Title - The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
Author - Washington Irving
Genre - Classic
Author - Washington Irving
Genre - Classic
Published - 1820
Pages - 76
ISBN - 1599869306
..........................FFR - see guide on right: 1, 3
A quick read, I finished it in one sitting. The most notable thing about this book from the beginning was how annoying the narrator was. I don't plan to dwell much other than to recommend avoiding audio books narrated by B.J. Harrison. The book is written in a relatively common voice, told in first person by the author of events he learned second-hand, and yet the narrator insisted on using a moderate-high voice in the reading, affecting a somewhat snooty accent and applying pauses for emphasis where none were needed and certainly weren't written into the text. This was distracting, pretentious, and substantially annoying.
However, I wanted to give Irving a fair chance, so I gritted my teeth until I was able to block out the irritation and hear the tale. Which turned out to be pretty good, in fact. I could easily compare it to the Disney cartoon version produced back in 1958. As Ichabod Crane was described in delicious detail, I pictured Disney's Ichabod in my head. They were true to Irving's description. Every moment of terror I felt in tandem with Ichabod as a child while watching the Headless Horseman chasing him was renewed in me as I read the original book.
I don't know how much of my enjoyment of the book was other than me reliving my childhood experience, but to be fair, Disney did such a great job portraying the original text (with some minor changes), I'd have to concede that my adult experience, even based on my childhood experience, is as true a response to the author's intentions as one could expect.
Based on the brevity of the book, the ease with which I was able to lose myself in the environment of the Sleepy Hollow community, and the mild heart-racing excitement stirred up in empathy with Ichabod as he listens intently to various ghost stories and tales of the Galloping Hessian (aka the Headless Horseman), followed in short by the climactic scene, I have to say I would recommend this book to anybody.
In addition to the FFR, I would say it is generally safe for kids who don't scare easily. If it were a movie, I'd rate it a “hard G” or possibly a “soft PG”.
However, I wanted to give Irving a fair chance, so I gritted my teeth until I was able to block out the irritation and hear the tale. Which turned out to be pretty good, in fact. I could easily compare it to the Disney cartoon version produced back in 1958. As Ichabod Crane was described in delicious detail, I pictured Disney's Ichabod in my head. They were true to Irving's description. Every moment of terror I felt in tandem with Ichabod as a child while watching the Headless Horseman chasing him was renewed in me as I read the original book.
I don't know how much of my enjoyment of the book was other than me reliving my childhood experience, but to be fair, Disney did such a great job portraying the original text (with some minor changes), I'd have to concede that my adult experience, even based on my childhood experience, is as true a response to the author's intentions as one could expect.
Based on the brevity of the book, the ease with which I was able to lose myself in the environment of the Sleepy Hollow community, and the mild heart-racing excitement stirred up in empathy with Ichabod as he listens intently to various ghost stories and tales of the Galloping Hessian (aka the Headless Horseman), followed in short by the climactic scene, I have to say I would recommend this book to anybody.
In addition to the FFR, I would say it is generally safe for kids who don't scare easily. If it were a movie, I'd rate it a “hard G” or possibly a “soft PG”.
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