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A beautiful young man, Dorian Gray, sits for a portrait. In the garden of the artist's house he falls into conversation with Lord Wotton, who convinces him that only beauty is worth pursuing. Gray wishes that his portrait, and not himself, might age and show the effects of time. His wish comes true, and wild, hedonistic pursuits horribly disfigure the portrait. This Faustian story caused much controversy when it was first published, as it discusses decadent art and culture, and homosexuality. It is now considered one of the great pieces of modern Western literature.
JuliaMaria: Wie in Wikipedia zu 'Gegen den Strich' beschrieben: "Ein französischer Roman, der den Protagonisten in Oscar Wildes Roman Das Bildnis des Dorian Gray zu dekadenten Ausschweifungen inspiriert, wird häufig als Anspielung auf À rebours gedeutet. Wilde war - wie auch Stéphane Mallarmé - ein Bewunderer des Romans."… (more)
Ach herrje, was ein langweiliges und mit unwichtigen Details vollgestopftes Buch. Zum Glück sind die diversen Verfilmungen um einiges besser. Die wirkliche Tragik der Prota kommt nicht wirklich rüber beim Hörbuch.
Vielleicht versuch ich mich irgendwann noch einmal an einer Printausgabe. ( )
I really liked The Picture of Dorian Gray, and I thought it was extremely well written, but for a few reasons I can't call it something that I really liked. For one reason, I find a lot of the characters to be fairly weak and unconvincing, aside from Dorian himself. Lord Henry spends most of the time in the book being cynical, philosophical and a bit sexist. Basil spends his time being depressed about Dorian. And all the other characters either adore Dorian or have absolutely no spine against him. Of course it's fiction, and one can do anything with fiction, but it just seemed really unconvincing and fake how none of the characters seemed resistant to Dorian's influence. Another reason for my mild dislike of this book, is that I found that Dorian was the only character that seemed to have any action or progress in the story, besides sitting around, being posh, and discussing philosophy. Philosophy can be interesting, but the book takes up so much time with it that it's forever before some rising action takes place. On the other hand, the story comes out with some strong morals about vanity, and as I mentioned, it's excellently written. ( )
Lord Henry is as flippant about promoting evil and falsehood as Ernest is in [b:The Importance of Being Ernest|35628688|The Importance of Being Ernest (Illustrated)|Oscar Wilde|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1499615560l/35628688._SY75_.jpg|649216], also by Oscar Wilde.
After Dorian rejected Sybil, I stopped reading for a few months. The drama was a bit too much for me. I didn’t want to read a long recitation of evil deeds.
'Society--civilized society, at least-- is never very ready to believe anything to the detriment of those who are both rich and fascinating. It feels instinctively that manners are of more importance than morals, and, in its opinion, the highest respectability is of much less value than the possession of a good chef. '
I read this in the collection: [b:50 Masterpieces you have to read before you die Vol: 1|55935455|50 Masterpieces you have to read before you die Vol 1 (2021 Edition)|Dante Alighieri|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1605747626l/55935455._SY75_.jpg|87146816] ( )
A vain young man named Dorian Gray allows himself to be manipulated into selling his soul so he could stay young and beautiful no matter what he did over the course of his life.
Wow. What a pompous and pretentious piece of shit this is. Dorian is a vain twit easily led around by the nose by Sir Henry. Speaking of Sir Henry, holy shit does that guy love the sound of his own voice or what? Poor Basil is the only likeable character and look what happened to him at the end. Ugh. What a colossal waste of my time. But at least I can mark another classic off my list. Ok, I don’t really have a “list” per se, but you get the idea. The narrator does a decent job though I found he sometimes had the wrong “voice” for certain characters. ( )
The studio was filled with the rich odor of roses, and when the light summer wind stirred amid the trees of the garden, there came through the open door the heavy scent of lilac, or the more delicate perfume of the pink flowering thorn.
[Preface] The artist is the creator of beautiful things.
Quotations
'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.'
'Harry,' said Basil Hallward, looking him straight in the face, 'every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter. The sitter is merely the accident, the occasion. It is not he who is revealed by the painter; it is rather the painter who, on the coloured canvas, reveals himself. The reason I will not exhibit this picture is that I am afraid that I have shown in it the secret of my own soul.'
