After looking through all the books that I read last year and thinking about the ones that I enjoyed the best, and the ones I didn’t with the exception of Gone With the Wind what I’ve come to realise is that I don’t really like American ‘classic’ novels – The Grapes of Wrath; The Big Sleep; On the Road & The Great Gatsby, and of course Catcher in the Rye.
I thought they were fantastic stories, which were all beautifully written in their own way but still I didn’t really seem to enjoy them. They weren’t my cup of tea. Maybe I was expecting more from novels such as these which have been deemed influential works, especially influential on American literature as a whole. It could have been the case of reading something you know should be good – and being disappointed by them. I don’t really know – I can’t really explain it very well and if I continue to try to I think that I’ll end up digging myself into a hole.
Sorry folks. I wish I enjoyed such classics as these – but I don’t. Not everyone can, can they? I know that I should but….
I will still give them a go. I won’t cut others like them out of my reading life completely and if anyone has any other reads of ‘American classics’ they think I should try – I’m open for suggestions.
Perhaps digging myself out of a small hole – I have enjoyed American ‘classics’ in the past – but I think the vast majority of them so far – I haven’t.