Positive Review for the Picture of Dorian Gray 1900 Review
Oh Dorian. Oh Dorian. When I offset read this book in the fruitless years of my youth I was excited, overwhelmed and a blank slate (as Dorian is, upon his beginning encounter with Lord Henry) easily molded, persuaded, influenced, etc. Certain Wildisms (Wildeisms?) would take my breath away. Would become my mottos to believe in. To follow. To live. Lines like: "Information technology is giddy of you, for there is merely one thing in the world worse than being talked near, and that is not being talked most." "But beauty, real dazzler, ends where an intellectual expression begins. Intellect is in itself a manner of exaggeration, and destroys the harmony of any face." "If they know nothing of victory, they are at least spared the knowledge of defeat." "Genius lasts longer than Beauty. That accounts for the fact that we all have such pains to over-educate ourselves. In the wild struggle for existence, we want to have something that endures, and so we fill our minds with rubbish and facts, in the silly hope of keeping our place." "Yous know more than you remember yous know, but as you know less than y'all want to know." Re-reading this masterpiece and coming upon these highlighted lines was mayhap more than interesting than the book this time. Why had I highlighted these lines? Do they withal hateful the aforementioned thing to me, every bit they did when I outset took note of them, plenty to highlight them? I notwithstanding love all of those lines. But no longer feel and then strongly for them. At present these are lines that stick out still to me. Or were newly underlined on the 2d laissez passer through. New Wildisms to mold me. "Oh, I can't explain. When I like people immensely I never tell their names to any 1. It is like surrendering a part of them. I accept grown to beloved secrecy. Information technology seems to be the ane thing that tin make modern life mysterious or marvelous to united states. The commonest thing is delightful if ane simply hides it. When I get out town at present I never tell my people where I am going. If I did, I would lose all my pleasure. It is a lightheaded addiction, I dare say, but somehow it seems to bring a great deal of romance into ane's life. I suppose y'all call up me awfully foolish almost it?" "Yes; she is a peacock in everything but beauty." "Laughter is not at all a bad showtime for a friendship, and it is far the all-time ending for 1." "I choose my friends for their good looks, my acquaintances for their good characters, and my enemies for their good intellects." "Ah! this Morning! Y'all have lived since then." "what brings you out so early? I thought yous dandies never got upwards till two, and were not visible till five." --A new personal favorite. That I follow very seriously. "She behaves as if she was beautiful. Most American women do. It is the secret of their charm." 'He thought for a moment. "Can you remember any dandy mistake that you committed in your early days, Duchess?" he asked, looking at her across the table. "As well, each time that one loves is the only time one has ever loved. Difference of object does not alter singleness of passion." It turns out that all of these quotes occur in the first 45 pages, except that last i which is correct most the end. And information technology seems virtually of my reviews end up being mostly quotes from the book itself, but I figure this is what shaped and informed my reading, and then I want to share information technology with all of you. What do you think of information technology all? That said, poor Sybil Vane! Poor James Vane! Poor Basil Hallward! Shit, even poor quondam Lord Henry Wotton! And Dorian! Oh Dorian! Lead the life you did and for what? That'southward all I am going to say about the book. I don't think I shall read Against Nature, for fearfulness of existence seduced like Dorian. If y'all're tired of this review or just tired in general, cease now and come up back later. I am going to include two more quotes from the volume that truly fucked me up. And then much I had to read them at least 3 times in a row. And so transcribe them here for y'all. The terminal section, thats the one that did it. Beautiful. Here goes: "There is no such matter every bit a practiced influence, Mr. Greyness. All influence is immoral-immoral from the scientific point of view." Whew. "There are few of u.s.a. who accept not sometimes wakened earlier dawn, either afterwards one of those dreamless nights that make us almost enamored of death, or ane of those nights of horror and misshapen joy, when through the chambers of the brain sweep phantoms more terrible than reality itself, and instinct with that bright life that lurks in all grotesques, and that lends to Gothic art its enduring vitality, this art being, 1 might fancy, specially the art of those who minds accept been troubled with the malady of reverie. Gradually white fingers creep through the curtains, and they announced to tremble. In black, fantastic shapes, dumb shadows clamber into the corners of the room, and crouch there. Exterior, there is the stirring of the birds amongst the leaves, or the sound of men going along to their work, or the sigh and sob of the wind coming down from the hills and wandering round the silent house, every bit though it feared to wake the sleeper, and however must needs call along Sleep from her purple cave. Veil subsequently veil of thin, dusky gauze is lifted, and by degrees the forms and colors of things are restored to them, and we lookout man the dawn remaking the world in its antique blueprint. The wan mirrors get dorsum their mimic life. The flameless tapers stand up where we had left them, and beside them lies the half-cut volume that we had been studying, or the wired flower that we had worn at the ball, or the letter of the alphabet we had been agape to read, or that we had read too oftentimes. Nil seems to usa changed. Out of the unreal shadows of the dark comes back the real life that we had known. We have to resume it where we had left off, and at that place steals over the states a terrible sense of the necessity for the constancy of free energy in the same slow circular of stereotyped habits, or a wild longing, it may exist, that our eyelids might open some forenoon upon a world that had been refashioned anew in the darkness for our pleasure, a world in which things would have fresh shapes and colors, and exist changed, or have other secrets, a earth in which the past would have little or no place, or survive, at any charge per unit, in no conscious form of obligation or regret, the remembrance fifty-fifty of joy having its bitterness, and the memories of pleasure their pain." Yep.
