Meaning of "A reversible human"?
Hello everyone. I am reading a novel, and I came across this expression. Could you please let me know its meaning?
Perhaps this was why I’d been so tongue-tied with her; part of me was still discovering in erratic starts and sallies and in all manner of inadvertent ways, this unknown new character who had been waiting in the wings so long and who, for the first time in his life, was going to risk stepping up. Part of me didn’t know him yet, didn’t know how far to go with him. I was still trying him on for size, as if he were a new pair of shoes that I liked but wasn’t sure went along with the rest of me. Was I learning to walk all over again—learning to become human? What had I been all this time, then—a stilt walker? A reversible human?
- André Aciman, Eight White Nights, Second Night
This is a novel published in the United States of America in 2010. This novel is narrated by the nameless male protagonist who meets Clara at a Christmas party in Manhattan. On the night after the party, they are speaking in the bar. He feels as if he is learning to become human again with her.
Here, I wonder what the underlined expression means.
I've heard "reversible coat", but never "reversible human", so I have absolutely no idea what that might mean.
Thank you very much for your help.
Top answer
Hello! "Reversible human" is a very uncommon phrase, and the way it's used here could be considered figurative language. " Instead of comparing this phrase to a "reversible coat", you could compare it to a "reversible procedure" or something similar.
- Hello!
- "Reversible human" is a very uncommon phrase, and the way it's used here could be considered figurative language.
- " Instead of comparing this phrase to a "reversible coat", you could compare it to a "reversible procedure" or something similar.
- ) is being undone by this person.
- As a result, they feel like they are returning to how they were before becoming a human being, like a baby or child.
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Hello!
"Reversible human" is a very uncommon phrase, and the way it's used here could be considered figurative language. The confusion here is probably due to the fact that "reversible" has two definitions: "able to be turned the other way around" (like a reversible coat), or in this context, "capable of being reversed so that the previous state or situation is restored." Instead of comp
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