The Picture Of Dorian Gray (1998) - Plot & Excerpts
“A classic is a book that has never finished saying what it has to say.” I find myself in agreement with Italo Calvino regarding classics, and in the particular case of Oscar Wilde I find the story of Dorian Gray still relevant today, answering questions of morality, the role of art and the artist in defining our world, ethics and tolerance. There are still attempts to legislate morality and to punish what are ultimately private choices of the individual. There is no such thing as a moral or immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all. More than a gothic novel, this is Wilde’s manifesto and artistic credo, his whole raison d’etre, provocative and liberating, going from sparkly wittycism (“You would sacrifice anybody, Harry, for the sake of an epigram.”) to passionate defense of liberty of expression.The novel opens with a series of barbed arrows launched at his Victorian contemporaries and at their staid, tightly corsetted atitudes. (“The costume of the nineteenth century is detestable. It is so sombre, so depressing. Sin is the only real colour-element left in the modern life.”) This bitter preface is probably the result of the harsh criticism received by the first, shorter edition of the novel, and the author feels the need to justify himself: As for being poisoned by a book, there is no such thing as that. Art has no influence upon action. It annihilates the desire to act. It is superbly sterile. The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame. I have my own confession to make: I didn’t ‘like’ the damn novel! I consistently fell asleep after every four or five pages. It took me almost a month to read a book I would normally finish in a few days. I got bored by the interminable dialogues and the thinness of the plot. I waited almost another month before writing down my impressions. Most of all I really didn’t care about the personality of Dorian Gray and about the stance embraced by him and by Lord Henry putting hedonism and the worship of sin before the care for social justice. It was only in retrospect, as I spent almost three hours going through my notes, that I have come to appreciate the work of Oscar Wilde properly. We don’t always read for escapism, and we do need to be shaken out from time to time out of our comfort zones. I didn’t say I liked it, Harry. I said it fascinated me. There is a great difference. Dorian discusses in the last quote a book that changed his life, an account of a French aristocrat’s experiments with sin and with a self-destructive lifestyle. The title is not revealed in the text, but according to the footnoes this book exists and was one of Wilde’s favorites, “A rebours” by Joris Karl Huysmans. Another source of inspiration is Charles Baudelaire, who claims boredom is the ugliest and foulest of all vices. Earlier Wilde claimed that books are not moral and immoral, but here he sort of argues for the power of words. It is left to the reader to exercise his judgement and take a position pro or contra this decadent stance, but the attraction exercised by sin is undeniable throughout the history of literature: It seemed to him that in exquisite raiment, and to the delicate sound of flutes, the sins of the world were passing in dumb show before him. So what is the skeleton, the actual plot, that holds together Wilde’s decadent manifesto? It is basically a riff on the myth of Faustus, of innocence destroyed by cynical reality, of a soul sold to the devil for a life of epicurean delight. The three corners of the triangle are the Devil, the pure soul and the artist : the dangerously charming Lord Henry Wotton, the beautiful young aristocrat Dorian Gray and the earnest painter Basil Hallward. Basil paints the portrait of the young Dorian, capturing on canvas the beauty and the purity of an unspoiled mind, coloured by the artists’ own feelings of love for his subject (later edits by the author tone down the initial erotic passages in Basil’s dialogues, as too revealing and too controversial for his Victorian audience). Lord Henry sees the picture and befriends Dorian, fascinating the young man with his bon-mots and his selfish, elitist, hedonistic lifestyle. Dorian wishes that the moment captured on canvas will last forever, that he will never grow old and bitter, that his life will be spent true to the ideas of Lord Henry in praise of beauty, youth and the pursuit of pleasure. ‘How sad it is!’ murmured Dorian Gray, with his eyes still fixed upon his own portrait. ‘How sad it is! I shall grow old, and horrible, and dreadful. It will never be older than this particular day in June ... If it were only the other way! If it were I who was to be always young, and the picture that was to grow old! For that – for that – I would give everything! Yes, there is nothing in the whole world I would not give! I would give my soul for that!’ SHAZAM!, his wish is granted (nevermind how, this is a parable), and like all the gifts of the genies, there is a price to pay. Dorian becomes the darling of the London high society, a role model for other young aristocrats and an assiduous pursuer of pleasure in all its forms : music, literature, fashion, interior design, hallucinogenic substances, etc. The years pass, and the influence of Dorian destroys many of his acquaintances, yet his face remains unchanged, trustworthy and youthful. All the rot is hidden from view, and I don’t think it is much of a spoiler to reveal that the changes are reflected in the portrait he keeps locked in an attic: What the worm was to the corpse, his sins would be to the painted image on the canvas.Henry, Dorian and Basil for me are three faces of one character: Oscar Wilde himself. This novel is probably the most authentic and the most sincere of his whole oeuvre. He put in everything he had, all his most intimate feelings and convictions, and it must have been painful to have it savaged by critics who only picked up on the scandalous bits. It is easy to recognize the author in the subversive aphorisms of Lord Henry (caled Prince Paradox in one conversation) and in the painter Basil: Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter. The sitter is merely the accident, the occasion. It is not he who is revealed by the painter; it is rather the painter who, on the coloured canvas, reveals himself. , an affirmation reinforced a few pages later in a transparent response to the criticism of the first edition: ... and I will not bare my soul to their shallow, prying eyes. My heart shall never be put under their microscope. There is too much of myself in the thing, Harry – too much of myself! It is less easy to identify the author in the personality of Dorian Gray, but for this very reason, I believe Dorian reveals the most intimate and precious aspects of Wilde’s personality: his fascination with the high society, his interest in the French Decadents, his awareness of the moral pitfalls of such a lifestyle, coupled with an unwillingness to conform to a moral code he despises. My dear boy, the people who love only once in their lives are really the shallow people. What they call their loyalty, and their fidelity, I call either the lethargy of custom or their lack of imagination. Faithfulness is to the emotional life what consistency is to the life of the intellect – simply a confesion of failure. Faithfulness! I must analyse it some day. The passion for property is in it. There are many things that we would throw away if we were not afraid that others might pick them up. The last attack on the establishment comes from the voice of Lord Henry. He is to me responsible for most of the funny and provocative bits in the novel, as I found Dorian rather bland until the final chapters. The fascination for words and controversy produces some gratuitous paradoxes better suited for a laugh around the dinner table, but among them the reader can discover true gems and deep insights into the workings of the mind. The technique is highlighted at one such dinner table, as Lord Henry lets fly with all guns to the fascination of his audience: He played with the idea, and grew wilful; tossed it into the air and transformed it; let it escape and recaptured it; made it iridescent with fancy, and winged it with paradox. The praise of folly, as he went on, soared into philosophy, and Philosophy herself became young, and catching the mad music of Pleasure, wearing, one might fancy, her wine-stained robe and wreath of ivy, danced like a Bacchante over the hills of life, and mocked the slow Silenus for being sober. Facts fled before her like frightened forest things. I will dump Lord Henry’s mots here wholesale, letting you pick and chose, like me, the ones that rings truer to each of you. And remember, for each one that I selected here there may be ten more that I skipped:“There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.”--- “Laughter is not at all a bad beginning for a friendship, and it is far the best ending for one.”--- “I like persons better than principles, and I like persons with no principles better than anything else in the world.”--- “Nowadays people know the price of everything, and the value of nothing.”--- “I never approve, or disapprove, of anything now. It is an absurd atitude to take towards life. We are not sent into the world to air our moral prejudices. I never listen to what common people say, and I never interfere with what charming people do.”--- “There is a luxury in self-reproach. When we blame ourselves we feel that no one else has a right to blame us. It is the confession, not the priest, that gives us absolution.”