Overview
The Picture of Dorian Gray is a gothic novel written by Oscar Wilde and first published in April 1890.
The book opens on with painter, Basil Hallward, a sensitive soul, painting a portrait of a young man of extraordinary good looks called Dorian Gray. Basil’s friend, Lord Henry Wotton is observing Basil adding the final touches to the painting and comments that it is Basil’s best work.
Lord Henry takes an interest in Dorian, a remarkably good looking but shallow young man, and sets about influencing him with his believes that beauty and the pursuit of personal pleasure are the only things in life worth pursuing.
Basil gifts the painting to Dorian who makes a secret wish that the painting could age and change on his behalf and that he, Dorian, could retain his good looks for the rest of his life.
Under the warped influence of Lord Henry, Dorian sets out to explore every emotion and sensation life has to offer, regardless of the cost to others. He meets a beautiful young actress, Sybil Vane, and falls in love with her amazing renditions of the various heroines in Shakespeare’s plays, in particularly the tragic roles. He purposefully meets Sybil and declares his love for her. A young and easily influenced girl from a poor family, Sybil falls in love with Dorian, and it impacts on her acting, rendering her quite unable to perform. Dorian rejects her and Sybil commits suicide in her anguish. After this tragedy, Dorian views the painting and see a sneer of cruelty around the portrait’s mouth. He realises that his wish for eternal youth and beauty has come true.
Influenced by a book provided by Lord Henry, Dorian sets out on a path of debauchery and sin, influencing other young men and women to accompany him in his heinous behaviours. As his life progresses, the painting becomes more and more hideous.
The quote below describes the degeneration of Dorian’s soul as depicted by the painting:
“Often, on returning home from one of those mysterious and prolonged absences that gave rise to such strange conjecture among those who were his friends, or thought that they were so, he himself would creep upstairs to the locked room, open the door with the key that never left him now, and stand, with a mirror, in front of the portrait that Basil Hallward had painted of him, looking now at the evil and aging face on the canvas, and now at the fair young face that laughed back at him from the polished glass. The very sharpness of the contrast used to quicken his sense of pleasure. He grew more and more enamoured of his own beauty, more and more interested in the corruption of his own soul. He would examine with minute care, and sometimes with a monstrous and terrible delight, the hideous lines that seared the wrinkling forehead or crawled around the heavy sensual mouth, wondering sometimes which were the more horrible, the signs of sin or the signs of age. He would place his white hands beside the coarse bloated hands of the picture, and smile. He mocked the misshapen body and the failing limbs.
There were moments, indeed, at night, when, lying sleepless in his own delicately scented chamber, or in the sordid room of the little ill-famed tavern near the docks which, under an assumed name and in disguise, it was his habit to frequent, he would think of the ruin he had brought upon his soul with a pity that was all the more poignant because it was purely selfish. But moments such as these were rare. That curiosity about life which Lord Henry had first stirred in him, as they sat together in the garden of their friend, seemed to increase with gratification. The more he knew, the more he desired to know. He had mad hungers that grew more ravenous as he fed them.”
Characterisations
The introductory chapters to this book set the stage for the plot extremely well as it gives a lot of insight into the characters of the three men at that point in time.
Basil is clearly sensitive and creative, an excellent artist and a lover of beauty. Dorian’s angelic looks have captivated him to a point where he is obsessed by the concept and illusion of this young man he has created in his own mind. His painting of Dorian is his attempt to capture the beauty and goodness he believes he perceives in his subject. Basil is delighted by the painting which he believes does justice to the characteristics he has attributed to Dorian.
Basil is also a man of strong morals and principles. All his characteristics are demonstrated by the following quote:
“You don’t understand me, Harry,” answered the artist. “Of course I am not like him. I know that perfectly well. Indeed, I should be sorry to look like him. You shrug your shoulders? I am telling you the truth. There is a fatality about all physical and intellectual distinction, the sort of fatality that seems to dog through history the faltering steps of kings. It is better not to be different from one’s fellows. The ugly and the stupid have the best of it in this world. They can sit at their ease and gape at the play. If they know nothing of victory, they are at least spared the knowledge of defeat. They live as we all should live–undisturbed, indifferent, and without disquiet. They neither bring ruin upon others, nor ever receive it from alien hands. Your rank and wealth, Harry; my brains, such as they are–my art, whatever it may be worth; Dorian Gray’s good looks–we shall all suffer for what the gods have given us, suffer terribly.”
