The Picture of Dorian Gray

The Picture of Dorian Gray
Oscar Wilde
ISBN: 1-59308-175-8
Publisher: Barnes and Noble Books

OVERVIEW: This book takes the reader down a dangerous path (one I find to be, ostentatiously, the epitome of the Cautionary Tale). Despite it having being first published in the 1890s, the cautions are as good then as they are now: What belies beauty? Could you hide your evil side? What lengths might one go to conceal the unseemly in their soul? One shouldn't go too much into length here without spoiling, but after a rather ethereal experience, it seems the picture itself holds the evil. Mr Wilde's style is very direct and quite readable. At a paltry 229 pages (large, hardcover) most anyone could enjoy this.

PRO'S

• A relaxing and thoroughly-enjoyable read; no brain-twisters
  
• Very talented story telling; the irrelevant is absent, the relevant emphasized
  
• Lots of philosophy dispensed via conversation in this; much to hate and or love (as they case may be)
  
• Moral: Lies are punished, sins must be paid; beauty, while extolled effusively, carries a "caution" light in the verbiage
  
• Descriptive: One finds in this reading, much text given to grand descriptions of various beauties; sometimes to almost a hedonistic pitch
  
• Engaging: Sick of classic literature where "nothing happens"? Get this one, that'll cure it
  
• Loose ends become tied up neatly for the reader; leaving the message/moral plain
  
• Flow: The story flows nicely. Not once did I find myself wondering what <this> had to do with anything; brilliant authoring.
  

CONS

• As mentioned before, descriptions of physical beauty are profuse (a necessity, since this was a central theme); however, some feel over-board and disproportionate, not the least of which involve men appreciating the physiques of other males to rather detailed lengths
  
• As a book of social beings of the late 19th century, no one appears to work. Although this may sound silly, I found myself asking about the practical aspects of character's lives.
  

HIGHLIGHTS:

• The Duty to Oneself (pp 20)
  
• Temptations: Modern Society -vs- our Natures (pp 21)
  
• The thrill of Rediscovering through 'new eyes' (pp 39) (See quote 1)
  
• The need and value of making "Youthful Mistakes" in life (pp 44)
  
• Bless those who give (pp 86) (See quote 2)
  
• Spend a quarter to make a dime; live a lie to believe it (pp 133)
  
• Realization of cold, heartless truths (pp 205)
  

MY RATING: 8.3

NOTABLE QUOTES[INDENT]1. "There was something terribly enthralling in the exercise of influence. No other activity was like it. To project one's soul into some gracious form, and to let it tarry there for a moment; to hear one's own intellectual views echoed back to one with all the added music of passion and youth; to convey one's temperament into another, as though it were a subtle fluid or a strange perfume; there was a real joy in that - perhaps the most satisfying joy left to us in an age so limited and vulgar as our own, an age grossly carnal in its pleasures, and grossly common in its aims..."

2. "To spiritualize one's age - that is something worth doing. If this girl can give a soul to those who have lived without one, if she can create the sense of beauty in people whose lives have been sorded and ugly, if she can strip them of their selfishness and lend them tears for sorrows that are not their own, she is worthy of all your adoration, worthy of the adoration of the world."
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