Not saying Capital can’t be a slog or tough to get through, but this aversion to reading so many on the “left” have is just strange. There’s so much accessible Marxist texts out there that aren’t Capital, yet they hyperfocus on Capital to make the excuse of “it’s hard.”
You should read capital in the sense that Marx is essentially taking apart a car and explaining to you in minute detail how that part works, how it works against the other machinery and how it can’t work in the ways other economists and philosophers pretend it does
Now if you were to read a car manual you would find it equally boring because of the depth it is going into
You would not find reading a car manual particularly exciting if you were a race car enthusiast - however you need to know why you can’t insert the steering wheel into the wheel arch
What affect the brakes have when you press the brake pad etc.
Capital is not exciting or sexy but if you want the “definitive” manual on how capitalist society works you should read and take it apart