Rip Van Winkle & Other Stories (Puffin Classics)

Rip Van Winkle is a story of an regular man that came in contact with some irregular people that would change his life forever. It all started out one day when Rip decided to go hunting with his dog. Up to this point in his search for freedom, he had lived a sleepy and uneventfull life with two kids and a wife. He was always trying to get out of work and find a way out of doing everything. One day he gets fed up with his life and finds himself out in the woods hunting;There he gets asked by a strange man to carry a keg to a nine pin party. Also during this party he ends up getting drunk and finds himself dosing off to sleep. When he finally wakes up he has a long white beard and twenty years older! He had fallen asleep for twenty years and found that he was now old, grey and still alive. At this point in the story he goes back to the village where he had lived for so long and finds that his wife and friends had all passed away and had left him. He also finds that his daughter got married and was raising a family. She sees him one day and recognizes him to be the man that was once her father. At this point in Rip's life, all he wants to do is settle down and he is satisified to become the village story teller to all who would hear his tales. This is a tale of suspense and just plain old good reading for all ages. It was written many years ago and could speak to all people of all ages and races. I would recomend this book to anyone from my Grandfather to the Queen of England.

The classic story by Washington Irving which establishes the theme of this bargain book of stories might also serve as a reminder of how out of touch anyone who preserves a sense of how the past has shaped this world can be in a social situation which needs to concentrate totally on an appreciation of what is happening now. Among the selections in this book is "English and French Character," in which Irving observed how an Englishman "makes a little solitude around him by his silence and reserve; he moves about shy and solitary, and, as it were, buttoned up, body and soul." (p. 184). There are also observations, in "The Art of Bookmaking," of authors at work "in the reading room of the great British Library~an immense collection of volumes of all ages and languages, many of which are now forgotten, and most of which are seldom read; one of these sequestered pools of obsolete literature in which modern authors repair and draw buckets full of classic lore, or `pure English, undefiled,' wherewith to swell their own scanty rills of thought." (p. 99). Somehow the occasion gave Washington Irving a fantasy, which he related quite vividly, of old authors from the portraits which hung on the walls of this famous reading room attacking an expert on Greek thought, and "There was something so ludicrous in the catastrophe of this learned Theban that I burst into an immoderate fit of laughter, which broke the whole illusion." (p. 103).My relationship (what I might steal most easily, if I were an author) with Rip Van Winkle might be more like the part of old Peter Vanderdonk, a character in that story who "assured the company that it was a fact, handed down from his ancestor the historian, that the Kaatskill Mountauns had always been haunted by strange beings. That it was affirmed that the great Hendrick Hudson, the first discoverer of the river and country, kept a vigil there every twenty years, with his crew of the Half Moon, being permitted in this way to revisit the scenes of his enterprise and keep a guardian eye upon the river and the great city called by his name. That his father had once seen them in their old Dutch dresses playing at ninepins in a hollow of the mountain, and that he himself had heard, one summer afternoon, the sound of their balls, like distant peals of thunder." (p. 17). When I hear thunder, though, I am reminded of how much it sounds like a distant echo of bombing in the mountains where I heard my first B-52 bombing strike, near An Lao northwest of Bong Son in the Central Highlands of South Vietnam almost 33 years ago. Other people might have different associations for thunder, but the link to Rip Van Winkle remains uncanny.

Washington Irving's (1783-1859) claim to fame is as a pioneer of American fiction, and he is widely recognized as the "father of American literature." The book that especially propelled him to fame was "The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent." which contained his two most famous fantasy stories - "Rip Van Winkle" and "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" - both of which are contained in this collection.But it is not merely his ground-breaking efforts that garnered him literary recognition, because Irving's stories are at the same time characterized by charming and colourful prose befitting a skilled writer. The stories in this collection (the "Puffin Classics" series) are an excellent sampling of his craft. It's not always easy reading - in fact many of these stories would be too dense even for older children. His vocabulary is extensive, and sentences structure verbose and lengthy - a style rather unlike that employed by contemporary writers. But despite this, Irving demonstrates a wonderful command of the English language, and has the ability to create a vivid picture of his setting, characters and events. Particularly delightful is the attention he devotes to describing his characters. And yet his stories are far from mere character portraits - they are exciting and enchanting tales that make the reader eager to find out the outcome."Rip Van Winkle" has gained the status of a classic, and is familiar to most children, but likely few have read Irving's original. It breathes an authenticity and air not found in the contemporary abridged versions of the story. Irving presents his tale as the alleged discovered manuscript (complete with postscript) of the late Diedrich Knickerbocker. The delightful story of Rip Van Winkle - who fell asleep in the Catskill mountains after drinking a mysterious brew acquired from some strange little men, and then awoke 20 years later - will continue to please readers old and new. In the course of the story, Irving makes a profound social comment about the changes happening in his America. "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" is renowned for its chilling tale of the Headless Horseman, and is a Halloween favorite. Actually, however, it is much more than that. It is not so much a spooky tale of a legendary village ghost as it is a colourful tale about two rival suitors. Ichabod Crane is a simple school teacher who is in love with Katrina Van Tassel, and equally in love with the estates of her father, a wealthy Dutch farmer. His counter-part is the powerful local hero Bram Bones, whose affections for Katrina mirror those of Ichabod Crane, and who is determined to put an end to the affections of underdog Crane by a mysterious and elaborate trickery. As is evident also in his other stories, it is particularly fascinating how Irving exploits the supernatural superstitions of the popular mind to create a sense of mystery and fear, but himself gives a naturalist explanation that rises above such popular notions by expla