My Protagonists Meet Proust, Part Two - Cakey the Clown

Okay, so in my last blog entry, I talked about this interesting fellow:

That is none other than Marcel Proust, who is known, at least in part, for a questionnaire that he filled out in a journal. That questionnaire is sometimes used by authors to interview their characters as an exercise in fleshing out personality and motivations. I decided to do this with some of my own characters.

Last time, we asked these questions of Mary Lanham, the protagonist of the Mary of the Aether series, so go check that one out, if you haven't.

This time, we are going to ask these questions of my weirdest character. Yes, it's time to ask the Proust questions to Cakey the Clown. Now, Cakey is a character who appears in my e-book, Shadows of Tockland, but I actually created him years ago (roughly 2000). If you haven't read the book, he turns up in a traveling circus when the protagonist, David Morr, runs away from home and joins up.

Let's see what Cakey has to say.

Cakey the Clown - Shadows of Tockland (interviewed as he was at the beginning of the novel)

What do you consider your greatest achievement?

When I finally decided to stop being two different people and became one person, that was my greatest achievement. You see, we are all divided into two. There is the person that exists onstage, when the audience is watching, and there is the person that exists offstage, when nobody is paying attention. It became clear to me that the man I was offstage was a construct, a fake, an empty suit, a deflated balloon, so I set him loose. Now, the person that I am onstage is the only person and my only self. I am one, complete, whole, clear. There is no mask, only my real face.

What is your idea of perfect happiness?

When you finally perceive the moment of destiny, the decision gate toward which events have been pulling you, the exhilaration is like nothing else. And when you finally enter that gate and turn in the direction of fulfilling your purpose, the sublime moment is so beautiful and perfect that every single thing that ever happened to you suddenly and forever makes sense. I have not reached that moment yet, but I feel it drawing near.

What is your current state of mind?

To be honest, I have grown impatient with a lot of things, restless and ready to embrace the future. I have always known that the ever-night is coming upon the world, and all of these elements, from plague to war, are dragging humanity toward it, kicking and screaming. And I have always known that I will be in the pivotal place when it arrives, and I am ready to be there. Rubes and foolishness and nonsense and noise are all distractions that wear on me, as I wait for my moment to arrive.

What is your favorite occupation?

I don't really believe in the concept of occupation. You do what you are, and you are what you do. So if what you are doing is not making you what you are, then you are doing the wrong thing. That is why the rubes are always unsettled. But as for me, I do what I am at all times. When I'm juggling onstage and the rubes are captivated, I am not merely entertaining them. I am embracing myself, my destiny, my future, and the moment that is coming.

What is your most marked characteristic?

Sanity. Sometimes I think I might be the only sane person in the world. Why can't the rest of them see the divided self? Why can't the rest of them see the ever-night that is coming? Why can't the rest of them see how every single thing that happens is drawing us to a pivotal moment? Why can't they see that what looks like a mask might, in fact, be a real face, and that the so-called real face might be the mask?

When and where were you the happiest?

I'm not thinking about the happinesses of the past. The past was only a staircase leading me to a greater height. I will be happiest in the future, when I get where I know I am going. In a way, in some dimension, the future has already happened, so that is my happiest moment, there before me somewhere, as if it has already been.

What is it that you most dislike?

The dull inability to perceive the future that infects almost every single human being in the world. The distraction with tragedies of the past and hardships of the present. Don't they know how to shed these things from mind and memory and march forward? And certainly my fellow performers should get this. But they don't. They don't.

What is your greatest fear?

I have transcended the place where fear festers and have gone into a realm where fear becomes fodder for a building electrical certainty. If I hadn't ripped away the second-self, if I still allowed myself to step offstage and become that other person, then fear would still dominate.

What is your greatest regret?

This is a stupid rube question. Regret? How can you have regret when you are driven every step of the way by destiny? When you are onstage, there is no time for regret. Why? Because you are in the middle of the show, building toward the end. Do you get it now?

Which talent would you most like to have?

The ability to breathe on other people and make them comprehend everything that I have come to know. Trying to explain it is like pounding on a steel wall with a foam hammer. Conversations always tip over the edge and fall sideways into foolishness.

What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?

To be a rube. To live offstage. To wallow in that offstage self. Which is exactly what the whole world does.

What is the quality you most like in a woman?

If I met a woman who could perceive that every single event that happens is only pulling us inexorably toward a pivotal moment of destiny where we confront the ever-night then indeed that would be a woman of rare quality. There are no accidents, no mistakes,no griefs, no tragedies, only steps leading to destiny.

What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?

I don't deplore anything in the onstage self, and that is the only person that I am anymore. But that other self, the one I buried, the one who climbed offstage at the end of the show, I deplore everything he was and every trait he possessed.

What is the trait you most deplore in others?

Milling about like animals on a highway, oblivious to the truck bearing down on them. That is the trait of all people, it seems, and why? Why am I the only one who gets it?

What do you most value in your friends?

There are fleeting moments when I feel like my fellow performers almost accept what I am and what I have realized, and those are valuable moments.

Which living person do you most admire?

I have to say my grandmother, though I have never really known her. I don't even know if she is still alive. I don't know what happened to her. There are only stories that I have carried with me, but she is the one who placed destiny upon my face when she bathed me in the cerulean waters of the Suceava River and called me a child of destiny. I have a memory of it. I'm sure I do. 

And that is Cakey the Clown, people.