Lord Henry Wotton is a self-centred and egotistical man. Spoiled due to his life of wealth, privilege and idleness, Lord Henry proclaims himself to be a hedonist who believes the pursuit of personal pleasure is the most important thing in life. He is a clever man who has channelled his brilliant mind into devising fascinating, poisonous and ill-conceived theories to support his shallow and selfish beliefs. Despite his long ramblings in support of his ridiculous notions about life, he is not actually a bad man and does not indulge in sordid or criminal behaviour. In fact, he believes that criminal activity belongs exclusively in the realm of those he deems to be the lower orders of humanity.
Unfortunately, Lord Henry is charming and worldly in addition to being a great, albeit misguided, intellect and he easily influences the weak and spineless Dorian Gray with his radical theories.
The following quote is an example of one of Lord Henry’s speeches:
““There is no such thing as a good influence, Mr. Gray. All influence is immoral – immoral from the scientific point of view.”
“Why?”
“Because to influence a person is to give him one’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 as sins, are borrowed. He becomes an echo of someone else’s music, an actor of a part that has not been written for him. The aim of life is self-development. To realize one’s nature perfectly – that is what each of us is here for. People are afraid of themselves, nowadays. They have forgotten the highest of all duties, the duty that one owes to one’s self. Of course they are charitable. They feed the hungry, and clothe the beggar. But their own souls starve, and are naked. Courage has gone out of our race. Perhaps we never had it. The terror of society, which is the basis of morals, the terror of God, which is the secret of religion – these are the two things that govern us. And yet […] I believe that if one man were to live out his life fully and completely, were to give 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 maladies of medievalism, and return to the Hellenic ideal – to something finer, richer, than the Hellenic ideal, it may be. […] We are punished for our refusals. Every impulse that we strive to strangle broods in the mind, and poisons us. … 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 it has forbidden to itself, with desire for what its monstrous laws have made monstrous and unlawful.””
Dorian Gray is a weak character with not ambition to do anything useful with his life. The reader quickly realises that Basil’s romantic ideas about the young man are mere fancies, and that Dorian is not actually a very nice person. He is aware of his beauty right from the beginning of the book, and is very vain, but he is not aware of its lack of durability. It is Lord Henry who draws Dorian’s attention to the fact that beauty and youth are short lived.
Consider this quote:
“The painter considered for a few moments. “He likes me,” he answered after a pause; “I know he likes me. Of course I flatter him dreadfully. I find a strange pleasure in saying things to him that I know I shall be sorry for having said. As a rule, he is charming to me, and we sit in the studio and talk of a thousand things. Now and then, however, he is horribly thoughtless, and seems to take a real delight in giving me pain. Then I feel, Harry, that I have given away my whole soul to some one who treats it as if it were a flower to put in his coat, a bit of decoration to charm his vanity, an ornament for a summer’s day.””
Is The Picture of Dorian Gray worth reading?
The painting in this story, effectively depicts Dorian’s soul or true self. As Dorian sinks deeper and deeper into a life of debauchery and sin, the effects of his actions show on the portrait making it uglier and uglier. For me, the effect of sin on the painting is an effective metaphor for the effect of selfishness and I-concentric behaviour on our own souls.
In our modern world of excessive consumption, I think this lesson is still vitally important. Mankind needs to look beyond individual wants and desires and set about earnestly saving our wildlife and natural environment as well as uplifting and education disadvantaged people.
In addition, from my personal perspective, I loved the skillful and beautiful writing (although it does require extra concentration effort as the descriptive paragraphs are long and intricate) and an interesting storyline in addition to its focus on questionable ideals that still dominate our society.
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Reviews with images
A most worthy story of mystery and horror.
