Can a book corrupt?

[hfischbach]

The main point of this post was to see if anyone knows what book it was that Lord Henry gave Dorian that so fully changed him? Was it purely ficticious or a partially fictionilized yet real book? I would love to know.
Also, though, as I side note... when lord henry claimed that books cannot corrupt, that they are infact steryl, it started me on a very interesting train of though... i was wondering if anyone else was struck by this...
To sum it up:
Name that book
Are books steryl?

[mazz]

that book you are asking about is discussed in other threads if you want to look. What do you mean by steryl ? Is it a "barren cow"?

[dotk]

"His eye fell on the yellow book that Lord HEnry had sent him."

Originally Wilde invented a name-THe secrets of Raoul- for the book that has such an influence over Dorian, but in the final version, the book is never named.

At his trial however, Wilde acknowledged that he had modeled the book on
A Rebours ("Against nature") by the frnech art critic Joris-Karl Huysmans.
Wilde read this darkly erotic comedy shortly after it was published in 1884.
It tells the stiory of a waelthy aesthete, the duc Jean des Esseintes, who lives cloistered in his house. experimenting with every artificial pleasure, without ever finding fulfilment.
Although Huysmans's book is certainly very similar to the one Dorian reads, Wilde adapted it to his own purposes. Des Esseintes never suffers from the "grotesque dread of mirrors" that Wilde mentions haunts the hero of the yellow book.

hope i answered ur queries.
i found d ans frm "the whole story" edition of Dorian.

[nps_marina]

I don't think books can corrupt, but yesterday I was leafinf through Northanger Abbey and there's that whole thing about novels being bad for the soul in there, you know. There's The Monk (I have that book, stopped reading it pretty soon, it was so absurdly complicated and soap-opera-ish), and they also mention Udolpho a lot.

[motherhubbard]

I think books can corrupt. When you read a book and allow yourself to fall into it your thoughts mingle with the thoughts of the author. They influence and touch so they can corrupt. I try to stay away from books that feel like they are hurting my soul (for lack of a better word). I had to read “Barn Burning” by Faulkner last semester and I had nightmares for months. The disgust I felt for Abner and the character of that man just got all over me.

[Flora]

I agree with that; anything that influences can corrupt. However, everything influences, not only books, and so everything has the potential ability to corrupt. We can't escape being influenced, and therfore risking corruption.

[dotk]

actually wat puzzles me most.
is wat secret about alan? that Dorian used to threaten that
chemist, so that he would help Dorian annihilate Basil's dead body.
ans anyone?

[dmoretta]

Nathaniel Hawthorne said “Words - so innocent and powerless as they are, as standing in a dictionary, how potent for good and evil they become in the hands of one who knows how to combine them”. With every book written comes the potential for good and evil. Characters in “Fahrenheit 451”, “Nineteen Eighty- Seven”, and “A Brave New World” find literature to be possibly dangerous. Literature has a propensity to be incredibly persuasive to the reader. Even if a reader has one idea before reading a book, their opinion may be completely altered after reading the novel.

[coofee]

"The main point of this post was to see if anyone knows what book it was that Lord Henry gave Dorian that so fully changed him? Was it purely ficticious or a partially fictionilized yet real book? I would love to know."

while doing research for a book report on The picture of Dorian Gray i read that the teaching of the new hedonism with which Lord henry spoils Dorian is rooted in the closing words of the padre in "Renaissance", the book Wilde wrote about in De Profundis.

[andave_ya]

I agree with that; anything that influences can corrupt. However, everything influences, not only books, and so everything has the potential ability to corrupt. We can't escape being influenced, and therfore risking corruption.

I agree thoroughly with you.

[s.santa]

I agree too. Book are made to corrupt indeed.
As Rudyard Kipling said "Words are the most powerful drug used by mankind" (hope the quote is right!):idea:

[SimplePoet]

I agree too. Book are made to corrupt indeed.
As Rudyard Kipling said "Words are the most powerful drug used by mankind" (hope the quote is right!):idea:

If books are made to corrupt, then why do you read them? You must be one corrupted person then, right?!

