Reviews

As we finish, we might want to post our reviews or perceptions.

Dorian Gray was a young man that had his portrait painted by Basil Hallward. Basil had a "crush" on Dorian and felt that the Dorian's "beauty" and his association with young man was the reason for Basil's new success. While at Basil's, Dorian is introduced to Lord Henry Wotton and is fascinated by the philosophies which embrace hedonism professing the pursuit of beauty and sensory satisfaction are the primary reasons for existence. This leads to Dorian's "bargain with the devil" to have his portrait absorb the ravages of age rather than his own visage.

Art seems to be key in this book - the portrait is mandatory to the plot, but then there is the character of Sybil Vane, whom Dorian Gray "loves" except that what he loves is not the girl but the characters that she represents on the stage. When he no longer worships her art, he no longer loves her.

Dorian Gray's debauchery is cataloged throughout and the activities that he engages are made apparent by the ravages to the portrait.

Knowing to a certain degree what the story was about, the beginning was hard for me to get into. But once the story proceeded to the details, it was more entertaining.

I copied the most of the following over from my personal thread:

I am glad it read it. I had not done so before because I don't normally have the self discipline to read novels about people I would work hard to avoid in real life. For me, that includes exactly the kind of destructive, self indulgent, over-funded but underemployed types this novel is about. The issue of the hidden life of the Victorian homosexual is part of the story, of course, but I have known vigorously hetero people who were mad, bad, dangerous to know and expensive. Child of the sixties and there you go.

I found reading this work a rich and interesting experience. It made me sad for Wilde and for the works he might have produced had his life not come apart at the seams.

I will address the question in more detail in the appropriate thread, but I think the novel addresses timeless issues: the morality (or not) of art, the conflict between decadence and responsibility, the life chances and choices available to gays, the risks built in to coming of age.

Here's what I wrote the day after I finished the book:

I'm not sure how to rate this; I'm not even sure whether or not I liked it. I thought many of the observations were astute (and quotable); found many of the characterizations and conversations (particularly at dinner parties) clever and funny; found interesting the characters' beliefs that seeking beauty and experience were the highest aspirations in life; and am puzzled about what Wilde actually thought about the philosophies that he presented, what he meant for the reader to take away from it, and whether or not he meant for there to be any "moral lesson."

I had read this book before, many years ago when I was 20 or so. I remembered little about it, except that I liked it, which is why I decided to join the group read. I think I got something very different from it back then than I have on this reading. I'll be posting some further thoughts about the book in the Group Read, and be very interested in other people's comments and impressions.

A day later, I had decided that I did not like the book on this reading. Now, more than a week later – because I keep thinking about it – I'm back on the fence.

I find it particularly interesting that I liked the book when I read it 40 years ago. I think it has much to do with context, both personal and global. I was a college student, looking for answers and interested in exploring differing philosophies of life. The social upheaval circa 1970 was not just anti-war, but included criticism of the materialism of the 50s and 60s, questioning (and sometimes rejection) of the values we had been brought up with, the early stages of gay and women's rights movements, and above all, a quest for a better way of living, both personally and for the world at large. The Aestheticism espoused in Dorian Gray, the references to homosexuality, and the questions about the nature and effects of sin, would have provided much fodder for late-night discussions enhanced by candles, incense and water glasses of red wine.

At this point in my life, I find the philosophical aspects of the book more interesting than enlightening. And I would rather be entertained or informed, so this book just doesn't fit in with my preferred reading right now. I do think, though, that many of the questions raised are human ones -- valid in 1890, in 1970, and still today.

Once again I found reading The Picture of Dorian Gray intriguing; uncomfortable, but intriguing. Content aside, I find the writing masterful. I think the content, no matter how many times I read the book, will continue to twirl in my mind because I just cannot grasp someone living like this.
As always, I am glad I read the book and I really appreciated doing it in a group read setting where I am able to see the feedback of others. So thank you to the hosts of this group read. It was a resounding success for me and I am glad that I, once again, read The Picture of Dorian Gray. Upon this reading, I have added to my TBR listing Doctor Faustus.
belva

Looks like we are beginning to finish up person by person, so I just want to thank everyone for sharing the experience, and hope that everyone enjoyed it.

This is the review on my thread

the picture of Dorian Grey Oscar Wilde

3.5 out of 5

camp classic about art, beauty and sin

An enjoyable read with the well known interesting premise of the fact that Dorian Grey doesn't display signs of aging but the picture he hides in his attic does. Wilde's use of language is very quotable and I like that no-one just sat in the book instead they threw or flung themselves onto seats. The book has aged well and is still very readable even though its over 100 years old.