“The world is wide and has many wonderful people in it.” - Basil from “The Picture of Dorian Gray” by Oscar Wilde.That specific quote from the novel we are reviewing today has so much to do with humanity as much as it has to do with the book. This is the first of the #StayClassyFeb reviews that I will be doing this month as February is dedicated to classics novels in the public domain that have reviews, but not a modern take on them.I am hoping my review series provides you some insight into some of the old classics while also giving a clear picture on what to expect from the e-reader copy. Are you ready? I am. Let’s get some tea called in, be sure you tip your handsome driver and whatever you do, do not go into the room alone with the painting. Here comes a review of Oscar Wilde’s “The Picture of Dorian Gray”.OpinionFor this first review I’m choosing the classic that I’ve used in I don’t know how many jokes or quips over the years. I have compared Dick Clark, Cindy Crawford and Joan Rivers to Dorian Gray. “I bet they have a painting in the attic somewhere” is something I don’t mind quipping when I see someone who is teetering on ageless and the societal perfection with something underneath. As always I am going to review this book not only on the book, but on the copy I read, and base this as if I had no idea what this book was about because I’m not sure everyone has read “The Picture of Dorian Gray”.My first impressions of Dorian Gray all these years later is familiarity, but subtlety. If you have never read this book, it comes across kind of slow to begin, but that’s a trap. Oscar Wild I believe inspired writers to layer in foreshadowing carefully into their works ahead of time. This novel has a subtle layer of foreshadowing in the first and second chapters that take us through the whole book and adds some intrigue. The story and its beautiful layers are so important to what happens later, and if you are not closely paying attention to the first two chapters, it’s going to be very confusing later.Critiques, and believe it or not this goes into the “Story Structure, Foundation and Presentation” part of scoring for my reviews. So there are MANY copies and revisions of this book, that one would think whoever is doing the e-books would be respectful and ensure their copy stands out. Well, alas, this one does not. The words are stuck together, the commas are on top of each other and I could go on. It’s tough to read. Whole sentences sometimes do not have spaces between them. It’s probably one of the poorest examples of an e-copy that I have seen in some time, and I review books from all sorts of writers and publishers.I feel if Oscar Wilde had self-published, this would have been picked up immediately and fixed. “A Picture of Dorian Gray” deserves far more care and love than it got in its e-copy. Here’s an example:Page 44“Belgian brute, to insult his son-in-law inpublic-paid him,sir, to do it, paid him- and that thefellow spitted his man as if he had been a pigeon. The thing washuhed up, but, egad Kelso ate his chop alone at the club for sometime afterwards.”That’s the bottom third of dialog on page 44 on the e-copy that I read on my Kindle. To verify it, I went back to this on my son’s Amazon Fire 7, downloaded the book, and it’s the same thing.I feel “The Picture of Dorian Gray” deserves more love and respect than this copy gave the story. I hope someone will go back in and fix the e-copy. This sadly impacted the score on the novel, and not because of Oscar Wilde, but because of the way it was put together on the e-reader.Next, let’s go into some story critiques. Oh yeah, even Oscar Wilde cannot escape the catchy gaze of Mrs. Y. For the first of the story critiques, we return to “Story Structure, Foundation, and Presentation” and it’s pacing we are looking at. This book has some very dry and slow pacing at times. Chiefly, anytime they are talking about what Dorian Gray has in his house, or the way something looks, it’s a slowly paced sequence. Now, that doesn’t mean it’s not important, it simply is slow and it can be tedious to get through.My next critique, we go into the “Lost in Translation” section of my scoring. While I am certain this was trendy and cool back in the day it was written, the fact that I have to stop to Google Translate French to understand what is going on is a tad on the annoying side. It’s not terrible, but I like to know what I’m reading. Frequently I suppose to make it fancier, there are sections of French poetry or even French sayings. I know just enough French to be able to order food in Louisiana, so this one was a bit of a struggle at times. If you are like me and you do not throw French prose into your sentences, you may find that Google Translate is your buddy. Also, good to note, if you have an Android device you can use the translation app to hover over the words and figure out what it says easier. I am not sure if Apple has an equivalent or not, but I know