I don't mean to sound harsh, but you cannot be corrupted unless you let yourself be. By a book. Other people. Music. Whatever. If you have your own thoughts, ideas, etc., and you stand by them strongly, then no one can corrupt you. No one!

[rimbaud]

I agree too. Book are made to corrupt indeed.
As Rudyard Kipling said "Words are the most powerful drug used by mankind" (hope the quote is right!):idea:

Why does anyone do drugs?
A book, word, verse can take you higher that you imagined you could rise and lower than you tough you could fall.

Books can corrupt and books can save! the risk is yours :)

[Bancini]

Corruption is merely negative influence. Books can be influential and should be. That is the whole reason I read them. I am looking for new concepts, thoughts, and arguments. These will influence me. It is up to me to make sure it is in a positive way...

[JCamilo]

Drugs do not corrupt either. THey have effects on your body depending the quatity or method used for consumption.
Books do not corrupt because they are, as text, flawed as object of command: you are the ultimante will when reggarding to what is said in the book and what will be perceived by you. Interpretation is the key, hence the power (otherwise a book would always cease to be powerful once the intented public finish reading it, which means, the public in a give age and place. And we know that is not what happens). Kipling quotes must be used under context.

[Bancini]

if books cannot influence us, why do we read them?

[weltanschauung]

if books are so powerful over people's minds, why is it that humankind hasnt yet become better by reading the bible. it is a mystery. and a very mysterious one.

[Trilaque]

Anything can corrupt if you give it the ability to do so.


However cliched that statement is, it remains true. If you let something take control of you, bother you, confuse you, then you are the product of your own ignorance.

[Bancini]

i am not a believer, but I would say that there are people who have become better from reading the bible...and worse

[weltanschauung]

thats not the point.
the point is that there's nothing outside that is to be held responsible for someone's change of behavior. the change comes from within and not from without.
if someone choses to believe the care bears are gods and therefore lords of wisdom, its not tv's fault. the problem is that common sense isnt on sale at wallmart.

[Bancini]

so you are saying there are zero external influences? they are all internal?

[subterranean]

Agree that it's not the ideas, but more on the decision to impose the ideas. Ideas remain as state of mind until we put them in to action. And I think a matter intepreting the ideas is also important here otherwise there wouldn't be such controversy as banned books.

[weltanschauung]

so you are saying there are zero external influences? they are all internal?


hey dude, check this out:
http://i239.photobucket.com/albums/ff25/bunnybox9/books/eBay070_resize.jpg
but DONT READ IT, or you might wake up a magician!!!

or this:
http://static.blip.tv/Gena-BooksThatGetUnderOurSkinTheBlackDahlia476.jpg
dont read it or you might wake up a murderer!

or this:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/b/b8/NakedLunch1stedition.jpg/200px-NakedLunch1stedition.jpg
DONT READ IT, YOU MIGHT WAKE UP A JUNKIE!







well, i advised you.

[subterranean]

Or this :D

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/0974458902.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg

Though I heard some tricks don't really work.

[weltanschauung]

http://i305.photobucket.com/albums/nn210/redstaab/high5catyf0.jpg

[Bancini]

i'm not saying books brainwash people, but you make it sound as if there is no possibility of influence from a source outside of our own bodies

[weltanschauung]

there's only influence as long as you want it to be. its only forced upon you if you allow it to.

[Ydfkdy]

A book can corrupt only if you allow it or iff you are looking for a book of corrupion.

[Wilde woman]

Originally Wilde invented a name-THe secrets of Raoul- for the book that has such an influence over Dorian, but in the final version, the book is never named.

A little off-topic, but I couldn't let this pass. Has anyone else heard this? I'm wondering where this bit of information came from? Every edition of Dorian Gray that I read has agreed that the yellow book is Huysmans' A Rebours.

And if this is true, who was Raoul supposed to be?

[subterranean]

i'm not saying books brainwash people, but you make it sound as if there is no possibility of influence from a source outside of our own bodies

Hi, Bancini. I undeerstand your point and I agree that some certain group of people (e.g. children) will tend to take things literaly and do whatever things that are written in the book they read. But this doen't mean we can directly say the book itself is corrupt. But when we talk about adult readers, then I personally don't agree if some books are considered as corrupt just because there are negative instances after some people reading the said books. Books don't corrupt, people do.

