After a brief hiatus last week, the unspooling podcast returns with another reading, this time, of Washington Irving’s famous tale, “Rip Van Winkle.”
The premise is simple, our titular protagonist takes to the Catskills to escape his nagging wife, where he encounters strange folk amongst the mountains. When he returns to his village the next morning, twenty years seem to have passed in a single night.
This folktale-inspired yarn is both wistful and wonderfully entertaining, resulting in a poignantly nostalgic story about magic and the ravaging onslaught of time. At times otherwordly, “Rip Van Winkle” brilliantly straddles genres and challenges readers to make sense of its fantastical narrative. Is it all a dream? a wild, booze-fueled hallucination? Or, is there some latent power in the mountains to blame/thank for Rip’s predicament? Let’s read on and discover for ourselves.
Enjoy!
the unspooling podcast - "Rip Van Winkle" by Washington Irving