This is a very short little vignette from Dahl’s book of WW2 flying stories, Over to You. There’s not a lot of plot.
Spoiler warning! An English RAF pilot has ejected from his plane and parachuted onto a Greek island. He sprained his ankle when he landed and he’s now looking for a boat to take him back to the mainland. The village he finds is nearly deserted though. Eventually he finds an old man sitting near a drinking trough and asks him if he knows of anyone with a boat. The old man is muddled and expressionless. He asks when the Germans will be back. The pilot thinks they are done for the day. “I do not understand why they come to us, Inglese. There is no one here,” the old man says. The pilot again asks him about a boat. The old man says that Joannis Spirakis has a boat. Joannis used to live in the house nearest the water. It was destroyed by the Germans. He’s now living in the house of Antonina Angelou. The old man says that Joannis probably won’t be there right now, but his wife Anna will be. As the pilot goes to leave, the old man tells him that he should know that Joannis and Anna’s daughter Maria was in the house when the Germans bombed it.
The pilot finds Antonina’s house and is taken in to see Anna. He tells her that he’s looking for her husband because he’s heard he has a boat. “Where are the Germanoi?” the old woman asks. The pilot tells her they are near Lamia. “Soon they will be here,” she says. “Every day they come over and they bom bom bom and you shut your eyes and you open them again and you get up and you go outside and the houses are just dust – and the people.” She asks him how many he has killed. “As many as I could,” he answers. She tells him to kill them all, every man, woman, and child. She then asks him again what he wants. He tells her he is looking for Joannis. She leads him out the front door and points to the old man by the drinking trough. “There he is,” she says. “That’s him.” The pilot turns around to speak to her again, but she has already disappeared back into the house.
In 1952 Dahl wrote an article about the famous Pakistani mystic Kuda Bux, who inspired this story. He reworked a great portion of that text into Imhrat Khan’s tale. You can read about differences between the texts here.
This story was inspired by the real life Pakistani mystic Kuda Bux, who claimed to be able to see without his eyes.
Spoiler warning! This famous tale is actually a story-within-a-story-within-a-story-within-a-story. We start with Henry Sugar, a wealthy and idle playboy who likes to gamble and is not above cheating to win. One summer weekend, Henry is staying at a friend’s mansion and is depressed at the neverending rain outside. Bored, he wanders into the library and discovers a blue exercise book one one of the shelves. On the first page is written: “A Report on an Interview with Imhrat Khan, the Man Who Could See Without His Eyes” by Dr. John Cartwright. Henry sits down to read the whole thing.
Now we get to read Dr. Cartwright’s report. He explains that one day he was in the doctor’s lounge at his hospital in Bombay, when an Indian man entered and asked for assistance. He claimed to be able to see without his eyes. Cartwright and three other doctors agreed to help him promote his theatre show by bandaging his eyes completely. When they are finished, they are amazed to see him ride off on his bicycle through heavy traffic. That night, Cartwright goes to see Khan’s show. Afterwards, he invites Khan to dinner and asks him to tell him how he learned this amazing trick. Khan agreeds to tell him.
Now we get Khan’s story. As a young boy, he was fascinated with magic and ran off to be a magician’s assistant. He was terribly disappointed to realize it was all trickery and sleight of hand. He decides he wants to learn the strange power called yoga. It’s hard to find a teacher, because Khan wanted to learn yoga for fame and fortune, but real yogis are threatened with death if they perform in public. Eventually Khan manages to locate a yogi called Banerjee, and he watches in secret as Banerjee levitates during meditation. The yogi discovers him and becomes enraged, chasing him off. Khan comes back every day, though, and eventually the Banerjee agrees to recommend him to a yogi friend for instruction. So Khan finally begins the yoga training. He learns about concentrating the conscious mind. He describes all the exercises he does. He has a minor success when he’s able to walk across a firepit with barefeet. Eventually he succeeds in seeing without his eyes. He can even see through playing cards.
Doctor Cartwright is amazed with Imhrat Khan’s story. He decides that it must be published, that Khan’s abilities might pave the way towards helping the blind see and the deaf hear. Before he can speak to him again the next day, though, he learns that Khan has died in his sleep.
Now back to Henry Sugar. He finishes the story and decides to try the yoga training himself. He wants to be able to see through playing cards and win in casinos. He steals the book and begins to practice at home. He begins to make progress immediately, and discovers that he’s one of the one-in-a-million people that can develop yoga powers with amazing speed. Three years later, Henry can see through a playing card in less than four seconds. He goes immediately to a big London casino and proceeds to win over six thousand pounds. When he gets home, though, he realizes that he doesn’t feel as happy as he expected. The yoga training has changed his outlook on life. In the morning, he throws a twenty pound note to someone on the street and realizes that charity makes him feel good. Without a thought, he throws the entire pile out the window. A riot ensues and a policeman comes to question him. Henry is astonished when the policeman berates him for not giving the money to a worthy cause, like a hospital or orphanage. Henry decides the policeman is right and formulates a plan. For the next twenty years, Henry travels the world winning fortunes at casinos and sending it to his personal accountant in Switzerland. The accountant sets up orphanages in every country Henry visits. Henry also has a personal make-up artist who travels with him so he doesn’t get recognized. By the time he dies, he has won over one hundred and forty-four million pounds and set up over twenty orphanages.
Now we get to the last story. The author (presumably Dahl) explains that John Winston, Henry’s accountant, called him not long after Henry’s death. He wanted the world to know what Henry had done. The author is fascinated with the tale and agrees to write it up and protect Henry’s true identity. And the finished result is the story that we’ve just read.