He played with the idea and grew willful; tossed it into the air and transformed it; let it escape and recaptured it; made it iridescent with fancy and winged it with paradox. The praise of folly, as he went on, soared into a philosophy, and Philosophy herself became young, and catching the mad music of pleasure, wearing, one might fancy, her wine-stained robe and wreath of ivy, danced like a Bacchante over the hills of life, and mocked the slow Silenus for being sober. Facts fled before her like frightened forest things. Her white feet trod the huge press at which wise Omar sits, till the seething grape-juice rose round her bare limbs in waves of purple bubbles, or crawled in red foam over the vat's black, dripping, sloping sides. It was an extraordinary improvisation. He felt that the eyes of Dorian Gray were fixed on him, and the consciousness that amongst his audience there was one whose temperament he wished to fascinate seemed to give his wit keenness and to lend colour to his imagination. He was brilliant, fantastic, irresponsible. He charmed his listeners out of themselves, and they followed his pipe, laughing. Dorian Gray never took his gaze off him, but sat like one under a spell, smiles chasing each other over his lips and wonder growing grave in his darkening eyes.
Children begin by loving their parents; as they grow older they judge them; sometimes they forgive them.
The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about.
One should absorb the colour of life, but one should never remember its details. Details are always vulgar.
I choose my friends for their good looks, my acquaintances for their good characters, and my enemies for their good intellects. A man cannot be too careful in the choice of his enemies.
I adore simple pleasures. They are the last refuge of the complex.
I can believe anything, provided that it is quite incredible.
I like persons better than principles, and I like persons with no principles better than anything else in the world.
I love acting. It is so much more real than life.
Nowadays most people die of a sort of creeping common sense, and discover when it is too late that the only things one never regrets are one's mistakes.
One can always be kind to people about whom one cares nothing.
Perhaps, after all, America never has been discovered. I myself would say that it had merely been detected.
The advantage of the emotions is that they lead us astray, and the advantage of science is that it is not emotional.
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.
The reason we all like to think so well of others is that we are all afraid for ourselves. The basis of optimism is sheer terror.
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 one sits down to think, one becomes all nose, or all forehead, or something horrid. Look at the successful men in any of the learned professions. How perfectly hideous they are! Except, of course, in the Church. But then in the Church they don't think. A bishop keeps on saying at the age of eighty what he was told to say when he was a boy of eighteen, and as a natural consequence he always looks absolutely delightful. Your mysterious young friend, whose name you have never told me, but whose picture really fascinates me, never thinks. I feel quite sure of that. He is some brainless beautiful creature who should be always here in winter when we have no flowers to look at, and always here in the summer when we want something to chill our intelligence.
It is only the intellectually lost who ever argue.
Being natural is simply a pose, and the most irritating pose I know.
Women defend themselves by attacking, just as they attack by sudden and strange surrenders.
There is a luxury in self-reproach. When we blame ourselves, we feel that no one else has a right to blame us. It is the confession, not the priest, that gives us absolution.
Last words
It was not till they had examined the rings that they recognized who it was.
A beautiful young man, Dorian Gray, sits for a portrait. In the garden of the artist's house he falls into conversation with Lord Wotton, who convinces him that only beauty is worth pursuing. Gray wishes that his portrait, and not himself, might age and show the effects of time. His wish comes true, and wild, hedonistic pursuits horribly disfigure the portrait. This Faustian story caused much controversy when it was first published, as it discusses decadent art and culture, and homosexuality. It is now considered one of the great pieces of modern Western literature.
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Book description
Wilde’s only novel, first published in 1890, is a brilliantly designed puzzle, intended to tease conventional minds with its exploration of the myriad interrelationships between art, life and consequence. From its provocative Preface, challenging the reader to belief in ‘art for art’s sake’, to its sensational conclusion, the story self-consciously experiments with the notion of sin as an element of design. Yet Wilde himself underestimated the consequences of his experiment, and its capacity to outrage the Victorian establishment. Its words returned to haunt him in his court appearances in 1895, and he later recalled the ‘note of doom’ which runs like ‘a purple thread’ through its carefully crafted prose.
Haiku summary
Miroir, oh, miroir. Dis-moi qui est le plus beau! Je sais le plus laid.
L'âme en ce portrait. Miroir d'hier et du jour. Choc et élégance.
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Dorian Gray: Influence
Wikipedia in English (3)
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Zum Glück sind die diversen Verfilmungen um einiges besser. Die wirkliche Tragik der Prota kommt nicht wirklich rüber beim Hörbuch.
Vielleicht versuch ich mich irgendwann noch einmal an einer Printausgabe. (