Many a contemporary author, weary of the trivialising attentions of the modern media, dreams fondly of an age of higher seriousness and plainer clothes. But this little gem from the Paris Review archives might possibly make them think again.

1. Do you consciously plan and place symbolism in your writing? If both yes and no, please be specific. If yes, please state your method of doing so.

Do you feel you subconsciously place symbolism in your writing?

That is the opening question from 16-year-old Bruce McAllister's schoolboy survey, sent out to 150 leading authors in 1963. About half of them replied, among them Jack Kerouac ("Symbolism is alright in 'fiction' but I tell true life stories"), Ayn Rand, in irascible character ("your questions do not make sense"), and an only slightly more polite John Updike ("I have no method; there is no method in writing fiction: you don't seem to understand"). Norman Mailer cries off in a letter explaining that it would take the best part of a working day.

The excerpts, mimeographed with blank spaces for the authors to fill in, have a sweet earnestness to them – the prose gives a sense of some really heavy spectacles massively magnifying young McAllister's eyes. But how many such letters would you want to answer in a day? Would you subconsciously wish to appear on Graham Norton instead? Or am I failing to understand that these days writers actually have to do both? If both yes and no, please be specific ...