Happy August, friends!
A recent trip up to the Hudson Valley inspired me to finally dig into my Washington Irving collections. I am familiar with the plots of “Rip Van Winkle” and “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”, two of Irving’s most famous stories, but I’d never actually read either of them. There are so many things to read, and life is a finite resource. But you can’t go anywhere up in the Hudson Valley without seeing Rip Van Winkle this, Rip Van Winkle that, Rip Van Winkle whatever. Rip Van Winkle Realty. Rip Van Winkle Adventure Guides. Rip Van Winkle Brewing Company. You get it. That absolute in-your-faceness made the decision to start with this story an easy one. Also, it’s pretty short, so not a ton of work to get it done.
“Rip Van Winkle” is the story of a shiftless, good-natured dingus who lives in fear of his wife. Like, pure, white knuckle terror. And Irving does not hesitate to let us know how much she sucks the joy from Van Winkle’s life. Eventually he meets some ghosts, falls asleep for 20 years, wakes up, and learns that the Revolutionary War has happened. And that’s all super weird and disturbing for him! Then he learns that his wife is also dead so he is now free to live his life of aimless wandering and hanging out at the bar, and he is finally happy.
Seriously. That’s it.
Sorry for spoiling it, but the story is more than 200 years old. The moratorium on spoilers expired some time around the Gettysburg Address.
It’s quite dated both in form and attitude, but it’s still a pretty important piece of American short literature. For that reason, probably worth listening to me read it to you for the astonishing price of nothing at all.
Enjoy!
The text for this episode came from Standard eBooks. If you are interested in reading “Rip Van Winkle” which is found in The Sketch-book of Geoffry Crayon, Gent. yourself, you can download a public domain e-book here.
Next time on The Black Laser Reads: I have no idea! Let’s be surprised together.