[Bancini]

I would not argue that a book is corrupt or that a book can fully corrupt someone.

I am saying that books can influence us, even if slightly. While nothing can influence a person who refuses to be influenced, if someone is open to it a book can be an influence.

In Dorian's case, I think he falsely blames the book for his corruption. Lord Henry leads Dorian down that path and Dorian is a willing follower.

[Wilde woman]

Ideas remain as state of mind until we put them in to action. And I think a matter intepreting the ideas is also important here otherwise there wouldn't be such controversy as banned books.

I concur. And I think Wilde has similar ideas. One of his founding bases for writing Dorian Gray, IMO, is to prove that art is just art. It shouldn't have a moral influence. Isn't that what his preface to Dorian Gray, all those pithy quotations about art, is all about?

In fact, this question comes up when one of the first critics lashes out at Wilde for writing an immoral book. And Wilde responds very wisely...by saying the artist can and should be distinguished from the art he produces. If Dorian Gray is a corrupting book (making it a metaphor for A Rebours), that doesn't necessarily mean that Wilde (or Huysmans, to continue the metaphor) meant it to corrupt its readers.

If we carry this metaphor further, I think we could interpret Lord Henry as an "author" in the novel and Dorian as the impressionable "reader". Perhaps Dorian's decline is partially Lord Henry's fault, but Dorian also has to take responsibility for his lifestyle. (If we're following this line of reasoning, we could even implicate Basil, because he was actually the artist who created the painting that made Dorian vain.)

[Bancini]

just realized i might be missing something...

I did not see The Picture of Dorian Gray to be corrupting in any way....Am I merely reading it with 21st century morals?

Today put the book down thinking it served as a warning against accepting new viewpoints (Henry and the book) and allowing them to change you.

Does that make sense? It would be ironic if the same book (Gray) that once was denounced for corrupting would serve the 21st century as a warning against corruption.

[Miss Everdene]

Well....... I don't think books can corrupt or exercise a bad influence upon us. Infact goodness or badness is something that lies within us. As there is a very well known line of William Shakespeare that,
" There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so"
And even if there is some book which we consider bad, it doesn't poison us, rather it tells us what goodness really is. This is what Milton said in his book, Aeropagitica in which he pleaded for the free publication of all kind of books, that both good and bad are indispensable. With the absence of one, we cant differenciate between the two. So, books always prove to be fruitful for us. If we hold on to goodness firmly, no external element can ever waver us.

[Silversmith]

The written word is amazingly powerful, even in our modern day when reading isn't as highly prized as it once was. I believe books - more so than movies or other forms of media - can be very influential, even corrupting, on individuals. Reading requires a tax of intellect that gives the ideas presented more opportunity to saturate your thoughts than films or television do, and it demands more attention than music or other wholly auditory activities. I believe books are second only to conversations in their ability to influence a person.

[Jurt]

I agree with that; anything that influences can corrupt. However, everything influences, not only books, and so everything has the potential ability to corrupt. We can't escape being influenced, and therfore risking corruption. what is more or less a quote Lord Henry although he says that every influence is bad


To my mind the major issues is this: If there is influencen, there is also corruption. But of course someone could argue that Dorian only revealed his real soul. However I think he has been certainly induced by Lord Henry and the problem is that he has not been mature enough to resist and think better of it.

[Arrowni]

Arguably only readers can corrupt, the book works as the incentive to produce readers.

[cafolini]

Apart from the issue of corruption, which is already complicated enough for a thesis, there is no doubt that words can corrupt. But where and how is the matter proposed. In a hostile and corrupted environment, children could be forced into corruption by not being allowed to multiple sources of information.
But then, in an open situation, books have no power to corrupt at all. Words don't have the power to corrupt unless they are forced repeatedly upon people in an environment where information is selected for that purpose and excludes all other possibilities of thought. Thus closed cultures, where identity is derived from exclusively are extremely corrupting.