--- “Is insincerity such a terrible thing? I think not. It is merely a method by which we can multiply our personalities.”For all his rebellion, Wilde was still born and raised in a Victorian environment. He still wanted the appreciation and the approval of his peers. In an effort to please the audience, Wilde did massive edits and additions to the intial novella, and I’m not sure these changes are for the better. I particularly disliked some of the scenes with the young actress Sybil Vane and part of the final chapters for the heavy handed Victorian melodrama. Other chapters, fleshing out the back history of Dorian and his aestethic hobbies, feel unnecessary. Hardest to swallow is probably for me the atitude towards women, although I would caution against equating the words of the characters with the convictions of the author. And remember the book was published in 1890, when such views prevailed: Women are a decorative sex. They never have anything to say, but they say it charmingly. Women represent the triumph of matter over mind, just as men represent the triumph of mind over morals. or this one: I am afraid that women appreciate cruelty, downright cruelty, more than anything else. They have wonderfully primitive instincts. We have emancipated them, but they remain slaves looking for their masters, all the same. They love being dominated. Trying not to spoil the ending, the author draws back from his fascination with Lord Henry’s nihilism and with the French ennui, trying to give an answer to the moral question: if everything is permissible, where do we draw the line? The same question that Dostoyevsky tackled some decades earlier in Crime and Punishment. Behind the nonchalant facade, Oscar Wilde hides a thorough research into psychological studies : There are moments, psychologists tell us, when the passion for sin, or for what the world calls sin, so dominates a nature, that every fibre of the body, as every cell of the brain, seems to be instinct with fearful impulses. Men and women at such moments lose the freedom of their wills. They move to their terrible end as automatons move. Choice is taken from them, and conscience is either killed, or, if it lives at all, lives but to give rebellion its fascination, and disobedience its charm. For all sins, as the theologians weary not of reminding me, are sins of disobedience. When that high spirit, that morning-star of evil, fell from heaven, it was as a rebel that he fell. ... and returns with a conclusion close to that of the Russian titan. We hold the answers inside ourselves, but we often try to drown the voice of the conscience:Actual life was chaos, but there was something terribly logical in the imagination. It was the imagination that set remorse to dog the feet of sin. It was the imagination that made each crime bear its misshapen brood. In the common world of fact the wicked were not punished, not the good rewarded. Success was given to the strong, failure thrust upon the weak. To close a difficult review of a book I didn’t like, but that still fascinated me, I have chosen one about the need, the imperative of communication, an ode to the written word that gives shape and purpose to our lives:Words! Mere words! How terrible they were! How clear, and vivid, and cruel! One could not escape from 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?
"If it was I who was to be forever young and the picture that was to grow old! There is nothing in the world I would not give ... I would give my soul for that!"There are a handful of Victorian gothic horror novels where the basic premise is well-known even today, having spawned countless rewrites, dramatisations and imitations. "Frankenstein" is one, "The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde" is another, and The Picture of Dorian Gray makes a fine third. Few people do not know of the Faustian legend, where a man made a pact with the Devil, to exchange his very soul for unlimited knowledge and worldly pleasures. Variations on the theme persist, and this one has taken on a life of its own, sometimes surpassing the original. We learn with horror and fascination very early on, that a classically perfect, pure, unsullied and beautiful young man is willing to pay the ultimate price for eternal youth and beauty."Beauty is a form of genius - is higher than genius, as it need no explanation ... It makes princes of those who have it. Beauty is the wonder of wonders. Only shallow people do not judge by appearances."Written in 1890 by Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray has in turn become a classic of Gothic horror. Yet it is a strange mixture of styles and themes, and in common with its author has had a troubled life, with regenerations. There are currently three versions extant. Which you choose to read, will probably depend partly on which you feel is closer to what the author finally decided was the best. But who is to know at this juncture? The tragedy of Oscar Wilde's sad and sorry life is well chronicled. Celebrated as a talented writer of witty social satires, his plays, redolent with scathing wit and social commentary, were in high demand, but the general public at the time were shocked by what they saw as the decadent lifestyle of this dandy. Hypocrisy was rife in the late Victorian Age, and society required its heroes to be above reproach. The themes in The Picture of Dorian Gray were thought to be morally ambiguous, shocking and distasteful, and its characters appeared to mirror the indulgent decadent lifestyle of the author himself. For a long time Oscar Wilde remained unrepentant, aggressively defending his novel. He apparently did not realise what grave danger he was in, at