Author: Oscar Wilde
Original Copyright Date: 1891
Back-cover Description
Oscar Wilde brings his enormous gifts for astute social observation and sparkling prose to The Picture of Dorian Gray, his dreamlike story of a young man who sells his soul for eternal youth and beauty. This dandy, who remains forever unchanged—petulant, hedonistic, vain, and amoral—while a painting of him ages and grows increasingly hideous with the years, has been horrifying, enchanting, obsessing, even corrupting readers for more than a hundred years.
Taking the reader in and out of London drawing rooms, to the heights of aestheticism, and to the depths of decadence, The Picture of Dorian Gray is not only a melodrama about moral corruption. Laced with bon mots and vivid depictions of upper-class refinement, it is also a fascinating look at the milieu of Wilde’s fin-de-siècle world and a manifesto of the creed “Art for Art’s Sake.”
My Thoughts
Wilde's Picture of Dorian Gray is a gothic horror story which boils the entirety of the aesthetic movement, of which he was a proponent, into a nice and neat two-hundred pages.
"It is silly of you , for there is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about."This was an enjoyable read; Wilde's poignant witticisms and social critique made me laugh out loud and thankful that I don't live during a time where I could possibly be on the wrong side of his pen.
While the aesthetic movement rhetoric was, pun intended, shallow, it seemed a proper fit for those who, as Wilde states, practice the fine and noble aristocratic art of doing absolutely nothing.
As a quick aside, I'm thinking of going back to school to get my Masters in Aristocratic Arts... Advanced Matchbook Arrangement looks intriguing, but I don't have the prerequisites yet ( Muted Gossip, and Theories of Understated Social Disapproval)
"But beauty, real beauty, ends where an intellectual expression begins. Intellect is in itself a mode of exaggeration, and destroys the harmony of any face. The moment on sits down to think, one becomes all nose , or all forehead, or something horrid"It was very interesting to me to see how the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde theme of the duality of man was presented by Wilde. In Robert Louis Stevenson's famous work, the duality was brought out by a drug, and his "alter-ego" was responsible for all of the evil doings. Dr. Jekyll had a sense of plausible deniability in his actions as he was physically transformed by the drug; Mr Hyde was a different persona. Dorian's duality is more subtle; it arises out of the sole desire to stay beautiful. Dorian has no Mr. Hyde, no alter-ego. The painting becomes Dorian's "Tell Tale Heart"; however, because he can keep it in the attic, as his little secret, watching the painting show his every evil while he stays the same beautiful Dorian becomes a thrill in itself. In both stories, the main characters start to lose control over the evil outlet and their actions become more horrific and lead to a self-destructive and tragic end.
I really liked this book and would recommend it for anyone wanting a short dark tale that is extremely well written.
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