Android does.For this part of the review let’s go into my favorite things about this book. This is a book we should read and reflect on in our times. This story has so much of a cautionary tale about entitlement versus gratitude and how that can shape a life, as well as ignoring things as we grow. Everyone grows up and when they are young there is so much potential. But in that potential, there is a desire or tendency to do impulsive things that can corrupt us. Over time that corruption becomes festering and digesting. That’s the point of the narrative. So thus, even though it seems like a long-ago book, it’s not. It’s still something that we can connect with even now.There also is a lot to say about how you can’t run from your problems or hide them. At the end of the day, your problems must be dealt with or they become bigger problems. No drugs, no alcohol, not even running away makes them any less of a situation that must be addressed. I like that this story can put a glaring spotlight onto things we deal with even now.The other part I enjoyed was the detail work and imagery of Oscar Wilde. Though his words are formal and older toned, they are profound and beautiful even to this day. There are beautiful descriptions, and then there is disgusting imagery in the narrative, that I even find beauty in their wake. Even the most horrible stuff, from the description of a hunting incident to the seedy docks and old opium dens, has a beauty to the description despite the grotesque subject matter.Though this is an older book, it has so much to say about the influence of the “wise” to the “naive”, and why maybe it is better to listen to your heart instead of the words of others.Lastly, the thing I like is the message of “Dorian Gray” and that message is ‘Know thyself”. Throughout the book there is an underlining question, will he fix this or will he continue his ways? This adds a kind of dynamic tension to the book and strings along everyone that is in Dorian’s life. But the thing that continues to happen is he listens to the wrong things or he thinks away the truth of the matter. Even in a situation where he could have done the right thing and by all rights believed so, the truth of reality comes around. That message is important. If one knows their own self, and knows deep down what it is to be a good human or a bad one, they can make the choices accordingly. It’s when they deny it in either way that things become murky.My last thought about it, whatever happened to the picture? Someday if you want to debate me on that topic let me know in the comments below. I’d love to have a discussion about this book!ScoreWhat does the great Oscar Wilde get from Mrs. Y all these many years later? Does he get an automatic pass because this book itself is youthful in its age, or does this masterwork fall flat because of out of date situations?The e-book copy took a hit. If I was scoring just the e-book copy without any story considerations it’d be a 62/100. However, considering the story and this specific version of “The Picture of Dorian Gray” by Oscar Wilde scored a solid 82/100 which is a 4-Star rating for Goodreads and Amazon.Despite the errors with the mashed words, the overall story managed to bring the score back up even though the e-reader copy itself is in need of some love and affection.Join me next time my friends, and I hope you have a lovely day!
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Reviewed in the United States on September 16, 2023
Reviewed in the United States on February 1, 2019
“The world is wide and has many wonderful people in it.” - Basil from “The Picture of Dorian Gray” by Oscar Wilde.
That specific quote from the novel we are reviewing today has so much to do with humanity as much as it has to do with the book. This is the first of the #StayClassyFeb reviews that I will be doing this month as February is dedicated to classics novels in the public domain that have reviews, but not a modern take on them.
I am hoping my review series provides you some insight into some of the old classics while also giving a clear picture on what to expect from the e-reader copy. Are you ready? I am. Let’s get some tea called in, be sure you tip your handsome driver and whatever you do, do not go into the room alone with the painting. Here comes a review of Oscar Wilde’s “The Picture of Dorian Gray”.
Opinion
For this first review I’m choosing the classic that I’ve used in I don’t know how many jokes or quips over the years. I have compared Dick Clark, Cindy Crawford and Joan Rivers to Dorian Gray. “I bet they have a painting in the attic somewhere” is something I don’t mind quipping when I see someone who is teetering on ageless and the societal perfection with something underneath. As always I am going to review this book not only on the book, but on the copy I read, and base this as if I had no idea what this book was about because I’m not sure everyone has read “The Picture of Dorian Gray”.
