Fox's SLEEPY HOLLOW Starts Tonight!

Well, as you might imagine nothing gets me more excited than reminiscing about a creepy classic.  Although I haven't posted any classic literature reviews since my Chaucer reviews, I still long for the haunting uniqueness that comes from timeless lit like Washington Irving's The Legend of Sleep Hollow.

Can you recall the last time you've read it?  (For those interested, check out my review.)  If not, you're in luck.  At a mere 70+ pages, this short story has enough clout to last a lifetime and inspire Hollywood and other media monsters to reinvent it for our pleasure.  This time Fox has bitten into Irving's classic and created a television series called, Sleepy Hollow.  And oh what an interesting take, indeed.  As the trailer states...from the writers and producers of Star Trek, take a look...

What do you think?  Do you think it holds much promise for those fans who are obsessed with the original?  If you're like me than you enjoyed Tim Burton's Sleepy Hollow the film when it debuted in 1999 with Johnny Depp and Christina Ricci.  

See more wicked #SleepyHollow gifs here

But I have to ask this: Ichabod Crane is a once-in-a-lifetime character--classic to the core.  From The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, here is but a glimpse of him that aptly describes him in a way that makes me envy Irving for his skill:

The cognomen of Crane was not inapplicable to his person. He was tall, but exceedingly lank, with narrow shoulders, long arms and legs, hands that dangled a mile out of his sleeves, feet that might have served for shovels, and his whole frame most loosely hung together. His head was small, and flat at top, with huge ears, large green glassy eyes, and a long snipe nose, so that it looked like a weather-cock, perched upon his spindle neck, to tell which way the wind blew. To see him striding along the profile of a hill on a windy day, with his clothes bagging and fluttering about him one might have mistaken him for the genius of famine descending upon the earth, or some scarecrow eloped from a cornfield.

Now...I ask you: With the many versions of Ichabod Crane's character we've seen over the last several decades, which on equals the original?

Ah, well.  It matters little now.  Tonight we shall see.  I for one am crossing my fingers that this will be a hit.  I know some people don't like when others remake a classic, but I love anything that reinvigorates the original.  

Let's hope this one doesn't disappoint.  Fox's Sleepy Hollow Series Premiere MON 9/8c SEP 16

Mina B

A-Z Challenge: Ichabod Crane

Today's character feature for A-Z Challenge (letter "I") is the legendary Ichabod Crane from Washington Irving’s dark classic, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.  For being only a short story, it confounds me how timeless this character is.  A couple years back, I reviewed this creepy classic (my review.)  And surprise...I loved it.  The main reason was not just for the Headless Horseman, but for the Ichabod.  Reading this character's description alone, feels like he jumps right off the page.  Here's a snidbit:

"He was tall, but exceedingly lank, with narrow shoulders, long arms and legs, hands that dangled a mile out of his sleeves, feet that might have served for shovels, and his whole frame most loosely hung together. His head was small, and flat at top, with huge ears, large green glassy eyes, and a long snipe nose, so that it looked like a weather-cock perched upon his spindle neck to tell which way the wind blew. To see him striding along the profile of a hill on a windy day, with his clothes bagging and fluttering about him, one might have mistaken him for the genius of famine descending upon the earth, or some scarecrow eloped from a cornfield."

I love this.  It's so masterfully descriptive, it's inspiring.  Don't you think?  And as the story unfolds, his character unravels even more deliciously so.  You gotta laugh when you see Hollywood's take on Ichabod i.e. Johnny Depp in the Sleepy Hollow--which by all accounts was awesome.  Yet with all Depp's entertaining efforts of the schoolmaster's geeky portrayal, he wasn't truly Ichabod.  Not even close.

So...have you read Irving's The Legend of Sleepy Hollow?  Do you remember how wonderful Ichabod was?

Mina B.