Book - The Bachelor’s Bride
A personal favorite passage from The Bachelor’s Bride. In it, the young hero, a graduate student, meets his hero, Marcel Duchamp:
– “Well, Mr Phillips,” Duchamp extended his thin hand toward me, “My good friend Mel Dworkin tells me you are foolish enough to be trying to understand me. Such ambition!”
I stepped forward and took his handshake with what — given his seated position—may have slightly resembled a bow.
“Well sir, that is true. I am trying.”
I was thinking. One of the giants. One of the visionary company!
“And have you?” he asked.
“Sir? Have I what?”
“Have you understood me?”
“Well, sir, I have to admit that I have not yet quite accomplished that. But I am on the case, I am working very hard.”
“Oh, that sounds dreadful,” Duchamp was fast. “I’ve always hated hard work myself. I’ve done a very great deal in my life just to avoid work, any kind of work. But this understanding me, it may not be so simple, you know.”
“It hasn’t been as yet, sir. But I am very persistent.”
“You look persistent. I like that. I’m persistent too. Still, you may experience some delay in this crazy project.” Duchamp spun his finger as he spoke. “I am not sure the best thing to do with my work is to understand it.”
“Yes, yes, I understand what you mean, I suppose. …” I said this with some hesitation; I wanted to extract the maximum possible meaning from the banalities of this exchange. “Well, surely understanding is one thing we are free to do with it.”
“That,” Duchamp said, tilting his head doubtfully, “that is . . . entirely up to you.”
I took the fine edge of insult in that.
“If you believe in understanding,” Duchamp persisted.
And so I played the young fool. This after all was the man who had said, “There is no solution, because there is no problem.” –