My first impressions of Dorian Gray all these years later is familiarity, but subtlety. If you have never read this book, it comes across kind of slow to begin, but that’s a trap. Oscar Wild I believe inspired writers to layer in foreshadowing carefully into their works ahead of time. This novel has a subtle layer of foreshadowing in the first and second chapters that take us through the whole book and adds some intrigue. The story and its beautiful layers are so important to what happens later, and if you are not closely paying attention to the first two chapters, it’s going to be very confusing later.
Critiques, and believe it or not this goes into the “Story Structure, Foundation and Presentation” part of scoring for my reviews. So there are MANY copies and revisions of this book, that one would think whoever is doing the e-books would be respectful and ensure their copy stands out. Well, alas, this one does not. The words are stuck together, the commas are on top of each other and I could go on. It’s tough to read. Whole sentences sometimes do not have spaces between them. It’s probably one of the poorest examples of an e-copy that I have seen in some time, and I review books from all sorts of writers and publishers.
I feel if Oscar Wilde had self-published, this would have been picked up immediately and fixed. “A Picture of Dorian Gray” deserves far more care and love than it got in its e-copy. Here’s an example:
Page 44
“Belgian brute, to insult his son-in-law inpublic-paid him,sir, to do it, paid him- and that thefellow spitted his man as if he had been a pigeon. The thing washuhed up, but, egad Kelso ate his chop alone at the club for sometime afterwards.”
That’s the bottom third of dialog on page 44 on the e-copy that I read on my Kindle. To verify it, I went back to this on my son’s Amazon Fire 7, downloaded the book, and it’s the same thing.
I feel “The Picture of Dorian Gray” deserves more love and respect than this copy gave the story. I hope someone will go back in and fix the e-copy. This sadly impacted the score on the novel, and not because of Oscar Wilde, but because of the way it was put together on the e-reader.
Next, let’s go into some story critiques. Oh yeah, even Oscar Wilde cannot escape the catchy gaze of Mrs. Y. For the first of the story critiques, we return to “Story Structure, Foundation, and Presentation” and it’s pacing we are looking at. This book has some very dry and slow pacing at times. Chiefly, anytime they are talking about what Dorian Gray has in his house, or the way something looks, it’s a slowly paced sequence. Now, that doesn’t mean it’s not important, it simply is slow and it can be tedious to get through.
My next critique, we go into the “Lost in Translation” section of my scoring. While I am certain this was trendy and cool back in the day it was written, the fact that I have to stop to Google Translate French to understand what is going on is a tad on the annoying side. It’s not terrible, but I like to know what I’m reading. Frequently I suppose to make it fancier, there are sections of French poetry or even French sayings. I know just enough French to be able to order food in Louisiana, so this one was a bit of a struggle at times. If you are like me and you do not throw French prose into your sentences, you may find that Google Translate is your buddy. Also, good to note, if you have an Android device you can use the translation app to hover over the words and figure out what it says easier. I am not sure if Apple has an equivalent or not, but I know Android does.
For this part of the review let’s go into my favorite things about this book. This is a book we should read and reflect on in our times. This story has so much of a cautionary tale about entitlement versus gratitude and how that can shape a life, as well as ignoring things as we grow. Everyone grows up and when they are young there is so much potential. But in that potential, there is a desire or tendency to do impulsive things that can corrupt us. Over time that corruption becomes festering and digesting. That’s the point of the narrative. So thus, even though it seems like a long-ago book, it’s not. It’s still something that we can connect with even now.
There also is a lot to say about how you can’t run from your problems or hide them. At the end of the day, your problems must be dealt with or they become bigger problems. No drugs, no alcohol, not even running away makes them any less of a situation that must be addressed. I like that this story can put a glaring spotlight onto things we deal with even now.
The other part I enjoyed was the detail work and imagery of Oscar Wilde. Though his words are formal and older toned, they are profound and beautiful even to this day. There are beautiful descriptions, and then there is disgusting imagery in the narrative, that I even find beauty in their wake. Even the most horrible stuff, from the description of a hunting incident to the seedy docks and old opium dens, has a beauty to the description despite the grotesque subject matter.
Though this is an older book, it has so much to say about the influence of the “wise” to the “naive”, and why maybe it is better to listen to your heart instead of the words of others.
