Read But Not Forgotten – Classics I Struggled To Enjoy

On this week’s edition of ‘I read stuff way before I realised people talked about it online’ I’m looking at a few of the classics I didn’t really enjoy for one reason or another. That’s not to say they were hated (except for one entry on this list), they were just not loved and, for the most part, shall never be read again.

Fair warning; the books on this post (pretty much all of them) are incredibly loved the world over … I mean, they’re called classics for a reason. They just didn’t hit that sweet spot for me. So apologies for the offense to your fond reading memories this post will no doubt cause.

During a business visit to Count Dracula’s castle in Transylvania, a young English solicitor finds himself at the center of a series of horrifying incidents. Jonathan Harker is attacked by three phantom women, observes the Count’s transformation from human to bat form, and discovers puncture wounds on his own neck that seem to have been made by teeth. Harker returns home upon his escape from Dracula’s grim fortress, but a friend’s strange malady — involving sleepwalking, inexplicable blood loss, and mysterious throat wounds — initiates a frantic vampire hunt.

Dracula by Bram Stoker

My Thoughts:

I’ll admit, this one is perhaps on here a little unfairly. I tried reading this when I was very young and do not think I was at a reading level where I could have enjoyed it as much as I perhaps could have done at a later date. With that in mind, I have recently purchased it and hope to get to it soon to see if my thoughts on it being dull and uninteresting have changed. 

I love vampires (my own novel that got published featured vampires) so I truly hope that I enjoy it this time around.

Obsessed with the secret of creation, Swiss scientist Dr. Victor Frankenstein cobbles together a body he’s determined to bring to life. And one fateful night, he does. When the creature opens his eyes, the doctor is repulsed: his vision of perfection is, in fact, a hideous monster. Dr. Frankenstein abandons his creation, but the monster won’t be ignored, setting in motion a chain of violence and terror that shadows Victor to his death.

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

My Thoughts:

I know what you’re thinking, I’m a heretic for having thrown the founding mother and father of horror onto the fire and allowed them to burn. In the case of Frankenstein, there is no possibility of redemption like there might well be with Dracula. I tried this a couple of years ago and found it just as boring and tedious as ever I did. 

It’s a shame, as it’s one of those books that I really wanted to enjoy. Alas, it just wasn’t for me.

Since its immediate success in 1813, Pride and Prejudice has remained one of the most popular novels in the English language. Jane Austen called this brilliant work “her own darling child” and its vivacious heroine, Elizabeth Bennet, “as delightful a creature as ever appeared in print.” The romantic clash between the opinionated Elizabeth and her proud beau, Mr. Darcy, is a splendid performance of civilized sparring. And Jane Austen’s radiant wit sparkles as her characters dance a delicate quadrille of flirtation and intrigue, making this book the most superb comedy of manners of Regency England.

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

My Thoughts:

I hated it.

I just can’t get across how little I enjoyed this book. I was forced to read it at school as my English Literature exam was on it and, I disliked it that much that I simply gave up part way through and decided to take my chances on the exam. I got a B, so I was thrilled.

I have never been a lover of romance books so being told to read this at home, as well as at school, so as to ensure that I ‘fully understood it’ was the most cruel punishment teenage me could have dreamt of.

Sherlock Holmes (not all of them, just the novellas) by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

My Thoughts:

Anyone who remembers my ‘classics’ post in this series may think ‘but you said you loved Sherlock’ … and I do. I just only really love his short stories. I felt the novellas (all four of them) just felt a little too long-winded and drawn out. I may well be alone in saying it, but I feel Sir Arthur’s strengths lay in short stories and not so much longer novellas for this character. 

His other novellas such as ‘The Lost World’ were very enjoyable.