Classics Read Aloud

Rip Van Winkle, Washington Irving (1819)

“Rip Van Winkle was one of those happy mortals, of foolish, well-oiled dispositions, who take the world easy, eat white bread or brown, whichever can be got with least thought or trouble, and would rather starve on a penny than work for a pound.” Rip Van Winkle is one of those characters whom everyone feels they have heard of, many could identify why, few could delve into any particulars, and nearly none born after 1980 have read of directly. Maybe I’ll catch a few more today with this reading of Washington Irving’s entertaining tale of liberation. Yes, the story traverses the American Revolution, but there is a parallel and far more passive overthrow of power occurring as well. Rip Van Winkle, a kind-hearted but rather unproductive man, goes off into the Kaatskill Mountains (now known as the Catskills) to hunt squirrels and generally avoid the tyranny of his “termagant” wife, Dame Van Winkle. It seems Dame Van Winkle could never seem to quiet her disapproval of Rip’s casual, feckless ways, and “poor Rip was at last reduced almost to despair; and his only alternative, to escape from the labour of the farm and clamour of his wife, was to take gun in hand and stroll away into the woods.” Where can a fellow get a Man Cave when he needs one? Alas, Rip’s saunter into the mountains leads him to tarry with a group of jolly “odd-looking personages” who were happily bowling in the valley and drinking beer. Partaking freely of their generosity, Rip finds he has overindulged and lies down for a fateful nap. Upon waking twenty years later, Rip returns to town to discover just how action-packed those years really were. The British flag has been replaced with stars and stripes; King George’s likeness has been swapped for that of General Washington. And most fortuitous of all, Dame Van Winkle has passed from this world into the next. Freedom earned with a nap! Was there ever a more perfect arrival of events for a man so averse to effort? Irving clearly had fun with this one, cleverly adapting a story mined from German folklore to give, in his words, “a colour of romance and tradition to interesting points of our national scenery.” Please enjoy… Subscribe to Classics Read Aloud to receive future readings, including commentary and interesting “et cetera” tangent links, right to your inbox: https://classicsreadaloud.substack.com/subscribe [https://classicsreadaloud.substack.com/subscribe] This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit classicsreadaloud.substack.com [https://classicsreadaloud.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]

“Spring” from Jean Gourdon’s Four Days, Émile Zola (1874)

“The valley was mine, really mine; I had conquered it with my legs, and I was the real landlord by right of friendship.” Today, I invite you to remember springtime in your youth. Go back to that enchanted period, filled with an abundance of nature’s delights. Perhaps you remember rushing outside to roll down grassy hills, or rubbing yellow dandelions on your skin, painting it with the sun… Eventually, you put such childish frivolities aside, but the fresh spirit of Mother Nature still beckoned to do her job. Perhaps as a teenager you flirted on neighborhood walks, with only the bustling sparrows to watch you, or lay under the grand willow tree, relishing the cool vibrations of its lacey canopy rustling in the gentle afternoon breeze… Throughout the ages, young love has intuitively gravitated to the open air where the bloom of Spring could work its magic on yearning hearts… Spring doesn’t whisper. She parades her busy creation from on high to all who tune in to her blushing frequency. This may have been more obvious and accessible in Émile Zola’s time than it is today, distracted as we are by all this concrete, glass, and silicon. But she is nonetheless still there, with arms open, ready to accept us into her abundant bosom… Today, I implore you to find a garden, a field on the edge of the woods, any patch of grass where you can set a blanket. Lay down, close your eyes and let the air wash over you, breathe deeply the smells of dirt and grass, and then listen to Zola’s tale of this momentous spring day. Please enjoy… “♡ Like” this post to let the love shine in. p.s. Read the remaining three of Monsieur Gordon’s “Four Days” here [https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/10577/pg10577-images.html#link2H_4_0013]. I expect to record each in turn during the coming year. La Vie Parisienne: This week’s posting finds me in Paris with my ever-elegant mother. At this moment, we are surely soaking up each delicate, ornamented detail. I may pop back here before hitting “publish” to add some pictures, but if you are reading this now, then it is safe to assume I am simply too fully absorbed in this lovely adventure to be interrupted. Until next week! “Rip Van Winkle” by Washington Irving, 1819 “Hilda Silfverling” by Lydia Maria Child, 1845 “The Bridal Party” by F. Scott Fitzgerald, 1930 This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit classicsreadaloud.substack.com [https://classicsreadaloud.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]

The Open Boat, Stephen Crane (1897)