"A great many, I fearfulness," she cried.
"Then commit them again," he said, gravely. "To become back i'southward youth ane has merely to repeat ane'southward follies."
"A delightful theory!" she exclaimed. " I must put it into exercise."
"Why?"
"Considering to influence a person is to give him i's own soul. He does not think his natural thoughts, or burn with his natural passions. His virtues are not real to him. His sins, if there are such things every bit sins, are borrowed. He becomes an echo of some one else'south music, an actor of a part that has non been written for him. The aim of life is self-development. To realize one's nature perfectly-that is what each of us is hither for. People are afraid of themselves present. They take forgotten the highest of all duties, the duty that one owes to one'due south self. Of class they are charitable. They feed the hungry and cloth the beggar. But their own souls starve, and are naked. Courage has gone out of our race. Perhaps we never really had information technology. The terror of society, which is the footing of morals; the terror of God, which is the secret of organized religion-these are the ii things that govern united states. And yet-"
"And yet," continues Lord Henry, in his low, musical vocalisation,"I believe that if one man were to live out his life fully and completely, were to requite form to every feeling, expression to every thought, reality to every dream-I believe that the world would gain such a fresh impulse of joy that we would forget all the maladies of mediaevalism, and return to the Hellenic ideal-to something effectively, richer than the Hellenic ideal, it may be. But the bravest man among us is afraid of himself. The mutilation of the savage has its tragic survival in the self-denial that mars our lives. We are punished for our refusals. Every impulse that we strive to strangle broods in the mind and poisons usa. The body sins once, and has done with its sins, for activity is a mode of purification. Nil remains and then but the recollection of a pleasure, or the luxury of a regret. The only mode to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it. Resist information technology, and your soul grows sick with longing for the things it has forbidden to itself, with desire for what its monstrous laws have made monstrous and unlawful. It has been said that the nifty events of the world take identify in the brain. It is in the brain, and the brain but, that the cracking sins of the globe have place also. You, Mr. Grey, yous yourself, with your rose-cerise youth and your rose-white boyhood, you lot take had passions that have made you afraid, thoughts that have filled yous with terror, day-dreams and sleeping dreams whose mere retention might stain your cheek with shame-"
"Stop!" faltered Dorian Gray, "stop! y'all bewilder me. I don't know what to say. There is some answer to yous, just I cannot observe it. Don't speak. Let me think, or, rather, permit me effort not to think."