Overall A fairly good camply gothic horror

Young, handsome and innocent Dorian Gray has his portrait painted, and as he becomes more and more corrupted, in part because of the bad influence of his friend Lord Harry, the portrait takes on the aspect of his corruption while Dorian himself retains his youth and beauty. This is a classic Victorian horror tale that I mostly enjoyed even though I felt at times that the moral lesson it contains was a bit obvious. It also left me wondering what was in Dorian's back ground that made him so easily corruptible, and what made Lord Harry so cynical and jaded. With more character development I think this could have been a great book, instead of being merely good. I gave it 3 1/2 stars.

This book intrigued me about it's author. I'd be interested in learning more about Oscar Wilde. I think he must have been a very interesting person.

Very interesting you should say that lorie. I have found that during these past three years, that the more of the older books and the classics I read, the more author bios I purchase. I wonder how many of us do become fascinated or deeply intrigued by the authors. I think the first time I realized I was doing this, was after I finished a book of Truman Capote's short stories and found myself hustling to the computer to order his bio, which was wonderful, by the way. Now I find that I do it quite a bit.
belva

#9 How funny, because I did exactly the same thing. I have Capote: A Biography by Gerald Clarke waiting to be read. Which bio of Capote did you read? Just curious.

Belatedly, here's what I said on my 75 challenge thread (and #9 nannybebette, me too!):

Dorian Gray is the young model of artist Basil Hallward, who worships him for his beauty and paints him over and over again - finally culminating in a portrait he considers to be his masterpiece. This painting is finished as Dorian listens, fascinated, to a friend of Basil's, Lord Henry Wotton, espousing his philosophy that the only thing worth pursuing in life are beauty and fulfilment of the senses. Dorian swiftly becomes as enthralled by Wotton as Basil is by him and envies the painting it's beauty that will be unmarred by time.

This is a very bad description and everyone knows the plot anyway, so I shall leave it there.

I have mentioned before that, while I love Oscar Wilde, I always have a mate of mine in the back of my mind when I read his work - this mate couldn't stand his "wit" (yes, it does have to be put in speech marks - for emphasis ;)). I completely disagreed with him, but it does make me hyper-aware when I read these witty comments that are mostly made for effect. Wilde frequently has his characters utter truisms within the witty comments, but I can't say I agreed with many in this book. This is just an aside.

Reading it as a product of its time and knowing Oscar Wilde's history, it was utterly fascinating. While the story does raise perennial moral issues, really, it was Wilde himself I was thinking about as I read. It is a tragedy, but, given the flowery language and the generally unlikable characters, I was not particularly emotionally connected to the story - what did make me sad were my assumptions about Wilde's life as I read.

My penguin edition has very good notes (this is something I frequently complain about - too many notes that tell you nothing at all about things you already know and not enough relevant, interesting, un-spoilery comment - this was not the case here). Apparently, Wilde has said that people usually assume that he is reflected in Lord Henry Wotton, whereas he considered himself to be Basil Hallward. This in itself is sad - to be that misunderstood, quite apart from the need to mask his homosexuality, however thin that mask is in this book. Lord Henry Wotton leads Dorian on, further and further away from his morals (if he had very many to begin with), purely for his own amusement - to see how Dorian will behave. Basil has his faults and is certainly not innocent of influence on Dorian, but the calculation is not there. I imagine that there is an element of Wilde in all the characters but his self-identification with the idol-worshiping Basil Hallward is fascinating.

CatyM got the HOT REVIEW! for Dorian Gray. We should all be proud!

@11 - OW's ID with Basil makes sense in light of his subsequent obsession, the one that landed him in prison. He was more self destroying than other destroying.

And completely forgot to post it here. D'oh.

*******************

Are you sitting comfortably? Got a cup of tea? Not going to need to let the cat out any time soon? Then we'll begin.

Dorian Gray mourns that he will lose his youth while his portrait remains unchanged and wishes for the portrait to age instead of him, little suspecting that his wish will come true and that the portrait will display the ravages of his depravity and hedonism.

This is a story of horrible people doing horrible things and becoming even more horrible. By rights, that ought to make it a horrible story. It isn't. It's magnificent.

