Sections: Information | Plot Description | Reviews
Information
- First published:
- September 17, 1949 issue of The New Yorker
- Related books:
- 5 Bestsellers Including Over 40 Tales of the Unexpected
- Alfred Hitchcock Presents: More Stories for Late at Night
- Alfred Hitchcock Presents: Skeleton Crew
- Alfred Hitchcock Presents: Stories for Late at Night
- BR–R–R–!
- Completely Unexpected Tales
- Further Tales of the Unexpected
- Hallucination Orbit: Psychology in Science Fiction
- Madness
- McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, Winter 2013
- More Tales of the Unexpected
- Science Fact/Fiction
- Skin and Other Stories
- Someone Like You
- Stories of the Supernatural
- The Best of Roald Dahl
- The Collected Short Stories of Roald Dahl
- The Complete Short Stories: Volume One
- Timeless Stories for Today and Tomorrow
- Magazine publications:
- Movies:
- The Sound Machine (2008)
- Audio Books:
- “The Sound Machine” read by Adrian Scarborough
- More Tales of the Unexpected read by Tom Hollander, William Hootkins, Geoffrey Palmer
- 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
- TV Shows:
- CBS Television Workshop (1952)
- Tales of the Unexpected (1979)
Plot Description
Spoiler warning! Klausner is a man obsessed with sound. He has a theory that there are many, many sounds in the world that humans are just unable to hear due to their high frequencies. He explains to his doctor that he has invented a machine that will allow him to tune in to those frequencies and convert those pitches into audible sound. The first time he tries it out in his yard, he hears shrieking in his headphones as his neighbor cuts roses from her garden. Each time a flower is cut, he hears a shriek. The next day, he tries a bigger experiment. He takes an axe and swings it into a large beech tree. He is horrified to hear the deep and pathetic moan that the tree makes in response. Klausner rushes back to the house and calls his doctor. “Please come. Come quickly. I want someone to hear it. It’s driving me mad!” he says. The doctor agrees to come over and listen to the headphones, but just as Klausner takes a second swing at the tree a large branch crashes down between them and destroys the machine. Klausner is deeply shaken and asks the doctor to paint the tree’s cuts with iodine. The doctor claims not to have heard anything, but he agrees to Klausner’s demands and dresses the wounds.
Reviews
- “The Art of Vengeance” by Joyce Carol Oates (The New York Review of Books)