Goodreads Mobile | see what your friends are reading

Feb 10, 2008

Paula rated it:

This book reminded me why I hate classics.

Like Frankenstein, it starts out with a great premise: what if a portrait bore the brunt of age and sin, while the person remained in the flush of youth? How would that person feel as they watched a constant reminder of their true nature develop? And like Frankenstein, it gets completely bogged down in uninteresting details and takes forever to get to the interesting bits. Seriously, in a 230-page novel, the portrait doesn't even start to ch More...

55 comments like (122 people liked it)

Jul 20, 2011

Stephen rated it:

Arguably literature's greatest study of shallowness, vanity, casual cruelty and hedonistic selfishness, Wilde lays it down here with ABSOLUTE PERFECTION!! This was my first experience in reading Oscar Wilde and the man’s gift for prose and dialogue is magical. This story read somewhat like a dark, corrupted Jane Austen in that the writing was snappy and pleasant on the ear, but the feeling it left you with was one of hopelessness and despair.

The level of cynicism and societal More...

37 comments like (93 people liked it)

Jul 21, 2008

Scoobs rated it:

Oh Dorian. Oh Dorian.

When I first read this book in the fruitless years of my youth I was excited, overwhelmed and a blank slate (as Dorian is, upon his first encounter with Lord Henry) easily molded, persuaded, influenced, etc.

Certain Wildisms (Wildeisms?) would take my breath away. Would become my mottos to believe in. To follow. To live.

Lines like:

"It is silly of you, for there is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, a More...

12 comments like (85 people liked it)

Mar 23, 2008

Trevor rated it:

This is another of those books I’ve been meaning to read for ages and kept putting off. Although I’ve a particularly good reason for putting this one off, as a very good friend of mine, who died a couple of years ago, spoke to me about this book and I was worried that might make it hard to read for quite other reasons.

He said that when he read this book as a young man it made him certain that he was not homosexual. Now, that in itself was enough to make me curious about the book. More...

8 comments like (58 people liked it)

Oct 06, 2010

Lady Danielle "The Book Huntress" rated it:

The Picture of Dorian Gray is a hard book to review. After reading such eloquent, beautiful, and rich writing, I am at a loss for how to command my comparatively paltry ability to use words to express how I felt about this book.

Forgive me as I go back to AP English for a few moments. I asked myself what were the themes of this novel. Here is my list:

Identity
Experience
Beauty
The triumph on senses over reason
Accountability

I will attempt More...

28 comments like (50 people liked it)

Dec 16, 2009

Nurkastelia rated it:

What more can be said about The Picture of Dorian Gray than the fact it is a marvelous book? Although this is the only novel Oscar Wilde had ever written, I think by far this is one of the finest and most enchanting classic novels there are. I was completely in awe after reading it the first time and still too in awe to even start a review now.

The Picture of Dorian Gray begins with an unusual look of a man –from another man’s eyes (Basil Hallward). I’ve never thought homosexual issue More...

0 comments like (20 people liked it)

Feb 07, 2012

Lora rated it:

Originally I wasn't going to review this (if you're observant then you've probably noticed that I read this back in early April), but I recently decided to watch the latest movie adaptation despite the fact that the book was rather meh for me. What can I say, ~~Ben Barnes naked~~ the movie inspired me.

At the start of the novel Dorian Gray is young and just as gullible as you can imagine. But he's got his whole life ahead of him and the good looks and charm to insure him at least some mes More...

5 comments like (9 people liked it)

Oct 31, 2010

Laurel rated it:

Be careful what you wish for.

Dorian Gray is an irresistibly handsome (and utterly selfish) socialite concerned with superficialities of the ego: appearance, beauty, passion, youth and image. Upon getting his portrait painted by a friend, Gray expresses his desire that he remain as young and handsome as he is in the picture, while the portrait instead be the one to age. As it turns out, his wish is realized. As Gray enters deeper into a life of sin and crime, he remains young and phys More...

4 comments like (11 people liked it)

May 28, 2011

Abdullah rated it:

قراءتي الثانية:
التقييم 5/5
9/3/2010

بعد أن قرأتها للمرة الأولى قبل سنتين, اشتقت لقراءتها مرة أخرى خصوصا بعد صدور الفيلم الشهير بنفس اسم الرواية ومشاهدتي له. سأتحدث عن الرواية نفسها وعن الفيلم.

تدور أحداث الرواية حول 3 شخصيات رئيسية.. وهي عن الرسام "بازيل" واللورد "هنري" والشاب "دوريان غراي". يقوم الرسام برسم الشاب وتصويره بشكل فاتن, فيُذهل الشاب بصورته وتبدأ أحداث الرواية.

