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The Bottle Neck

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The Bottle Neck

By: Hans Christian Andersen
Narrated by: Mike Polischuk
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About this listen

In The Bottle Neck, Hans Christian Andersen tells a quietly extraordinary story through the long life of a simple object—a glass bottle that passes from celebration to ruin, from usefulness to neglect, and back again.

Once filled with fine wine at a joyful betrothal, the bottle is later broken, discarded, carried across oceans, forgotten in darkness, and finally reborn as something humbler but necessary: a water vessel for a bird’s cage in a poor attic room. Along the way, it bears witness to love and loss, time and chance, human hopes and human absence—without ever fully understanding them.

This is not a children’s fairy tale, nor a tragedy. It is a reflective, gently ironic meditation on endurance, memory, and purpose: how objects outlast people, how meaning changes shape, and how usefulness itself can be a form of quiet dignity.

Narrated with calm clarity by Mike Polischuk, The Bottle Neck is a contemplative classic—an intimate reminder that life does not always move forward in grand arcs, but often returns, reshaped, to where it began.

Public Domain (P)2025 Anthony Pica Productions, LLC
Classics Fantasy
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