The Picture of Dorian Gray in Overdue Podcast

Jan 18, 2015 Melanie Fritz rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2015-reads, favorites, guardian-100-greatest, bookriot-challenge-2015

There is no such thing as a good influence, Mr. Gray...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.

Who or wh There is no such thing as a good influence, Mr. Gray...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.

Who or what corrupts the soul of young and innocent Dorian Gray? Is it the portait of him, which reflects his ephemeral youth and beauty and causes him to utter the fateful wish that the picture may get old and wrinkly instead of himself? Or is it the infinitely quotable Lord Henry - "Prince Paradox" - who not only stirs Dorian's self-awareness, but also convincingly praises the worth of a life lived to the fullest? Is it his first heartbreak, which hints at the fleetingness of all feelings, even the deepest affection? Or could it even be a "poisonous" book?

This short novel is full of interesting ideas about immortality of art and the way we associate beauty with a sort of purity and grace. Lord Henry, who epitomizes Wilde's trademark epigram-style wit and cynicism, seems to stand above everyone, sharing perceived wisdom in the form of provoking paradoxes, as if life was just an amusing game to him. But the effect he has on Dorian shows how powerful words can be ( Mere words! How terrible they were! How clear, and vivid, and cruel! And yet what a subtle magic there was in them...Mere words! Was there anything so real as words? ). Books may not be moral or immoral (as Wilde defends his work against ourtraged accusations in the preface), but they are certainly powerful in this story. The theme that fascinated me most was the idea of art as pure, and immortal. Basil Hallward, the painter, retreats from life because he can't find the same purity and clarity in it that he finds in his art. When Sybil Vane, Dorian's first love, mistakes her feelings to be superior to the love she had previously portrayed on the stage, she is instantely punished for it. Dorian himself seems to be weighed down much more by the visible effects his behavior has on his portrait, than by the acts themselves. While he becomes paranoid at times that someone might find the picture and discover his depraved and wilting soul, the chief crime in this seems to be the altering of something that was supposed to exist eternally and never change. Beauty can only last in art because it is meant to fade in life - Shakespeare, whose works permeate the whole novel, dedicated many of his sonnets to this idea (So long as men can breathe/or eyes can see/so long lives this/and this gives life to thee) and the longer Dorian's youth persists, the more he becomes interested in forms of eternal beauty - such as music, textiles and jewels.

With this in mind, the ending remedies that fatal mistake which started Dorian's descent into depravity, and it is Basil's portrait which will remain throughout the ages - just like Shakespeare's plays, Chopin's nocturnes and, luckily, The Picture of Dorian Gray .

*This book fulfills task #5 of the Book Riot Read Harder Challenge 2015: A book by or about someone that identifies as LGBTQ. ...more

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Jul 19, 2015 Tina rated it really liked it

Shelves: bookclub

What a beautifully written novel. This is the second time I've read this book and I just love it so much more. I could read this novel one hundred times and take something new from it every time. Wilde's ability to question the social mores of the Victorian era is unparalleled. The tragedy just lies in the way he was treated at the end of his life. I would like to believe that our society has changed for the better and wish that Wilde's trial ended justly. ...more

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