates from the profound to the frivolous, from the cheeky to the severe in such a way as to suggest a hidden design primarily engineered to unearth the fundamental tastes, tensions, moods and affections that constitute a character. There are perhaps gratuitous queries, but it doesn’t hurt to answer them. This weekend, as a welcome break from coverage of the outside world, I invite you to explore yourself and the inner selves of those around you. In my own experience, asking those you know best the questions below is the most interesting.
A questionnaire for the immodest and curious (not obligatory for anyone):
Name, patronymic, last name
Pen-name, or a preferred pen-name
Age and referred age
Attitude to marriage
Attitude to children
Profession and preferred profession
What century would you like to live in?
What city would you like to live in?
From what age do you remember yourself; your first memory
Which of the existing religions is closest to your world-view
What kind of literature do you like the most? What literary genre
Your favourite books
Your favourite art
Your favourite artwork
Your attitude to technology
Do you appreciate philosophy? As a form of scholarship, as a pastime
Do you believe in progress
Your favourite aphorism
Your favourite language
On what foundations does the world stand?
What miracle would you perform if you had the chance
What would you do if you suddenly got a lot of money
Your attitude to modern woman
Your attitude to modern man
What virtue and vice do you prefer and disapprove of in a woman?
What virtue and vice do you prefer and disapprove of in a man?
What gives you the keenest pleasure?
What gives you the keenest suffering?
Are you a jealous person?
Your attitude to lies
Do you believe in love?
Your attitude to drugs
Your most memorable dream
Do you believe in fate and predestination?
Your next incarnation?
Are you afraid of death?
Would you like man to become immortal?
Your attitude to suicide
Are you an anti-Semite? Yes. No. Why?
Do you like cheese?
Your favourite mode of transportation
Your attitude to solitude
Your attitude to our circle
Think of a name for it
Ideal menu
Letters to Véra by Vladimir Nabokov is published by Penguin Books.