Twit Crit

I am almost finished with R.L. Stevenson's novel The Black Arrow, a serialized yarn of youthful swashbuckling in the War of the Roses, 15th century England. What prompted me to read this book, which was gifted to me some years ago but lay uncracked and yellowing until recently, was a review of a new collection of essays by J.L.Borges that was lying in my parents' bathroom at my last visit. Borges was, apparently, a great admirer of Stevenson. The most striking remark that was quoted in the review was Borges' preference to write commentaries on long imaginary novels rather than writing the novels themselves. So in that spirit I offer my thoughts on some literary trivia that I encountered recently.

Last month, idling my time away in the library of the Shambhala Mountain meditation center, I looked through the book called Zen Flesh, Zen Bones, which is a collection of pithy vignettes from the renowned east Asian tradition translated to English and compiled between the 1930's - 50's. Therein is contained a parable of a great general who told his reluctant, outnumbered troops that their victory was assured should a coin flip turn up heads. The toss was lucky and the party carried the day. When it was later revealed that the master had in fact used a double-heads coin, his comment was something like, "Destiny is irresistable."

The other two-faced coin thrower known to me in literature is Two-Face, the acid-scarred enemy of Batman who debuted in the 1942 and has been played recently onscreen by Tommy Lee Jones and Aaron Eckhardt. The coin used by this criminal is an heirloom from his father, who would tell the boy that he was only going to beat him if the toss came up heads. Grown up, Twoface scratched up one side of his dad's old doubleheads and would in fact give potential victims a 50% chance, but I think he used some true double coins as well.

While at first these two characters appear distinct or even opposed - the calm, resolute master of meditation and martial arts contrasting with the flashy, impetuous tommy gun gangster - in fact they share insoluble qualities - fierceness in command of subordinates, unwillingness to be swayed from purpose, etc. So I can only surmise that they are the same character, and the novel that I imagine and would comment on, in the spirit of Jorge Luis Borges is an historical transoceanic epic that fills in the gaps between Japan circa 1000 A.D. and Depression era Gotham City. My first thought sees Twoface as a bucaneer gambling with a slaver for his human cargo, rerouting the newly won ship and leading the men in the sack of a Mediterranean bank, and then losing both men and gold on an ill starred march through the Sahara. There are infinite possibilities for heroism, swagger, slaughter, composure, vanity, mercy, and brutality. Go ahead, think up your own.

P.S. According to Wikipedia Batman editor Bob Kane claims to have been inspired for Twoface by Stevenson's Jeckyl and Hyde, although he hadn't read the novel at the time of the villain's introduction.