“If I am going to be drowned — if I am going to be drowned — if I am going to be drowned, why, in the name of the seven mad gods who rule the sea, was I allowed to come thus far and contemplate sand and trees?” On New Year’s Day, 1897, the writer Stephen Crane joined the crew of the SS Commodore at a dock in Jacksonville, Florida. Traveling as a journalist tasked with documenting the insurrection in Cuba, Crane watched as the ship was loaded with arms and munitions, like “some legendary creature of the sea.” As the ship sounded its whistle, the crew of nearly 30 men readied itself for the short voyage to the warring nation, wholly unaware that the battle they would witness instead would be entirely at sea. Less than two miles offshore, the Commodore encountered its first setback. Suddenly enveloped in a thick fog, the ship ran ashore into thick mud and had to be bailed out by a vessel anchored nearby. Back on track, the crew rallied, ready to make headway like filibusters on a quest for plunder. Alas, fate had other ideas, brewing a powerful squall that “rolled [the Commodore] like a rubber ball.” Before long, it became apparent that there was an issue in the engine room. All hands, including Crane’s, were taken to bail water out of the lower levels, to no avail. Facing the reality of their plight, the crew attempted to evacuate, miraculously, without panic. As escape mechanisms were evaluated, “the whistle of the Commodore had been turned loose, and if there ever was a voice of despair and death, it was in the voice of this whistle.” Crane found himself on a ten-foot dinghy with the ship’s Captain and two other men, rowing away in silence as they watched the Commodore, along with many of its sailors, sink into the ocean’s depths. “The Open Boat” is the story of what came next. Please enjoy… “♡ Like” this post in gratitude for terra firma. Primary Color: Mere days after his ordeal, Crane recorded his first-hand account of the Commodore’s brief and tragic journey. It is poignant, raw, and very much worth reading. To avoid spoilers, I recommend saving it until after you’ve heard “The Open Boat.” Pass the Bottle: One of Crane’s contemporaries and friends was the writer Joseph Conrad, who, amazingly, also lived to tell the tale of his harrowing experience aboard a sinking ship. The resulting story, “Youth: A Narrative,” recommended to me by a well-read listener (email suggestions to classics_ruby@proton.me), is wholly captivating, and makes one begin to appreciate the bravery that was once required to keep the wheels of commerce turning. You can find “Youth” here [https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/525/pg525-images.html]. “Spring” from “Jean Gourdon’s Four Days” by Émile Zola, 1874 “Rip Van Winkle” by Washington Irving, 1819 “Hilda Silfverling” by Lydia Maria Child, 1845 This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit classicsreadaloud.substack.com [https://classicsreadaloud.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]

The Ransom of Red Chief, O. Henry (1907)

“I ain’t attempting to decry the celebrated moral aspect of parental affection, but we’re dealing with humans, and it ain’t human for anybody to give up two thousand dollars for that forty-pound chunk of freckled wildcat.” In a memorable episode of the hit PBS Masterpiece show Downton Abbey, Lord Grantham’s valet, Bates, leverages a rather ungentlemanly skill to save not only the day, but also the crown prince’s bacon. Bates, in a previous season, had been imprisoned after being falsely accused and subsequently incarcerated for murdering his first wife—a nasty turn for which he was later exonerated. His time under the thumb of Scotland Yard was not wasted, and he emerged with a finely tuned hand in forgery. When evidence of Prince Edward’s dalliances, made clear in a letter to his lover, fell into the wrong hands, it was Bates’ ingenious idea to use a false letter of permission to enter the ne’er-do-well’s apartment, retrieve the damning evidence, and let Lord Grantham soak up all the credit. It really is a fantastic show. Clever fictional British valets aren’t the only ones making best use of their time in the clink. William Sydney Porter, better known as the writer O. Henry, surely didn’t waste his. Incarcerated for embezzlement in 1898, O. Henry emerged after three years as a highly productive writer with mountains of great material. Between 1901 and his death in 1910, O. Henry is said to have written over three hundred short stories, many of which remain well-known and well-loved to this day. With a sensitive ear and the belief that a good story is held by all he came in contact with, O. Henry shook gold out of the paydirt gathered ‘round the prison yard when he wrote “The Ransom of Red Chief.” Based upon a fellow convict’s predilection for kidnapping the kids of wealthy families, O. Henry’s version perfectly highlights his talent for comic inversion. Here, he takes a construct sure to fill any parent with horror and flips it on its head in a manner sure to make parents of boys tear up with laughter at the final twist. Please enjoy… Subscribe to Classics Read Aloud to receive future readings, including commentary and interesting “et cetera” tangent links, right to your inbox: https://classicsreadaloud.substack.com/subscribe [https://classicsreadaloud.substack.com/subscribe] This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit classicsreadaloud.substack.com [https://classicsreadaloud.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]

The Waste Land

Untold volumes have been written about T. S. Eliot’s seminal work, “The Waste Land.” For over 100 years now, scholars and enthusiasts have mined the poem’s 434 lines for literary and historical allusions, biographical clues, and coded phrases, all in the noble pursuit of unlocking the work’s brilliance. Ironically, the intensity of analysis was perhaps originally triggered by Eliot himself when he included his “notes” in a 1922 edition of the poem, published in book form. The publisher, Boni & Liveright, requested a set of additional poems to fill 16 pages that would otherwise be blank (a quirk of the nature of the pages-per-sheet printing method at the time). Instead of poems, Eliot provided his notes, which have intrigued and confounded readers ever since, some of whom believe he was using them to intentionally misdirect interpretation. This exhaustive, endlessly detailed inquiry is enough to make many traditional readers of novels think, “Poetry? This poem? Not for me.” I’ll be honest, I felt the same. I’m just a reader. I love being delighted, surprised, enlightened, inspired, and even disappointed by the stories I read. I look forward to losing all sense of time, turning page after page. I don’t often feel compelled to interrogate the dickens out of what I’ve read, but I do love the sound of words. As it turns out, that’s enough. A love of words, an imagination, and some life experience are all that is needed to come away with something worthy from a poem as substantial and revered as “The Waste Land.” In a sense, I think the open lattice of suggestive scenes linked throughout the poem offers something interesting without interpretation: The blank, unexplained spaces make room for our own completion. Each of us will bring our history, education, empathy, and economics to these lines. You’ll get an image separate from mine, and because so much is suggested and little explained, where those images take us will be distinct and whole all at once. I hope you’ll give it a try. Please enjoy… Subscribe to Classics Read Aloud to receive future readings, including commentary and interesting “et cetera” tangent links, right to your inbox: https://classicsreadaloud.substack.com/subscribe [https://classicsreadaloud.substack.com/subscribe] This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit classicsreadaloud.substack.com [https://classicsreadaloud.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]