Lastly, the thing I like is the message of “Dorian Gray” and that message is ‘Know thyself”. Throughout the book there is an underlining question, will he fix this or will he continue his ways? This adds a kind of dynamic tension to the book and strings along everyone that is in Dorian’s life. But the thing that continues to happen is he listens to the wrong things or he thinks away the truth of the matter. Even in a situation where he could have done the right thing and by all rights believed so, the truth of reality comes around. That message is important. If one knows their own self, and knows deep down what it is to be a good human or a bad one, they can make the choices accordingly. It’s when they deny it in either way that things become murky.
My last thought about it, whatever happened to the picture? Someday if you want to debate me on that topic let me know in the comments below. I’d love to have a discussion about this book!
Score
What does the great Oscar Wilde get from Mrs. Y all these many years later? Does he get an automatic pass because this book itself is youthful in its age, or does this masterwork fall flat because of out of date situations?
The e-book copy took a hit. If I was scoring just the e-book copy without any story considerations it’d be a 62/100. However, considering the story and this specific version of “The Picture of Dorian Gray” by Oscar Wilde scored a solid 82/100 which is a 4-Star rating for Goodreads and Amazon.
Despite the errors with the mashed words, the overall story managed to bring the score back up even though the e-reader copy itself is in need of some love and affection.
Join me next time my friends, and I hope you have a lovely day!
That specific quote from the novel we are reviewing today has so much to do with humanity as much as it has to do with the book. This is the first of the #StayClassyFeb reviews that I will be doing this month as February is dedicated to classics novels in the public domain that have reviews, but not a modern take on them.
I am hoping my review series provides you some insight into some of the old classics while also giving a clear picture on what to expect from the e-reader copy. Are you ready? I am. Let’s get some tea called in, be sure you tip your handsome driver and whatever you do, do not go into the room alone with the painting. Here comes a review of Oscar Wilde’s “The Picture of Dorian Gray”.
Opinion
For this first review I’m choosing the classic that I’ve used in I don’t know how many jokes or quips over the years. I have compared Dick Clark, Cindy Crawford and Joan Rivers to Dorian Gray. “I bet they have a painting in the attic somewhere” is something I don’t mind quipping when I see someone who is teetering on ageless and the societal perfection with something underneath. As always I am going to review this book not only on the book, but on the copy I read, and base this as if I had no idea what this book was about because I’m not sure everyone has read “The Picture of Dorian Gray”.
My first impressions of Dorian Gray all these years later is familiarity, but subtlety. If you have never read this book, it comes across kind of slow to begin, but that’s a trap. Oscar Wild I believe inspired writers to layer in foreshadowing carefully into their works ahead of time. This novel has a subtle layer of foreshadowing in the first and second chapters that take us through the whole book and adds some intrigue. The story and its beautiful layers are so important to what happens later, and if you are not closely paying attention to the first two chapters, it’s going to be very confusing later.
Critiques, and believe it or not this goes into the “Story Structure, Foundation and Presentation” part of scoring for my reviews. So there are MANY copies and revisions of this book, that one would think whoever is doing the e-books would be respectful and ensure their copy stands out. Well, alas, this one does not. The words are stuck together, the commas are on top of each other and I could go on. It’s tough to read. Whole sentences sometimes do not have spaces between them. It’s probably one of the poorest examples of an e-copy that I have seen in some time, and I review books from all sorts of writers and publishers.
I feel if Oscar Wilde had self-published, this would have been picked up immediately and fixed. “A Picture of Dorian Gray” deserves far more care and love than it got in its e-copy. Here’s an example:
Page 44
“Belgian brute, to insult his son-in-law inpublic-paid him,sir, to do it, paid him- and that thefellow spitted his man as if he had been a pigeon. The thing washuhed up, but, egad Kelso ate his chop alone at the club for sometime afterwards.”
That’s the bottom third of dialog on page 44 on the e-copy that I read on my Kindle. To verify it, I went back to this on my son’s Amazon Fire 7, downloaded the book, and it’s the same thing.
