The Picture of Dorian Gray

A lush, cautionary tale of a life of vileness and deception or a loving portrait of the aesthetic impulse run rampant? Why not both? After Basil Hallward paints a beautiful, young man's portrait, his subject's frivolous wish that the picture change and he remain the same comes true. Dorian Gray's picture grows aged and corrupt while he continues to appear fresh and innocent. After he kills a young woman, "as surely as if I had cut her little throat with a knife", Dorian Gray is surprised to find no difference in his vision or surroundings. "The roses are not less lovely for all that. The birds sing just as happily in my garden."

As Hallward tries to make sense of his creation, his epigram-happy friend Lord Henry Wotton encourages Dorian in his sensual quest with any number of Wildean paradoxes, including the delightful "When we are happy we are always good, but when we are good we are not always happy." But despite its many languorous pleasures, The Picture of Dorian Gray is an imperfect work. Compared to the two (voyeuristic) older men, Dorian is a bore, and his search for ever new sensations far less fun than the novel's drawing-room discussions. Even more oddly, the moral message of the novel contradicts many of Wilde's supposed aims, not least "no artist has ethical sympathies. An ethical sympathy in an artist is an unpardonable mannerism of style." Nonetheless, the glamour boy gets his just deserts. And Wilde, defending Dorian Gray, had it both ways: "All excess, as well as all renunciation, brings its own punishment."

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It was okay... - Rated
Let me start by stating the obvious, this is not a bad book. It is quite clearly a well written book and has an interesting story. The reason that I class this book as only 'okay' is that Wilde, at times, simply appears to be showing off. There are entire pages of text which are completely readable, but seem to go off at a tangent from the main story line, simply to show just how much he knows about the world and modern (at the time) society. It was these moments that took the book down for me.

The story itself is excellent if somewhat tragic. The characters are very deep and provide soemthing extra to the book, you could spend hours just analysing them, without reading into the story too much!

I would recommend that people read this book, the things that I believe detract from this book may make the book for many others. It is certainly a lot 'easier' than many of the other 'classics' out there, and for that reason alone it is probably worth a read.

One of the best books ever written! - Rated
I have read this book twice now and will probably end up reading it again. An interesting tale of morality and vanity. Although written over a century ago, this book is as applicable now in the modern material world of the 21st century, as it was back then. The way Lord Henry influences Dorian is fascinating, as is the way Dorian beguiles amd intrigues all those who meet him.

The ending is truly poetic....but I wont spoil the surprise for you.

Read it!

A personal tale of corruption and morality - Rated
This is an excellent read and a fascinating story of a boy's journey through life playing on his youthful looks and beauty.

Throughout the book we see him go from innocent through corrupt to murderous, but to all others, he remains aesthetically pure as the driven snow.

A must-read classic.

Good... but not the greatest - Rated
I picked up this book because I heard a lot about it, and I was interested in the themes it purposedly covered. I hadn't actually read any of Wilde's works (plays or otherwise), and since he is one of the most famous writers in the English language, I was quite interested to see what the fuss was all about.
At first I was disappointed. The book isn't particularly long, but the first three chapters seem a lot longer than they are: this is due to the fact that Wilde seemed to believe that good writing meant replacing a perfectly acceptable word with the most contrived, inappropriate and antiquated synonym he could find. This, plus the countless allusions to obscure classical mythology (and I consider myself fairly knowledgeable on the subject), makes the text a clumsy and frankly inelegant read. It almost gives the impression that it was written by an author who thinks that litterature must be crammed with the most tortuous expressions so as to be worthy of merit. A bit of background reading revealed that Wilde was actually quite young when he wrote this book, which may explain some of it.

To be fair, the book does get better later. The plot picks up, a few events happen, and of course, the business with the portrait begins to unfold. This is obviously the most interesting part, because in reality, Dorian Gray himself is a pretty boring character and probably a little lacking in the brain department. Watching him slowly lose his mind, try to reject his debauched lifestyle and failing (thanks to an egotistical and manipulative Lord Henry), and ultimately succumb to madness is by far the best bit. Luckily, Wilde seems to have understood that this is what the reader wants to read about, so the classical allusions and the pointless digressions are cut to a minimum. The language still remains a little stolid, but it becomes more bearable.

In short, this book is definitely worth reading if the theme interests you. It's not that long either, so it will be done and over with pretty quickly, as long as you persevere past the first three chapters. It's not the best book ever written, and not the most imaginative, but it's a decent read. Oscar Wilde himself must have realised that writing novels wasn't his forte, because this is his only book...

Essential read :D - Rated
I would recommend this book to any person, regardless of literary background because Wilde pushes back the boundaries of our day to day opinions and philosophical ennui with life. An essential read before emo cult destroys another piece of literary genius.