30 Day Book Challenge // Day 11

Day Eleven: Favourite Classic Book

I’ve not really read that many books that are considered to be classics in the literature world. I’ve never got on with Austen, and I often mean to read certain books but choose newer ones to read instead. I’ve started to read Dracula, Frankenstein, Dorian Grey as well as several others, but I often find the language difficult to read so I give up. This is something I’m not pleased with, and I hope that one day I’ll actually read classics all the way through – whether I enjoy them or not.

I’ve read Wuthering Heights all the way through and I didn’t really enjoy that. I was determined to read one classic before I started A-Level English Literature (I only did it for one year, I preferred my other subjects over it) and it happened to be Wuthering Heights. I don’t know if I disliked it because I had to read it, or whether I just found the book difficult and a bit bleak but either way; I’m not in a hurry to read it again.

I don’t know whether The Great Gatsby or Lord of the Flies count as classics; but they’re the only other books that I think I’ve read that could possibly fall into this category – I’m such a poor specimen of a reader. Lord of the Flies I had to read for GCSE and at the time I disliked it. Looking back now, I don’t think the story was as awful as I imagined it to be at the time and I’d like to read it again at some point. I tried recently, but the only copy I have is the one I highlighted throughout year 11 and my analytical notes are kind of off-putting. I don’t want to read the book to analyse it again.

The Great Gatsby was another book that I had to read. This time it was for AS English Literature. I enjoyed it more than the other book we had to read (Enduring Love by Ian McEwan) and definitely more than poetry – although Tennyson wasn’t too bad. I think I’d have to say that Gatsby is my favourite classic. The way F. Scott Fitzgerald tells the story through Nick is cleverly done, with the time flitting between his summer in New York, and where he is currently, in the Mid-West. I think I was genuinely upset too near the end of the book (I don’t want to give anything away). I’d definitely read the book again, and I think it provided insight to the film (my cousin didn’t understand the film when we watched it and I had to explain it to her; obviously my AS level came in useful for something).

So yeah, The Great Gatsby.