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hahaha! Thats is true. I'm not even a fan of Wilde, as most people on this forum know, but it thought it would be a nice idea to get an international chat going for something that is becoming part of my cities tradition! :) there is still the rest of the month to go so hopefully a couple of others will join in. Kilted Exile said he would, so thats definitely three of us! :p
I might be down. Upon readin this thread I went to the book store last night and read through the first couple pages and really enjoyed it. I am extremely cheap, however, and would need to now buy the book, (I dont buy books from the library because I have the compulsive need to write in them). I'm also reading some other things at the moment, but the first few pages definitely got my attention and I'm going to try to read this in the next three weeks.
Count me in. I'll try to read it. It's in my list any way. Why not now? I just finished Steinbeck. so can start Dorian Gray.
I'm trying to make up for March reading-Steppenwolf-I'm reading it online, since I'm already late, i can strech it out one more month. I've April -christie reading for my lunch break. I'm too chicken to read detectives before bedtime, so Dorian Gray'll be my bed time book. And there's new Dickens book club I don't want miss out. I guess I'm done for April.:D
Sorry, to hear that, Virgil. I hope, everything in you life will be fine soon.Quote:
Originally Posted by Virgil
that makes five of us! Great! :D I'll have to pick up the book from work tomorrow. :nod:
Excellent, see I told you there is always the chance of some fine fellows poping up and they have done.
That's fantastic. It's great to know that from reading this thread someone has purposely gone out and looked for the book.Quote:
Originally Posted by Rores28
So get reading now, come on, chop chop. :)
From chapter 2:
...Quote:
But the bravest man amongst us is afraid of himself.
The mutilation of the savage has its tragic survival in the
self-denial that mars our lives. We are punished for our refusals.
Every impulse that we strive to strangle broods in the mind
and poisons us. The body sins once, and has done with its sin,
for action is a mode of purification. Nothing remains then
but the recollection of a pleasure, or the luxury of a regret.
The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it.
Resist it, and your soul grows sick with longing for the things
it has forbidden to itself, with desire for what its monstrous
laws have made monstrous and unlawful. It has been said
that the great events of the world take place in the brain.
It is in the brain, and the brain only, that the great sins
of the world take place also. You, Mr. Gray, you yourself,
with your rose-red youth and your rose-white boyhood, you have had
passions that have made you afraid, thoughts that have fined you
with terror, day-dreams and sleeping dreams whose mere memory might
stain your cheek with shame--"
:thumbsup:Quote:
Music had stirred him like that. Music had troubled him many times.
But music was not articulate. It was not a new world, but rather
another chaos, that it created in us. Words! Mere words!
How terrible they were! How clear, and vivid, and cruel! One could
not escape from them. And yet what a subtle magic there was in them!
They seemed to be able to give a plastic form to formless things,
and to have a music of their own as sweet as that of viol or of lute.
Mere words! Was there anything so real as words?
Well I'm currently 40 pages in and really enjoying the book. As I mentioned earlier I compulsively mark up books when I find a particularly striking passage The problem is this book is so replete with witty aphorisms that my pages are now swimming in blue ink.
:yesnod: Ha, ha yes - you'll be covering the whole book! Wilde used to write in his books in the same manner.Quote:
Originally Posted by Rores28
Glad you are enjoying it.
I still have to pick up the book. they have the Dublin: One City, One Book edition in work. seems fitting! :)
I'm currently on chapter two. Henrys speachs makes me think of some of the stuff i've read on here. :p
Anyway. onwards and onwards...
Ha, I hope you are not implying that half the things I say come from Wilde...surely it is more like 50% of things...
I love chapter two, it's probably my favourite chapter of the book actually, there's so much in there - there's so much in all of it though of course, delicious, how I envy the first time reader of this book, though it still yields things after 7 or 8 reads or beyond.
Isnt half and 50% not the same :pQuote:
Originally Posted by Neely
By here i ment here on litnet. :p
Have we still got at least five wonderful people reading this wonderful book?
Maybe we could talk a little about the preface tomorrow if so. We don't have to wait until everyone has finished the book after all do we?
The preface was written in response to critics who, well, criticised the first edition of Dorian Gray pretty harshly, mostly on moral grounds. The first edition of Dorian Gray was a little shorter, by six chapters I think, and appeared in Lippincott's magazine in 1890. The full version of Dorian Gray which is now widely read, appeared in 1891 and as well as sporting the extra chapters and the preface, included a few "toned down" wordings which the publishers, Ward, Lock & Co, forced Wilde to change. The overwhelming consensus however is that the 1891 edition is vastly superior to its shorter original, both because of the extra chapters and because of the subtle revisions.
The preface was also published separately in Frank Harris's journal Fortnightly Review (Frank Harris was a good friend of Oscar Wilde's ) which had the duel affect of hitting back at the critics immediately and advertising the forth coming revision of the book you are reading today. It also featured as a sort of platform for Wilde's aesthetic views on art and life as well.
The preface to Dorian Gray is of course a wonderful series of epigrams which really overwhelm the reader and critic I feel, not only with sheer brilliance but in the manner in which they are penned. The preface even makes an appearance in the Norton Anthology of Literature and Criticism, which is I’m pretty certain the only entry that made it in by Wilde (I think so at least, I can’t be bothered to move two metres to check, if it is not so I’ll say so tomorrow with an edit, possibly one of his essays made it in too, I don’t know?)
Anyway, do you lot want to discuss the preface tomorrow or in the next few days or so a little? I can post it up and spill a few thoughts if necessary?
Are you still reading the book and enjoying it at least? At least please don't leave me here all alone with this wonderful book talking to nothing but my Michelangelo frescos while going slowly insane...:smilewinkgrin:
I got the understanding of why he wrote the preface, but i still cant help but feel that it is quite moralistic. Then again if the writer insisted that is not, then who are we to argue?
(yes it currently looks like its just you and me for now!)
I'm still reading it... its just taking me a bit longer than usual to read. I do like Henrys character so far.
I love wilde and I am so p-ed off I need a good book fix will probably read it tomoorow today I am attacking the house with a tooth brush (literally)!
I started it a while back and am about to finish it. I always thought that this was a thoroughly, thoroughly 'London book' not a Dublin book. I was, actually, in Grosvenor Square the other day wondering whether Dorian had walked in those streets on his way back from late-night debaucheries.