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 change until 10 More...

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 disregard that Wi More...

"My dear Jordan!" said Lord Rayner expansively, as the butler discreetly closed the door behind his young visitor. "Really, it is too good to see you again! And what brings you to Cambridge?"

"Oh, this and that," said the lad, flinging himself casually onto a priceless Ikea divan. "By the way, has there been some mistake in the casting? I thought I was female?"

"Well, since we're doing Dorian Gray, I hoped you would have no objection to reversing your gender," said his host. "And besides, is there More...

The Picture of Dorian Gray could also be titled A Portrait of the Human Soul, for in his dark and tragic commentary Oscar Wilde spares no liberties in discussing morality, religion, society and the depths of the human condition. It is a deeply moving and inspired novel centering around the defining power of art. It is not an easy novel to read with its dark elements. For in paying heed to Dorian Gray's demise one is drawn into a reflection of their own spiritual condition.

For those who have no i More...

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, and that is not being talked about."

"But beauty, real More...

"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."

And so begins this tale of art and sin. I would highly recommend first watching the movie Wilde starring the wonderful Stephen Fry, it is a film which takes the audience on a journey through the life of the tormented wr More...

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. This is a book More...

I don't know what I was quite expecting here. It's a psychological horror story with a lot of comic relief, in the form of the endless witty paradoxes. After page 30 you are thinking that if Lord Henry makes just one more crack you're going to knock his monocle off his family crest and grind it underfoot. Oscar often clearly thinks he's being hilarious with his wit with a capital W – and maybe it's me, but Oscar Wilde often sounds like a parody of Oscar Wilde, like in the Monty Python sketch

WHIS More...

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 messure of happ More...

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 to build my review, in part, around the discussion of these t More...

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 issues could be l More...

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 story here. Dorian Gray in More...

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 physically unaff More...

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 الشخصي بعد قرائتها)

عندما قرأتها للمرة الأولى لم تعجبني كثيرا لأني كنت أتوقع منه More...

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 influenced by ar More...

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 all More...

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...

Moral degradation follows moisturiser use.

This book exceeded all expectations. When I was halfway through, I was skeptical, because it was clearly just a vain boy with a love interest who's suicide was like so many tragic love stories told before.
But Dorian Gray, his character development was the most dynamic I've ever read through. First off, Oscar Wilde's philosophies, mainly portrayed by Lord Henry's character and countered by Dorian Gray, were thought provoking and wonderful. There were times when he went of on tangents that were u More...

I feel perplexed about The Picture of Dorian Gray. On one hand, I like the witty and ironical style of Oscar Wilde and the idea of the central theme : the relationship between beauty and morality which initially captures the reader's attention. On the other hand, I found the book to be inconsistent, flowery and the character development does not really help to hold the reader's attention for a long period of time.

The aesthetic maxim of "Art for art’s sake" is reflected in the opening of the nove More...

"How sad it is! I shall grow old, and horrible, and dreadful. But this picture will remain always young. It will never be older than this particular day of June. ... If it were only the other way! If it were I who was to be always young, and the picture that was to grow old! For that––for that––I would give everything! Yes, there is nothing in the whole world I would not give! I would give my soul for that!"

I was assigned to read The Picture of Dorian Gray for one of my classes this past semeste More...

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...

“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 forbidden to it More...

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 throughout the More...

Oh my God! What was that? Lord Henry Wotton, are you by any chance trying to brainwash me? Oscar Wilde, what have you done?

I started reading this book one week back, resolving on a twenty to thirty pages a day daily quota. Somewhere along the middle of the week I started ignoring Dorian Gray for my favorite jerk Sherlock Holmes. Then last night, I again plucked up the courage and to my complete surprise found myself unable to stop reading. Not something you expect from a Victorian novel. The st More...

Picture must be from paperback. Hardcover has painting of Narcissus from the mid/late 1800's.

Wonderful to read the original finally, without all the homosexual subtext/plot removed. And the editor has done a phenomenal job of adding notes alongside the text, to explain and expand on themes and details that only Victorian/Edwardian (and antiquarian) readers would understand.

I'm still working my way through an audiobook version of this, and Woo doggie I just gotta say that's some nice misogyny with that misogyny. Lordy.

Wrestling with self...so conflicted...so much offensive in this book...but so INCREDIBLE. OMG! It's great! it's great! And it burns so much!

***Review*** I finally got this one fully under my belt, and I gotta say that's a great place for it. It took some time for me to let this one settle before I could expand on this here review.

In the final recap... More...

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 heart More...

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 primary charac More...