Someone Like You read by Julian Rhind-Tutt, Stephen Mangan, Tamsin Greig, Derek Jacobi, Richard Griffiths, Willl Self, Jessica Hynes, Juliet Stevenson, Adrian Scarborough, Richard E. Grant
Plot Description
To be honest, I’ve never really known what to make of this story. It’s very short, only a few pages, yet it’s incredibly vivid and suspenseful. Are the snakes only in the boy’s imagination? What is “the wish” that the title refers to? Has he really disappeared into the snake pit? Is it all just a metaphor? I don’t know.
Spoiler warning! The story opens with a small boy picking a scab off his knee. As he sits on the stairs, he becomes aware of the large red, black, and yellow carpet that stretches to the front door. He decides that the red patches are red hot lumps of coal that will burn him up completely, and the black parts are poisonous snakes that will bite him and kill him. If he can make it all the way across without getting burnt or bitten, he will get a puppy for his birthday tomorrow.
The boy begins his quest. The first part is easy going, but he reaches some difficult parts and has to take long strides. He wobbles but stretches out his arms to steady himself. He reaches a turning point and goes left, because although it seems more difficult, there’s less black. (He’s very afraid of the snakes.) He reaches the halfway point and knows he can’t turn back or jump off. He begins to feel panic rising in his chest. He takes another step to the only close yellow piece, and his foot is only a centimeter from a black patch. A snake stirs and raises its head to watch him. “I’m not touching you! You mustn’t bite me!” he thinks. Another snake rises as well, and the child is frozen with terror for several minutes. The next step is a very long one, too long to jump. The child manages to get one foot across and transfers his weight. He tries to then bring up his back foot but can’t. He was doing the splits and he was stuck. He looked down at the oily bodies of the snakes writhing beneath him. He began to wobble, but this time waving his arms only made it worse. He was starting to go over. “The next thing he saw was this bare hand of his going right into the middle of a great glistening mass of black and he gave one piercing cry as it touched. Out in the sunshine, far away behind the house, the mother was looking for her son.”
This is another of Dahl’s most famous short stories, and it’s been dramatized a number of times. Jeremy Treglown notes in his biography that Dahl did a great deal of neurosurgical research to make sure that experiment described would be as realistic as possible. Another interesting note: the names of the main characters, William and Mary, are the same as the two white mice in The Witches.
Spoiler warning! Mary Pearl’s husband William has passed away one week ago, and after the lawyer reads the Will, he gives her a letter from her dead husband. She returns home to read it, smoking a cigarette and admiring her new television set. She wonders what her demanding husband could possibly have to say to her. Maybe he’s finally decided to thank her for thirty years of dedication and service. Instead, she is shocked to discover twenty pages about a scientific experiment that an Oxford colleague convinced him to volunteer for. After his death from cancer, William’s brain was hooked up to an artificial heart machine and removed from his skull. It now resides in a basin of cerebrospinal fluid and only exists because the machines keep pumping it full of oxygenated blood. The doctor, Landy, has even managed to save one of William’s eyes, which is connected to his brain by the optic nerve and floats on top of the fluid in a plastic case. William urges her to put aside her revulsion and to come visit him to see how the experiment turned out. In a postscript he reminds her not to “drink cocktails… waste money… smoke cigarettes… buy a television apparatus.” Mary is appalled that a part of her husband is still alive and dictating commands to her. Her automatic sense of duty kicks in, though, and she heads to the laboratory to meet with Landy. He shows her William’s brain, conscious and alive in its basin, and she is surprised to feel a sort of affection for him in this state. “He looks so helpless and silent lying there,” she says. She announces to the doctor that she wants to take her husband home. He is astounded and tries to talk her out of her plan, but she is adamant. As he tries to get her to leave the lab, she leans down over the eye to say goodbye. She takes a puff of her cigarette and is delighted to see the pupil contract into a “minute black pinpoint of absolute fury.” The tables have turned and now Mary is in control. “Don’t look so cross, William,” she says. “It isn’t any good looking cross… Not anymore it isn’t. Because from now on, my pet, you’re going to do just exactly what Mary tells you.” Landy finally pulls her from the room as she exclaims, “Isn’t he sweet? Isn’t he darling? I just can’t wait to get him home.”
Spoiler warning! Mrs. Foster has a pathological fear of being late. Whenever she is in danger of missing a train or plane or an engagement, a tiny muscle near her eye begins to twitch. The worst part is that her husband, Mr. Eugene Foster, seems to torment her by making sure that they always leave the house one or two minutes past the point of safety. On this particular occasion Mrs. Foster is leaving to visit her daughter and grandchildren in Paris for the first time ever, and she’s frantic to think that she’ll miss her flight. By the time her husband finally joins her at the car, she’s too far behind schedule. Luckily the flight is postponed til the next day, and Mr. Foster persuades her to come home for the night. When she’s ready to leave the next day, though, her husband suggests that they drop him off at his club on the way. Knowing this will make her late, she protests in vain. Just before the car leaves, he runs back in the house on the pretense of picking up a gift he forgot for his daughter. While he’s gone Mrs. Foster discovers the gift box shoved down between the seat cushions. She runs up to the house to tell him that she has the gift… and suddenly she pauses. She listens. She stays frozen for 10 seconds, straining to hear something. Then she turns and runs to the car, telling the driver that they’re too late and her husband will have to find another ride. She makes her flight and has a wonderful visit with her grandchildren. She writes her husband every week and sends him a telegram before she flies home six weeks later. He’s not at the airport to meet her though, and when she enters the house (after taking a taxi home) she notices a curious odor in the air. Satisfied, she enters her husband’s study and calls the elevator repairman. It had jammed and she left him to die there!