And:
The level of cynicism and societal condone that Wilde'due south characters display towards humanity is simply staggering. Despite the nighttime (or more likely because of information technology) this is one of the well-nigh engaging, compelling and lyrical pieces of literature I accept read. The quality of the prose is goose egg short masterful. I assume most people know the bones outline of the plot, but I volition give you lot a few sentences on it. The three main characters are Basil Hallward, Lord Henry Wotton and Dorian Gray. Basil Hallward is an artist who after painting a picture of Dorian Gray becomes obsessed with him considering of his beauty (the homosexual vs. fine art object beloved Basil feels towards Dorian are left vague, likely because of the time it was written). Dorian then meets a friend Basil's, Lord Henry, and becomes enthralled with Lord Henry's earth view, which is a form of extreme hedonism that posits the but worthwhile life is one spent pursuing beauty and satisfaction for the senses. While this story is often mentioned amidst the classics of the Horror genre (which I do have a problem with) this is much more than a report of the man monster than information technology is some boogeyman. My favorite parts of the story were the extensive dialogues betwixt the characters, ordinarily Dorian and Lord Henry. They were wonderfully perverse and display a level of casual cruelty and vileness towards humanity that make it hard to breathe while reading. Oh, and Lord Henry reserves particular criminal offence for the female person of the species, to wit: YES folks...he admittedly did. One of the most intriguing quotes I have seen from Oscar Wilde regarding this book is his comparison of himself to the iii primary characters. He said that he wrote the iii primary characters as reflections of himself. Wilde said, "Basil Hallward is what I recall I am: Lord Henry is what the world thinks me: Dorian is what I would like to be—in other ages, perhaps." I was somewhat floored by this as I found Dorian to be a truly stark representation of evil and could not see how Wilde could find an idealized course within the graphic symbol. When I say evil, I don't mean just misguided or weak-minded, someone bamboozled by the clever lectures of Lord Henry. I found Gray to be selfish, vain, inhumanly callous and sadistically cruel. I intend to try and learn more about Wilde's outlook on this character equally information technology truly escapes me. Regardless, this is a towering piece of literature. Beautifully written and filled with memorable characters and a deeply moving story. A novel deserving of its status as a classic of English Literature. 5.0 stars. HIGHEST POSSIBLE RECOMMENDATION!!!! P.S. For of audiobooks. I listened to the sound version of this read by Michael Page who has become one of my favorite narrators. His performance here was amazing. 
Arguably literature'south greatest study of shallowness, vanity, casual cruelty and hedonistic selfishness, Wilde lays it down here with Absolute PERFECTION!! This was my first experience in reading Oscar Wilde and the man's gift for prose and dialogue is magical. This story read somewhat similar a dark, corrupted Jane Austen in that the writing was snappy and pleasant on the ear, but the feeling it left you with was one of hopelessness and despair. The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it. Resist it, and your soul grows sick with longing for the things information technology has forbidden to itself, with desire for what its monstrous laws accept made monstrous and unlawful.
Well at one point, Dorian utters the famous words quoted at the offset of my review and the "Faustian" bargain is struck. My honey boy, no woman is a genius. Women are a decorative sex. They never take anything to say, but they say it charmingly. Women correspond the triumph of matter over listen, just every bit men represent the triumph of mind over morals.
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I would highly recommend outset watching the film Wilde, a film which takes the audition on a journeying through the life of the tormented writer, from the ancestry of his fame to his later incarceration for "gross indecency" - a charge used to imprison individuals when information technology was impossible to bear witness sodomy. Wilde was sentenced to ii years difficult labour and died not long after beingness freed due to health issues gained during those 2 years. Looking at Wilde's story from a twenty-first century perspective, it is sad and horrifying to realise this man was indirectly sentenced to decease for being gay. The "difficult labour" prescribed was carried out in diverse means merely one of the almost common was the treadmill: This automobile fabricated prisoners walk continuously uphill for hours on end and had many long-term furnishings on people's health. Why exercise I think information technology'southward important to know this? Because, as Wilde claims, in every piece of art at that place is more of the artist than anything else. And I believe this is particularly true of The Moving picture of Dorian Grayness more than perhaps any other fictional work I've read. In this novel, Wilde explores the nature of sin, of morality and immorality. The homoerotic undertones between Dorian Grayness, Basil Hallward and Lord Henry Wotton are, I call back, the author'south little expression of his own secret "sins" within his work. Rarely does a piece of work of fiction so deeply seem to mirror elements of the writer'southward life. Past 1891, when The Picture of Dorian Gray was published, Oscar Wilde had met and fallen in beloved with Lord Alfred Douglas and they had begun a semi-underground affair. By which I mean that many were suspicious of the human relationship but didn't argue with Wilde's claims that they shared a Socrates/Plato teacher/student kind of dearest. The idolisation of Dorian Gray's youth and beauty, his trend to exist mean at random... these characteristics all fit with the description and personality of Lord Alfred Douglas. For me, in that location is no existent question as to whether part of Dorian is meant to be Mr Wilde's lover. I think if y'all familiarise yourself with Oscar Wilde, this becomes a very personal novel, much more than than just a disturbing horror story where a man sells his soul. But even without whatever additional information, I think this is a sad and haunting volume that tells of the blithesome naivete of youth and the sad wisdom of maturity. Blog | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Youtube "The sitter is merely the accident, the occasion. It is non he who is revealed by the painter; information technology is rather the painter who, on the coloured canvas, reveals himself. The reason I will non exhibit this picture is that I am agape that I have shown in it the hole-and-corner of my own soul."
