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The Picture of Dorian Gray

Oscar Wilde

Start date: June 1, 2019

Finish date: June 30, 2019

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What Members Thought

Mar 03, 2015 Nea rated it liked it

Shelves: fiction, classics, literary, philosophy, gothic-fiction

I love Oscar Wilde's writing, even with such a strange concept as this book. Perfectly beautiful Dorian Gray doesn't age or show physical signs of his poor life choices; instead, the secrets of his innerself manifest on the face of his infamous picture. That's the basic premise, but The Picture of Dorian Gray also contains a lot of philosophical ramblings from a secondary character. That took away from the book a bit, in my opinion. ...more

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Feb 12, 2012 Leo Horovitz rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction

This is a wonderful book told in a spectacular fashion. It's the tale of the young seemingly innocent good looking man who bit by bit is corrupted by an acquaintance and how a wish uttered without much thought affects his whole life. There is certainly a lot of moral background, but the story never feels preachy, it is more of a tale of the different figures and their different reactions to the actions of Dorian Gray, actions about which we never get too many details. We do get an insight into s This is a wonderful book told in a spectacular fashion. It's the tale of the young seemingly innocent good looking man who bit by bit is corrupted by an acquaintance and how a wish uttered without much thought affects his whole life. There is certainly a lot of moral background, but the story never feels preachy, it is more of a tale of the different figures and their different reactions to the actions of Dorian Gray, actions about which we never get too many details. We do get an insight into some of the ideas of moral behavior found in late 19th century England and how other members of the higher classes react to Gray's increasing immorality in their eyes, how he is more and more shunned by some, but he still manages to stay in those circles, the rumors seem easy enough to ignore and he's friend and corrupter seems to always get away with uttering complete distaste for morality in the most cynical way, getting no other response than mere laughter and some dismissal. It seems people refuse to believe that anyone is really that cynical and immoral, so they mostly just let it be. You get the feeling that the only people who really shun Gray are those that have had direct personal experience of some of his immoral behaviors. The consequences of Gray's actions are instead personal psychological effects, not that he worries too much about the people he has made to suffer, but in that he fears the effects on his soul, effects which are very clearly showing themselves in the portrait that he keeps hidden from the world. Not even in the end is he concerned about others, he has been corrupted and knows it, he regrets his life and wants to start doing good, but seemingly only for his own sake. The psychological aspects are always present, but there seems to me to be very little in the way of morality in the sense of actual consideration of the well being of other people. Those hearing Lord Henry's cynical statements seem somewhat shocked by how they go against some sort of code of proper behavior, not by how they display a distaste for empathy. Maybe the book was meant to show just this, that high society in England at the time showed interest only in upholding an agreed upon moral code, and cared very little about people's actual well being. Maybe any direct discussion of true moral values, based on consideration of others rather than fixed rules, was intentionally left out. In any case, I have a very hard time characterising the tale as one focused on morality, rather than as one focused on social codes.

Besides this discussion of the story, the language must at least briefly be praised as most eloquent and memorable. There's an almost limitless supply of epigrams and brief sayings, analyses of behaviors, differences between the sexes, marriage, art, rationality and pretty much everything else. And the narration is no less good, it moves along at just the right pace, with dramatic turns of events at several places, often hinting at the events just before they are about to happen, keeping the reader excited without drawing out things longer than needed. The language is beautiful without being pompous so that the book is an easy enough read for anyone fairly experiences in the English language. I have not looked at the translation into Swedish (my native tongue) but I'd strongly recommend any reader to get the original if possible before considering reading a translated edition. Even if the translation is a good one, this deserves to be read as it was originally intended. ...more

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Apr 25, 2015 Nenda rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: drama, 2015-reading-challenge, classic, supernatural

#39 a book with a color in the title
2015 Reading Challenge

A discourse on sin and vanity.

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Apr 28, 2013 Jono rated it it was amazing

I really enjoyed this. I new the basic premise of the story before reading this but didn't know much of the detail. The story was (perhaps unsurprisingly) more involved than I had expected and kept me interested despite my knowing the ending.

I had never read anything by Oscar Wilde before and was amazed to discover just how many quotes and sayings I had heard before which came from this one book.

There were a perhaps a few more philosophical discussions than I was really ready for but most of th ...more

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