(لن أتطرق لأي أحداث أو مفسدات للرواية.. فقط رأيي ا More...

12 comments like (8 people liked it)

Jul 03, 2011

K.D. rated it:

My third time to read an Oscar Wilde’s work and I still like it. However, I prefer the first two: De Profundis (Out of the Dephts) and The Happy Prince and Other Stories. I liked his poignant and brilliant lamentations in the first and his adept and crisp storytelling in the 12 short stories in the second. Those two reasons, in my opinion, are not here in his only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray.

This tells the story of a strikingly handsome young man, Dorian Gray that is badly infl More...

11 comments like (15 people liked it)

Jul 24, 2008

Brendan rated it:

Moral degradation follows moisturiser use.

0 comments like (29 people liked it)

Mar 02, 2011

Mike (the Paladin) rated it:

I have been meaning to read this book for...maybe 40 or 50 years, closer to 40 I suppose. It's one of those classics that you always mean to get to. I just never had.

Like many people (I suppose) my knowledge of Oscar Wilde is fairly sketchy and mostly surface. It's the kind of thing you get from quotes and literary sketches. This book made me a little more curious about the famous rebel.

Most people, even those who haven't read the novel will be aware of the background sto More...

5 comments like (9 people liked it)

Mar 16, 2011

Alex rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

6 comments like (5 people liked it)

Nov 06, 2007

Clare rated it:

Oscar Wilde's only novel! I thoroughly enjoyed Wilde's ability to play with words, to toss them about and see where they land. There is a particular joy in finding a word used slightly out of sync to it's meaning, a stretching if you will. Wilde's thick, image driven, morally questionable (to most, not me) string of words delight the eye and impassion the mind. His dialogues demonstrate his future word play in plays. His ability to create synthesis between character types is magnificient, he all More...

0 comments like (7 people liked it)

Dec 16, 2009

Linda rated it:

“Women have no appreciation of good looks; at least, good women have not.”

“We are punished for our refusals. Every impulse that we strive to strangle broods in the mind, and poisons us. The body sins once, and has done with its sin, for action is a mode of purification. Nothing remains then but the recollection of a pleasure, or the luxury of a regret. The only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it. Resist it, and your soul grows sick with longing for the things. It has for More...

1 comment like (8 people liked it)

Sep 14, 2011

Carlo rated it:

The Picture Of Dorian Gray raises very original and interesting questions about life, and shows how it is impossible to formulate a precise answer to them. This, in itself, makes the book great.

I consider Wilde one of the wittiest authors I've ever read. His intense sensitivity is remarkable, along with his expertise in portraying both emotions and circumstances. His paradoxical views about themes such as love, beauty, hedonism, evil, sin and passion, made me literally spellbound thr More...

0 comments like (6 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Ayu rated it:

I want to say it out loud: The Picture of Dorian Gray is my favourite book ever. Thanks to Mr. Doherty for introducing me to this book. Oscar Wilde is famous for his wit, and in this book he successfully showed that talent of him through Lord Henry character who keeps on questioning the essence of beauty. The beauty in The Picture of Dorian Gray is, of course, Dorian Gray himself, one of the best fictional characters ever created. With his beauty, the super good-looking Dorian captured the hear More...

8 comments like (5 people liked it)

Nov 20, 2009

Jason rated it:

I am not sure whether this novel is so perfect I should wish Wilde had written more, or whether this novel is so perfect I should be grateful it stands alone.

Wilde was an aesthete? This is a work of aestheticism? Hardly. The Picture of Dorian Gray is a gripping and sincere morality tale, told with beauty, and about beauty, but ultimately driven by the quasi-Gothic nightmare that rests beneath all that is beautiful in the book and all that is said about the pursuit of beauty by its pr More...

0 comments like (12 people liked it)

Jan 03, 2011

Charity rated it:

"If it were I who were to be always young and the picture to grow old...I would give my soul for that," says the radiantly handsome Dorian Gray. So runs the premise of Wilde's famous (er...infamous), unsettling novella that scandalized Victorian England. This book was used against Wilde at his trials for "gross indecency," ultimately leading to his imprisonment and exile. However, the messages relayed in the book are as timeless as Dorian's looks, begging the question: Did Os More...