And so begins this tale of art and sin. 
This book reminded me why I hate classics. Similar Frankenstein, it starts out with a slap-up premise: what if a portrait diameter the brunt of age and sin, while the person remained in the flush of youth? How would that person feel as they watched a constant reminder of their true nature develop? And like Frankenstein, it gets completely bogged down in uninteresting details and takes forever to get to the interesting bits. Seriously, in a 230-page novel, the portrait doesn't even start to change until 100 pages in. And it's so damn flowery. Every time Lord Harry starts talking (and believe me, he likes to talk) he'southward and then witty. Witty witty witty. Ahahaha, you're soooooooo worldly wise and mannerly. And entirely cynical! You lot just have a quip for everything, don't you lot? Look, reader, look. See Harry. Meet Harry decadent Dorian. Corrupt, Harry, decadent! I actually concluded up skimming virtually of the book. I actually thought virtually stopping, only I hoped it would redeem itself by the stop. It didn't. I should have just skipped to the final page. And then to save you, love reader, the same pain I went through, is the summary of Dorian Greyness (spoilers, of grade): Dorian semi-consciously makes Faustian bargain to transfer all his sins and signs of age to his portrait. He sins and feels guilty near it, but keeps doing it anyway. He finally decides to go ride of the portrait/bear witness and stabs the painting. Surprise, it breaks the spell, and he is left ugly, old and dead while his portrait returns to its original form. The stop. Yous can thank me later. UPDATE nine/3/12: Since this review is still effectually and kicking four years later on, I idea I might indicate like-minded individuals to a new parody of classic literature to the tune of Call Me Peradventure: Call Me Ishmael!
This entire review has been hidden considering of spoilers.
Facts that I know for certain: 1. I got this edition because I'm a slave to the aesthetics and that's exactly the kind of motive the ghost of Oscar Wilde would approve of 2. It's safe to assume that no matter what I'g doing, at whatsoever given moment in time, at to the lowest degree 20% of my brain capacity is perpetually dedicated to making certain I'm clever enough, flamboyant plenty, petty enough, gay enough, dramatic enough to earn the approval of the ghost of Oscar Wilde
instantly a new all time favorite
I finished reading this terminal night, and afterward I spent an unabridged hour staring into infinite and so I could contemplate over the majesty of this piece of work. Information technology left me speechless. This book is exquisite; it is an investigation into the man soul, the ability of vanity and the problems of living a life with non a single event for your actions. It'due south truly powerful stuff. It begins with a simple realisation, and perhaps an obvious one. But, for Dorian information technology is completely life irresolute. He realises that beauty is finite. Information technology won't last forever. It's like a flower, temporary and first-class. So if you're a young man whose appearance is your singular quality, so this is some damn scary news. People only want to exist with you lot because you're attractive and charming; they want to be near you, and with you, for your looks only. So when that goes what do you have left? Nothing. No friends. No love. Simply age. So what do yous do? How practice yous retain your singular quality? Well, the respond is simple, you copy Medico Faustus (The Tragical History of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus) and sell your soul to the devil! "How lamentable it is!" murmured Dorian Gray with his eyes still stock-still upon his own portrait. "How sad it is! I shall abound one-time, and horrible, and dreadful. But this motion picture will remain always immature. Information technology volition never be older than this particular 24-hour interval of June. . . . If it were only the other way! If it were I who was to be always young, and the picture that was to grow former! For that -- for that -- I would give everything! Yes, in that location is nix in the whole earth I would non give! I would requite my soul for that!" And this is where the real depravity begins. Dorian'southward world has no consequences. Everything he does is attributed to the painting, everything. Any regret or malice leaves him quickly and is transferred to the canvas. So he can't technically feel emotion for an extended menstruum of time; thus, his attitude becomes one of nonchalance. He becomes a shell, an emotionless creature who tin can but seek his sin: vanity. He surrounds himself with beauty. His house is full of art, brilliant music and every luxury known to man. You proper noun it. Dorian's got it. Only through seeking new experiences, these