Modern Literature:

THE FLIP-A-COIN SCHOOL

Many years ago, when I was a child, I passed exciting evenings listening to a story entitled, "The Lady or the Tiger." What hours of anguish I spent, but delightful anguish indeed, resolving in my mind the question left unanswered by the author. Little mindful that the key to this story's popularity was to be found in its trick ending, I vowed that I would not have left my readers in doubt had I written this piece of fiction. Surely, as author, as creator of the characters, I would know full well what the human beings whom I had brought to life would do under the circumstances to which I had led them. In this particular case, had I been their creator of the characters, I would know full well what the human beings whom I had brought to life would do under the circumstances to which I had led them. In this particular case, had I been their creator, there could have been only one solution-but to disclose my answer to the eternal riddle is far from the purpose of this piece.

In later years, I learned that Hollywood had a scientific answer for the questions raised when the fate of a protagonist was in doubt. For Hollywood simply prepares two endings for the same cinema, perhaps releases them in different cities and to different test audiences, and decides from the reactions of the spectators whether the happy or the tragic fate is more acceptable. For the sophisticated inhabitants of big cities, the central character may die, while box office results in a small town may be more gratifying if the character fades out as he kisses his beloved, and the implied message is clear that they will live happily ever after.

Somewhat to my dismay, I have recently discovered that some authors of serious novels (and particularly, authors who write on homosexuality in fiction) have prepared their books with two entirely different endings, selling one version to the American readers, another to the English. Those who take the trouble to read Gore Vidal's "The City and the Pillar" in the British edition will find the finale considerably modified, with far less melodrama, less tragedy. And precisely the opposite is the case with one of the more recent novels on homosexuality, Walter Baxter's "Look Down in Mercy," for here the extreme tragedy of the British edition (with its usual demise characteristic of novels of this theme, namely violence and eventually suicide) is radically changed in the American version. As printed and published in London, the protagonist conveniently re-

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