Normally, I have to sympathise with at least some of the characters to feel that I have got something out of a book - but the characters on parade here were universally irritating or loathsome. I'm not particularly keen on Oscar Wilde's writings generally. I don't like the self-conscious witticisms that are trying to be aphoristic but merely sound pretentious. I didn’t have much patience for the comments on art and I don't much admire Wilde's style. And yet, other than a couple of places where I faltered, I found the book compelling. The way in which the book commented on wrongdoing, hedonism and conscience - and the way in which it prompted me to think about those things - was mind-blowing.

Wilde doesn't describe the details of Dorian Gray's lifestyle. He alludes to it - we see hints of relationships ended badly and abuse of opiates - but we never see details. And I think this makes it more powerful. The actual acts don’t matter so much as the fact that they stem from selfishness, and the damage they do the person who commits them. The reader can never feel superior for not having lived as Dorian lived, or argue over whether a particular action or choice is actually wrong at all, but instead is provoked into considering the root causes of Dorian Gray's situation and asking, 'am I - how am I - trying to hide the damage I am doing to my own soul by my own bad choices?'

The picture itself is a fascinating plot device. It strikes me as being as much a metaphor for conscience as for sin. The things which Dorian Gray does affect the picture in the same way they affect his soul. He becomes twisted and callous, and the portrait shows that. To begin with, he isn’t indifferent to the effect of his behaviour on others. Not at first. He feels some guilt over Sibyl Vane, although later his concerns over what he does to Basil are entirely selfish. He becomes gradually more and more calloused - less and less attuned to the feelings of others, less and less able to feel the damage he is doing.

He understands that the picture represents his soul, his state of sin, and he knows that each selfish action will cause more damage. In that way, the picture is a kind of external conscience, telling him incontrovertibly that he has done wrong. And yet despite that, he does not change. He hides the picture away and refuses to allow the world to see what his soul is like, and broods over it until the obsession leads him to the final act of self-destruction.

Our consciences can never be physically seen, by us or by anyone else. Yet we still hide away things that we have done which we know or believe to be wrong. For most of us they are little things, but they are things we don’t want others to know about. Human beings have an astonishing capacity to disregard the damage they are doing to themselves and others - physically, emotionally, spiritually - and instead to seek short-term pleasure. Dorian Gray's hedonism and refusal to consider the consequences of what he does is an extreme example - people generally have the capacity for great love and kindness and well as acts of selfishness - but it seems to me that it's designed to be (and ought to be) a prompt for the reader to consider what a picture reflecting their own soul would look like.

Exactly how we as readers unpack this is going to depend to some extent on our worldview: whether we believe people are fundamentally good, evil or good-but-flawed, and the extent to which we believe we make our own destiny or are affected by outside influences. For me, it was impacted very strongly by the Bible verse, 'If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.' (1 John 1:8). None of us is perfect, all of us do things wrong from time to time. Dorian Gray refused to face his own flaws, hiding the evidence of them away. He refused to face the consequences of his actions, or to use those experiences and their consequences to become a better person. He brooded on the picture and the state of his own soul, and was concerned only with them and not with the people he had hurt. He looked at the visible manifestation of his own conscience and refused to accept or act on what it was showing him. When we're faced with the consequences of our own misjudgements, selfish actions, poor lifestyle choices - sins - we can ignore the evidence and mire ourselves deeper as Dorian Gray does, or choose to act on the warning and turn things around.

Overall, I enjoyed this classic about the ill-effects of a descent into hedonism and I thought it had a good ending. (#11 And interesting point about who Oscar Wilde identified with.)
--BJ

>#10:
loriphillips;
That is exactly the one: Capote: A Biography by Gerald Clark and as fond as I am of Capote's works, I thought this particular bio was more fascinating. Capote was simply a man who was larger than words. When I listed the top 10% of my reads from 2009, that particular bio was there. I think you will like it.
belva

I didn't realize that we had a thread to post our reviews. Here is my review of the book. This is the first book I have ever read by Oscar Wilde, I don't feel that I am scholary and I don't over analize books when I first read them. I go into reading them mostly for pure enjoyment. So here is my review:

Wow is all I have to say about The Picture of Dorian Gray. I didn't think I would like this book and I was pleasantly surprised with this book. This is the first book I have ever read by Oscar Wilde.

The writing in the book was wonderful. The characters words just flow like music as you read the book. I found myself not wanting to put the book down as I was reading. Dorian, Lord Henry and the Artist Harry interact so well with each other. There is a different relationship between all 3 of them and to see the relationships change through the book was enthralling.

The ending of the book was quite a surprise to me. When I read it I laughed at how well written the story was and the fact that I never realized the ending until the very last second.

I can't wait to read more books written by Oscar Wilde!!