pleasures, tin can Dorian's being remain animated. I intentionally used the word "being" for Dorian's body no longer harbours his soul; it's in the painting. Everything he does is for his own indulgence; he just doesn't care what affect his presence has on others. The prefect moment is all he lives for. "I don't want to be at the mercy of my emotions. I want to apply them, to enjoy them, and to dominate them." The character of Dorian Greyness is an interesting study considering he is representative of many things. He shows how a seemingly pure soul can be corrupted if it'south left in a sense of privation and given terrible guidance. Also he is suggestive of the Victorian ideal of the perfect societal image. I must be respectable at all times, and have all the advisable arrogance and graces. Just behind closed doors, or perhaps even a drapery, annihilation goes. He is suggestive of the hidden evils of Victorian guild equally backside the mask was many night things. For case, the Empire and colonialism to the Victorians was a wonderful thing; it built wealth and structure, but in reality it destroyed culture and subjected peoples to slavery. The same things can be said of child labour, the exploitation of women and terrible working conditions. Everything exists behind a veil of grandeur, and this is no less true for Dorian. The homosexual suggestions are practically ground-breaking. Wilde wasn't the but Victorian author to suggest such things. Robert Louis Stevenson'due south The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr Hyde tin be read in a like vein, but Wilde was much more explicit. It's not cryptic; information technology'south only obviously homosexual lust for all to encounter on the part of Basil and (perhaps?) even Sir Henry after. It'southward all the same rather horrific that Wilde was actually arrested for homosexual acts. Lightheaded Victorians. The novel also shows that despite existence corrupted to such a degree, to commit murder in such a terrible sense, Dorian (the Victorian man?) isn't across all redemption. He can still come back from his deeds and stop it all. The ending was perfection. This has great allegorical meaning. __________________________________ You can connect with me on social media via My Linktree.
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2021 - I re-read this for university and loved it even more than the second time circular... Lord Henry is a paradigmatic sophist and his epigrams are delightful (partly because it's easy to forget that he is more rhetoric than truth). The connection between youthful appearance and grapheme is also so fascinating, particularly since Wilde is writing at the cease of the century where physiognomy is an outdated scientific discipline. What does it mean to be young? And can innocence ever be restored? 2017 - If you lot haven't already, you HAVE TO read this! Wilde delves into the cartesian dualist debate, asking us to question where the cocky truly does reside (and contradicting the popular Victorian idea of physiognomy). In his personal Fall and descent into sinfulness I saw similarities with H.Grand. Wells'southward 'The Invisible Man' where sin thrives simply considering the individual cannot be held accountable. Similarly, the debate nigh the value of art is intriguing and, after reading this, I recommend reading Poe's 'The Oval Mirror' because, over again, in that location are definite similarities.
Then I read all of Wilde'due south plays a couple of years agone simply for some reason I never read this at the fourth dimension. This is probably the number one most requested book for me to read. So I read information technology. Are ya happy now!? ARE YA!? I actually rather enjoyed this. Well, apparently. I hateful, did yous honestly recall I wasn't going to like The Picture of Dorian Gray? It'due south by Oscar Wilde for fuck'southward sake. His prose is like spilled honey flowing across a wooden table and waterfalling onto the floor beneath. The sticky liquid flowing slowly over the edge. His plot, perfectly paced, moves slowly as nosotros wade deeper and deeper into Dorian Grayness's maniacal life. Over the edge we become as everything goes incorrect, there's expiry, there's hurting, at that place'due south long conversations about art. Nosotros striking the floor as we cease and nosotros run into nothing merely sweetness amassing around us every bit we escape from Wilde'south prose. Putting the book down you come across the light has hit the stream and it glows and it shines and it sparkles and you lot stand there mesmorised by what y'all're witnessing and you put the book back on your shelf and feel sorry for the book you read next. And then, yes, it's skillful.
Some of u take never damned ur soul to remain forever young and it shows
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