4 Classics

Hi, I did want this post to be up earlier but I got sick so that didn’t happen. But it’s here now, the classics I’ve recently read and really enjoyed. The children’s area has a great classic selection in the local library here, and I’ve been making my way through them since finding them. Today, I wanted to talk about a few!

Can someone please teach me how to make this smaller if there is a way because this is huge!

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These are the first few I borrowed, all finished far too soon. But I’ll only be talking about three of these four. Dracula, The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, and Peter Pan and I’ll be adding The Story of King Arthur and His Knights.

I’ve read more, and want to talk about them too, but for this post, I’ll keep it to these four. I’ll let you all know now, these four are some of my favourite classics so this post will be very biased.

Starting with this beauty; Dracula!

It was the oddest one out of the bunch for me because I’ve read Dracula many times before, however, this was the first time reading it without journal entries. I know this version of the novel is an easier read than other versions since it’s meant to younger readers to be able to digest but, why did the journals go away, did they not send letters to each other this time? (They did). It was written as any other third-person novel, but it was still the same wonderful story.

Taking away the journal entries made it slightly less personal, which I didn’t mind as I was so interested in this new writing style for the story. It also gave the story a chance to be even creepier in some ways, like when we first meet the three sisters in the castle. From what I remember in the other versions, Dracula just throws a wriggling sack at the sisters, and they jump at it. This time he throws a wriggling sack at the sisters and the author feels the need to tell the younger reader “it could be a dog or a cat based on the size” which, I’ll admit, feels a lot worse to read. Despite that, it was just as marvellous and wonderful.

This version is great for anyone who either is a young reader or who just hasn’t read many classics and maybe finds their language a bit difficult or tedious to get through. (This is a reoccurring theme since these are all written simpler with younger readers in mind while keeping the stories just as horrifying and moving as the original.)

Moving on with: The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde

This book was so good and what made it even better was listening to the soundtrack of the musical Jekyll & Hyde the gothic musical thriller. As with the previous book, and all the books to follow, great for young readers and classic beginners or those who simply haven’t found a version they like yet due to the language.

This story is so great to read, a fun little mystery to follow and watch how the characters put things together to find out the truth about their friend and colleague Dr Jekyll. The characters are very sweet and caring, and scared. Like Dracula, this story is about dealing with certain taboos…Homosexuality, the monster, like in Dracula, is just being gay? Because queer is spoOoOky. Great book! Read the book!

Moving on because sitting is hurting my back too much after laying down for a whole week and I spent way too long going on about Dracula: Peter Pan!

(For those of you who have read my short stories and like my writing, after the novel I’m currently working on, I will be doing a Peter Pan retelling, with a female Hook and making it hella gay, okay, back to the post.)

I have seen many Peter Pan films, like probably all of them. I even knew the original story very well even though this is actually my first time reading a version of the book! (That I remember) I am so happy I read this book though, this was my Goodreads review of it, “I don’t know how to review this book. It gave me a book hangover.”

I was so sad it ended, I read it way too fast, and I just missed it so much the second I read the last word. It took me two days before I managed to just pull myself together and read another book. I’ve always loved the story, so I wasn’t surprised that I loved the book but now, I am mad I borrowed it from the library because I really, really, really need to buy it!

Moving onto the best thing ever: The Story of King Arthur and His Knights!

Okay, so remember how I said Peter Pan gave me a book hangover? Yeah, I cried when I finished this book…Yeah, not because it had a sad ending, no. I cried because I finished the book…

I love the story of King Arthur, I haven’t seen all the versions, not even close but so many of them. My favourite one is BBC’s Merlin but it’s not that much like the book, but it is perfect. I love all the characters, there really isn’t one I’m meh about, I enjoy reading about them all. This one is the only book on this list that really isn’t made easier to read, it’s kept all its old language, all its “thus” and “thine” and other old words that are no longer used but oddly, that didn’t make it hard to read. I thought it would when I noticed it at first but as I read, it just flowed really well and didn’t confuse me or bother me. It is also a bit repetitive; they’ll say the exact same sentence right away during the tournaments and adventures but that also didn’t bother me? It probably would in any other book but not this one, so absolutely everything I have to say about this book is completely biased and nothing but positive so read it and let me know what you thought about it! (Or if you have already read it, let me know what you thought about it!)

That’s all for this post, I wanted this to be more recommendations than a review type thing and it seems like I failed at that. I feel the Dracula part was sort of review-ish then I feel I failed at even that and just started rambling about the books for two paragraphs? Sorry about that.

I will keep these kinds of posts going, recommending books I’ve read and enjoyed, they’ll probably/hopefully have more information about the books and why you should read them unlike this one, but I feel for this it works? These are all very well-known books, you know them all already, right?

Thank you for reading!