Sunday, August 16, 2009

H L Gold's "The Man With English" (short story, humor): The man with "reversed" senses!

After operation following a nasty fall that resulted in a bone getting into his brain, Edgar Stone has his senses reversed! He sees in the dark & cannot when it is light, he tastes salt when it is sweet & sweet when it is salt, hot feels cold to him & cold hot, ...

Fun of the story has to do with this bad tempered man's interactions with others - his family & the doctor.

Notes.

I could not figure out how the story title relates to its contents.

See also.

While this is the first story I've seen with a man's senses "reversed", there are a couple of stories where a physical object is "reversed" after passing through four dimensional space:
  1. Arthur Clarke's "Technical Error": An accident has a man reversed! He can now only eat food that is also reversed!
  2. Anil Aggarwal's "The New Antibiotic" (download English translation): Interstellar shipment of medicines has them reversed in 3D when passing through hyperspace. So we now need an extra label on interstellar medical shipments: do not reverse!

Fact sheet.

First published: Star Science Fiction Stories, February 1953.
Rating: B.
Related: Stories of H L Gold.

1 comments:

Crotchety Old Fan said...

"English" is a billiards term that is used to describe putting a spin on the ball - often for trick shots, including getting the ball to reverse. This is most likley where the title comes from.