Book Review: The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Wasington Irving
This was a free listen on Audible. To be honest, if I’d had to pay for it, I would have been pretty annoyed.
It’s only really a short story/novella, so it was only about an hour of listening. However, I will now admit to falling asleep during it and having to listen again the next day! Was it that boring? Well, yeah, it was. The story is told as an epistle, meaning there is no present tense action or dialogue to break up the long descriptive passages. It also felt very American and I assume, as it was written in 1819 but set in 1790, the whole thing was some sort of metaphor for the US ousting the English from the country (I think that’s what it was meant to be anyway!).
If you’re a fan of the various filmed adaptations, I don’t think you would be very impressed. Ichabod is far from a hero and is instead a tight fisted opportunist fool.
Although I chose this as another book for the Spooky Season there is nothing whatsoever scary about The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. I wouldn’t really recommend. 2 out of 5
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