1 comment like (5 people liked it)

May 08, 2008

Yulia added it

I can't rate this as I was too young when I read it and remember little of the experience, besides skimming his catalogue of fineries. What I can say is that I told my mother she was my Dorian Gray: she unloads her troubles on me; I experience the effects through my health problems; she never gets sick, rebounds from her concerns, and remains amazingly buoyant despite her age. I am her portrait. Don't let my photo fool you.

0 comments like (5 people liked it)

Jan 04, 2011

Mon rated it:

19th century people do funny things. For example, the males characters are constantly picking out flowers for their 'buttonholes'. And not just any flower, but colour and specie specific orchid. Heavy floor length curtain was popular (think about it, they didn't have that many windows back then, so the interior would be pretty gloomy most of the time). Hot chocolate is consumed before coffee as breakfast (and not just for children). They also faint easily (maybe it's the chocolate feast). I'm al More...

2 comments like (6 people liked it)

Aug 19, 2011

Erik rated it:

Plot summary: Dorian Gray is a beautiful, wholesome young man. He begins with two friends, one of whom paints the titular picture, while the other is a modern, cosmopolitan lord, who puts the fear of losing his youth into Dorian. When it turns out that the painting grants Dorian an eternal youth (which one should differentiate from eternal life - Dorian's physical appearance is never burdened by the deeds which he commits nor the simple passage of time), then Dorian struggles against losing al More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Sep 26, 2011

Knowledge Lost rated it:

I feel perplexed about The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde. On one hand, the story is well written about a young man being moulded and shaped. On the other hand, this book was incredibly flowery and doesn’t really start for 100 pages. Dorian doesn’t really know about life and meets an artist and an aristocrat that help him though his journey into manhood. The artist paints his portrait, subsequently making him keep his youth. The aristocrat had the biggest influence on Dorian Gray, though More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

May 13, 2008

Johannes rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Mar 06, 2008

JG (The Introverted Reader) rated it:

It seems like I run into references to Dorian Gray pretty frequently (Most recently in James Blunt's song "Tears and Rain"). I decided to pick this up because I was tired of not understanding the references.

The Picture of Dorian Gray begins with one of Dorian's friends, a painter named Basil Hallward, just finishing his portrait. Lord Henry is visiting Basil and happens to meet Dorian. Henry sort of becomes the devil on Dorian's shoulder, asking something like, "Isn More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Oct 14, 2010

Keely rated it:

At a dinner party, Wilde is supposed to have admired some other guest's bon mot, commenting "I wish I had said that" to which host and prominant painter James McNeil Whistler replied: "You will Oscar, you will." Though often quoted as a great wit, Wilde was more imitator than innovator, which explains his praise of critics over artists.

No book better represents Wilde's social and economic reasons for this position than 'Dorian Gray'. While adopting the form of the More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Sep 06, 2007

Lisa rated it:

I really wanted to love this book. I did love the story and the cautionary tale it tells. I just can't understand why Dorian didn't punch Lord Henry in the face, just to *shut him up*! Someone else described this as a "dialogue lover's dream", but I would make that a "monologue lover's dream". Long stretches of philosophizing about beauty and innocence and ridiculous ideas about the upper classes...I admit that some of it bored me. Why listen to someone expound for pages More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Dec 16, 2009

Jonathan rated it:

This book comprises a believable tragedy of errors. A dialogue lover's dream, Dorian Gray is packed with Uzi-style exchanges between English debutantes of the late 1800s. The Wilde Thing's style is crisp and upbeat, just as fresh 115 years later as it was in the days when he penned it.

This is the ultimate read for studying human self-absorption, depravity and the lengths that one will go to save one's reputation or, perhaps better put, to simply save one's face. Witness what a diffe More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Jan 29, 2012

Also, Safety Math rated it:

I've been kind of lying to my Goodreads account the past week or so because I've actually been secretly re-reading this book. It's especially interesting to read after having cultivated a profound admiration for A Rebours, and to think about how such a book might have actually affected someone like Dorian Gray back then, and in such a context. I guess this connection is something I want to think more about. I don't consider A Rebours to be capable of inciting someone to "evil", but it More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Apr 29, 2008

Sarah rated it:

Dorian Gray is a selfish, hedonistic, cruel man who sells his soul for eternal beauty and youth. A painting of him ages and becomes more and more grotesque with each of Dorian's sins, but Dorian appears to always be young and beautiful. Oscar Wilde makes a lot of commentary on aestheticism, social prejudice, and asks the question of whether man can find redemption for his sins. The book was difficult to get into but got better as it progressed, right up until the chilling ending. Skip chapter 11 More...

19 comments like (5 people liked it)

reviews