The Picture of Dorian Gray

By -

The Picture of Dorian Gray, by Oscar Wilde

Everybody knows the story, so I'm not going to say much. I was not a fan this time around (I read it years ago in college). The character that was pretty interesting was Lord Henry, and you don't get to know him well at all. He never says anything that isn't a well-polished epigram, and he manipulates people as a hobby. He is truly, seriously evil behind his facade, and you'll never know him.

Or maybe you do get to know him in the new uncensored edition, but I stuck with the copy I've had for 15 years, and that's OK for me.

This is a re-read title for the November's Autumn Challenge. Maybe.

Comments

  1. JessicaMarch 4, 2012 at 9:29 AM

    I'm reading this one at the moment and its not too bad but I think thats because Im only reading one chapter a day so I dont feel too bogged down in it. I HATE Sir Henry though, not many characters get under my skin but he really does!!

    ReplyDelete
  2. CleoMarch 5, 2012 at 11:50 AM

    There were a couple of poignant moments in the book where Dorian could have turned from the evilness (no, other word fits!) of his ways but chose not to. Particularly striking was when Sir Basil urges him to change and offers to kneel and pray with him but instead Dorian murders Basil. Sad ....

    I hated this book until about 2/3 of the way through but when I had finished I really appreciated how Wilde had crafted the story. It certainly didn't portray selfishness, lack of empathy for others, living for oneself, or evil itself in any way in a positive light. A good, but shocking lesson.

    I'm looking forward to re-reading it again some time in the future!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

I'd love to know what you think, so please comment!

Popular posts from this blog

The Four Ages of Poetry

By -
Image
  "The Four Ages of Poetry," by Thomas Love Peacock I am becoming fond of Thomas Love Peacock.  Besides his unbeatable name, he was a lot of fun.  Peacock was a minor literary figure of the early 19th century; he tried his hand at poetry but mainly succeeded in satire.  I read his short novel Nightmare Abbey last year, but at the time I didn't know that the young hero of the story, Scythrop, was modeled on Peacock's good friend Percy Shelley.  He and Shelley were quite close and Peacock was the executor of Shelley's will. Thomas Love Peacock Percy Bysshe Shelley "The Four Ages of Poetry," a tongue-in-cheek essay on the history and development of poetry, was published in 1820 in a new magazine called Literary Miscellany , which promptly died.  It would probably have been completely obscure and unknown--it nearly is anyway--but for Shelley.  Peacock sent a copy to his friend, who I guess didn't really have much of a sense of
Read more

A few short stories in Urdu

By -
Image
 Back in August, I got hold of a book of Urdu short stories translated into English.  It's a large book, so I wanted to read just the women authors for WIT, and that would still be a good amount.  August got away from me, and I only read one or two stories back then, but I've continued reading them since.  I've now finished all the short stories in the book that were written by women (luckily for me, there are short biographies in an appendix, since I could only tell from the name about half the time).  I'll just highlight a couple: "The Wagon," by Khalida Asghar, is a hallucinatory, apocalyptic story.  The narrator meets three strange men who are watching the evening sky and point out that it has become red.  No one had noticed until they said so, but the sky is now strangely red.  Then a smell arrives, so offensive and sickening that it causes real pain -- but only once it's pointed out.  And finally, a mysterious wagon, which may be the source of the s
Read more

Faerie Queen Readalong I: Redcrosse, the Knight of Holiness

By -
Image
I did it, I read all of Book I!  My minimum requirement was two cantos a day, but I managed three a couple of times.  I'm hoping to read ahead, because I'll be gone for two weeks in the middle of this event and I'd like to be able to prep a post ahead of time...but the schedule is already pretty demanding.  The reading is not terribly difficult, but it is slow.  I keep thinking that I've read a large chunk, only to look back and realize that in fact I have read six verses.  So here we go with analysis... Each book in the Faerie Queene features a knight, and a story, about a particular virtue.  The Redcrosse Knight, to be known as St. George after he accomplishes his feats, is all about Holinesse .  This does not mean that Redcrosse already exemplifies holiness; he doesn't.  Holiness is what he's working towards and struggling with.  His foes symbolize various forms of unholiness, and he falls into their clutches at least as often as he defeats or avoids th
Read more