I feel “The Picture of Dorian Gray” deserves more love and respect than this copy gave the story. I hope someone will go back in and fix the e-copy. This sadly impacted the score on the novel, and not because of Oscar Wilde, but because of the way it was put together on the e-reader.
Next, let’s go into some story critiques. Oh yeah, even Oscar Wilde cannot escape the catchy gaze of Mrs. Y. For the first of the story critiques, we return to “Story Structure, Foundation, and Presentation” and it’s pacing we are looking at. This book has some very dry and slow pacing at times. Chiefly, anytime they are talking about what Dorian Gray has in his house, or the way something looks, it’s a slowly paced sequence. Now, that doesn’t mean it’s not important, it simply is slow and it can be tedious to get through.
My next critique, we go into the “Lost in Translation” section of my scoring. While I am certain this was trendy and cool back in the day it was written, the fact that I have to stop to Google Translate French to understand what is going on is a tad on the annoying side. It’s not terrible, but I like to know what I’m reading. Frequently I suppose to make it fancier, there are sections of French poetry or even French sayings. I know just enough French to be able to order food in Louisiana, so this one was a bit of a struggle at times. If you are like me and you do not throw French prose into your sentences, you may find that Google Translate is your buddy. Also, good to note, if you have an Android device you can use the translation app to hover over the words and figure out what it says easier. I am not sure if Apple has an equivalent or not, but I know Android does.
For this part of the review let’s go into my favorite things about this book. This is a book we should read and reflect on in our times. This story has so much of a cautionary tale about entitlement versus gratitude and how that can shape a life, as well as ignoring things as we grow. Everyone grows up and when they are young there is so much potential. But in that potential, there is a desire or tendency to do impulsive things that can corrupt us. Over time that corruption becomes festering and digesting. That’s the point of the narrative. So thus, even though it seems like a long-ago book, it’s not. It’s still something that we can connect with even now.
There also is a lot to say about how you can’t run from your problems or hide them. At the end of the day, your problems must be dealt with or they become bigger problems. No drugs, no alcohol, not even running away makes them any less of a situation that must be addressed. I like that this story can put a glaring spotlight onto things we deal with even now.
The other part I enjoyed was the detail work and imagery of Oscar Wilde. Though his words are formal and older toned, they are profound and beautiful even to this day. There are beautiful descriptions, and then there is disgusting imagery in the narrative, that I even find beauty in their wake. Even the most horrible stuff, from the description of a hunting incident to the seedy docks and old opium dens, has a beauty to the description despite the grotesque subject matter.
Though this is an older book, it has so much to say about the influence of the “wise” to the “naive”, and why maybe it is better to listen to your heart instead of the words of others.
Lastly, the thing I like is the message of “Dorian Gray” and that message is ‘Know thyself”. Throughout the book there is an underlining question, will he fix this or will he continue his ways? This adds a kind of dynamic tension to the book and strings along everyone that is in Dorian’s life. But the thing that continues to happen is he listens to the wrong things or he thinks away the truth of the matter. Even in a situation where he could have done the right thing and by all rights believed so, the truth of reality comes around. That message is important. If one knows their own self, and knows deep down what it is to be a good human or a bad one, they can make the choices accordingly. It’s when they deny it in either way that things become murky.
My last thought about it, whatever happened to the picture? Someday if you want to debate me on that topic let me know in the comments below. I’d love to have a discussion about this book!
Score
What does the great Oscar Wilde get from Mrs. Y all these many years later? Does he get an automatic pass because this book itself is youthful in its age, or does this masterwork fall flat because of out of date situations?
The e-book copy took a hit. If I was scoring just the e-book copy without any story considerations it’d be a 62/100. However, considering the story and this specific version of “The Picture of Dorian Gray” by Oscar Wilde scored a solid 82/100 which is a 4-Star rating for Goodreads and Amazon.
Despite the errors with the mashed words, the overall story managed to bring the score back up even though the e-reader copy itself is in need of some love and affection.
Join me next time my friends, and I hope you have a lovely day!
Images in this review
Reviewed in the United States on April 8, 2024
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