Dorian Gray

Ok, when I started this book I was wondering when someone was going to start some discussion on it. Now that I'm finished I realize why no one wanted to talk about it. I hope that I can forget that I ever wasted the week I spent snoring through this one. That being said, it did have its redeeming qualities.

1. Alot of good oneliner quotes from Lord Henry
2. Cool ending (won't reveal it just in case I was the only one who actually read it)
3. uhh.. If anyone can think of more than the first two, you could add your two cents here.

Seriously though, I thought that the book was just a bunch of gay banter between a couple rich boys. The whole vanity/beauty thing was just too far fetched for me. Who honestly is going to be as vein as Dorian? Its unbelievable, and in order for a novel to be good (in my humble opinion) the author has to convince the reader that everything in the book COULD happen in some messed up magical metaphysical way at least. But I just really wasn't buying Wilde's characters. They weren't realistic characters.

Well,

"The Portrait of Dorian Gray" is, in my honest opinion, by far the most amuzing story that Wilde wrote. In the Romantic world of thoughts, or in literature in general, however, it does not matter if characters or events appear "larger than life", or are not "realistic", my friend. You should not judge a book on that vulgar level, or when you want to approach "literature" like that, I would advise you to focus on contemporary postcololinst crap, for instance that of the recent Nobelprize winner J. M. Coetzee.

What you could try to do, is to derive to what kind of already existing literary realities his work appeals, to understand - and be amuzed by it - better. The life of Dorian Gray, for instance, has some remarkable similarties with the Narcissus-myth, as portraied in Ovid's Metamorhposis. The mellifluous Bohemian culture that Wilde creates and the implications of the transformation of a naive, unharmed boy to a desillusioned devil, reflect on the decadent lifestyle of upper class culture. Victorian lifestyle and pompous literature create some kind of "overeducated", "perverted" and especially "rotten" kind of image, which makes their attempts to attain artistic beauty hypocrite and false. It is the contrast between "beauty on the surface" and "internal unharmedness" that matters. When the final "iste-ego-sum" moment enters and the realisation of this antithese is there, the Melancholy of existance enters your soul.

Narcissus, unable to live with the fact that he loved himself, hence he could not attain that love, commit suicide, "hitting his chest with his marble palms". Narcissus not only changed into a flower, but also into a sculpture, as the comparison implies. Dorian Gray transformed into a painting.

Besides al these "insider jokes" that Wilde makes, it is also just very cleverly written, perhaps even in accordance with Wilde's love for mellifuous, almost idyllic aethetics. It is very stunning - indeed the expressions of this Lord Henry are almost as quotable as the quotes from Fight Club (the movie) - and I really enjoyed to read it. Literature, and especially non-contemporary literature, should not be read as an obligation. It is not the discussion afterwards that matters, but the experience itself.

Thank you for explaining the signifacance of the book. That was a very thorough analysis. I understood what all that meant. That wasn't the problem. The problem was the unreality of characters. I just couldn't see Dorian or Basil or Lord Henry sitting in front of me. I didn't think that Wilde did a good job of aquainting the reader with the character. I mean, you get to know the characters, but you dont get to KNOW them, you know what I mean? I didn't feel like I was friends with any of them. Do you get what I'm saying, because I havn't slept in 40 some odd hours and I feel like I'm not really explaining myself very well.

I Havent finish the book :(

This is what I can say about the book (well about Lord Henry more precisely) so far: he is a very confidence man and interesting things to say. While Dorian is just a young man who is so naive and lack self confidence

I see your point about the gay thing Kik. I mean the lines are unusual to use by man to describe other man

I will read further, is just that I divide my time between reading Dorian, the Solitare mystery and Frankenstein

I still haven't found a copy!!! :( You've already read it??

You know how i get a copy Faye?
I printed the darn thing from this site !!
All pages

First of all...the one-liners....At first, I thought, "How witty!" Then, towards the end, they made me want to slit my wrists. I cannot think of anything that could possibly annoy me more. I know this is Wilde's style, so I guess I should just accept the fact that Wilde isn't my cup of tea.

Kik, I warned you all it was wretched (although On the Road hasn't got mush better reviews on the other thread).

As far as the realistic debate. It didn't strike me that Dorian and Lord Henry were real people, however it also didn't strike me that creating "realistic" characters was Wilde's objective. If anything, they were set up as type characters to comment wittly on societies foibles. As far as I know, Wilde himself was homosexual, and was persecuted heavily for it. (Also, Bart, Do you have a thing for "melliflous"? :D )

Quote:

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Originally posted by piquant
As far as the realistic debate. It didn't strike me that Dorian and Lord Henry were real people, however it also didn't strike me that creating "realistic" characters was Wilde's objective.

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exactly. And the main thing I look for in READING, no matter if its fiction or non, is story. If a STORY doesn't have characters that I can believe could actually exist, its not a convincing story. If the author doesnt convince me that the story is real (not actually real in my world, but in the realism of the authors inner world) than I find it a waste of time.

Amen. I cast Wilde into the abyss off loathing...oh wait, he was already there.

Quote:

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Originally posted by subterranean
You know how i get a copy Faye?
I printed the darn thing from this site !!
All pages

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If you used your own printer/paper/ink for it you probably spent more in ink than it would have cost to buy a paperback, you know that right?

In anycase, here is the link again:

http://www.online-literature.com/wilde/dorian_gray/

Oh not at all Chris. There's no paperback edition sold here :). To get the book from outside the country, means I have to pay more. I suppose it's still cheaper to print than to buy it !!

I read the whole book and I dont know, to me Dorian and his two friends sound real enough (their personalities). Basil and Harry are these two manipulative people, whom I often encounter in my everyday life. And I see Dorian's personalities in one of my close friends, though she doesn't as extreme as him. So I guess this one is real enough. Try to compare it with Prince Happy
And there are many lines by Harry which are "funny".

And, I don't know that Mr. Wilde is a gay...

In my about the author bit, it said that he was imprisoned for homosexual soddamy and that he never recovered his social status afterwards.

And I just feel like his characters are nothing more than vehicles for his witty speach.

so it's like a personal diary ?

It's essentially a 'homosexual novel' (whatever that is) - and come on, it's by Oscar Wilde, it's never going to be gritty realism.

It's Oscar playing the aesthete and tossing off bons mots.

I think that it's a great concept - call me Mr Vain call me Mr Raider call me Mr Wrong but I'd love to never age.

well, I only just read it... three months behind the book club, you're gonna have to deal with me dragging out this topic. [SPOILERS]

1. Oscar wilde's writing, 'I have nothing to declare but my genious' YEAH? whatever ya reckon. Just keep tellin' ya'self that, wilde. Those cute little epigrams got pretty darned annoying after a while, esp the ones contradicting themselves, I hate Lord Henry.
[gonna side with piquant]
2. I don't think Wilde thought anything of his readers. It was pretty predictable, I mean, on page sixty, he may as well have written, 'SO. SOMETIME DOWN THE LINE SYBIL VANE'S BROTHER'S GONNA TRY TO KILL DORIAN' for all the difference it would have made.
3. Couldn't help but think, 'I'm wasting my youth!'
4. Despite my criticisms, still worth reading, imo, because, yes, to SOME degree, he is witty, and it was kinda interesting.