such a point in English culture and society, by being so open. Eventually he was famously tried for "gross indecency", during which many of the accusations directed to him were taken from the book, as if this was a catalogue of his lifestyle and views. He was sentenced to 2 years of hard labour, and when released he was a broken man, penniless and in poor health. His poem "The Ballad of Reading Gaol" was inspired by his harrowing experience, but he died just 3 years later in 1900, in Paris, where he had fled in disgrace.So what was the crime for which Victorian society demanded such a terrible penance? Was is it in fact his lifestyle? Or was it his writing? It appears to be both. And given the dissembling, hiding, evading and concealing of secrets he was increasingly having to do in order to survive, it becomes impossible for us to know his true intentions with this novel, even supposing they were clear to himself, and so impossible to say which is the best version to read.The first version can finally now be read under the title "The Picture of Dorian Gray: An Annotated, Uncensored Edition", published in 2012, over 120 years after it was submitted. It is a more explicit version, in particular, in its graphic homosexual content, and thought to be a veiled exploration of the author's own sexuality. The editor of "Lippincott's magazine" was horrified by such a daring, scandalous manuscript, fearing readers would find the original work "offensive". He edited it heavily before publishing it in 1890, until he made it "acceptable to the most fastidious taste". Oscar Wilde himself did not know of these changes until he saw his work in print. This recently published "Annotated, Uncensored Edition" was edited by Nicholas Frankel, who used the manuscript Wilde submitted to Lippincott's magazine in early 1890, restoring 500 deleted words, and including a further 3,000 of Oscar Wilde's handwritten annotations.With hindsight, we can see that the magazine's original editor knew his readership well. Even though he had removed so much of the material, the novel still caused a public outcry. It was condemned as being "vulgar", "unclean", "poisonous", "discreditable", and "a sham". It led to Wilde's wry philosophical comment, "Basil Hallward is what I think I am; Lord Henry what the world thinks me; Dorian what I would like to be - in other ages, perhaps"making it clear that he looked forward to a less repressive era than the Victorian one. The next version to consider is this version referred to; in actuality the first published version, but not the first version Oscar Wilde wrote. It has just 13 chapters, and is often published with footnotes, appendices and explanations of the differences and the novel's history. Sometimes this is the one which is included in anthologies along with some of Oscar Wilde's stories from his 3 volumes of short fiction, and selected poetry.The third and longest version consists of twenty chapters, and that is the one reviewed here. This book edition was published in 1891. In response to the critics, and the damning British press, Oscar Wilde had toned down the homoerotic elements and added a "Preface", consisting of a series of epigrams or statements, which became famous in its own right, as social and cultural criticism. With these aphorisms the author attempted to set down his views on the nature of Art and Beauty. But it is unclear whether he truly believed what he wrote here, or whether they are just yet more instances of his wit. So often they seem to be said for effect, as with much of his writing; or in this case, to answer and pacify the critics. But with some, such as,"There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all" and also,"Diversity of opinion about a work of art show that the work is new, complex and vital"he does not appear to be dissembling at all. His whole life and work seems to indicate that he really believes this, and almost seems to be making these maxims for his own writing. He is grappling toward his own theory of Aesthetics, and justifying his own attitudes to the critics.This version was extended, by adding 6 chapters making 20 chapters altogether, plus the author made many minor alterations, often just of odd words. The "extra" chapters are:3, 5, 15, 16, 17 and 18 All of them were designed to expand on the social background, as well as Dorian's ancestry and character, so that his eventual fall from grace would seem more powerful. A new character, James Vane, was introduced. Once this version has been read, he seems to be indispensable to the plot and impetus of the story. Not only does he foreshadow the most brutal of the protagonist's sins, but his honour and worth counterpoint all Dorian's hedonistic impulses. In the added later chapters, there is much ominous foreshadowing, the plot line escalating rapidly, providing a very tense and enjoyable read.The overall impression of this book, however, is that it is trying to achieve too many aims, and once the reader knows its history, the reason is clear. In some ways it seems to be a patchwork of styles, from which three distinct elements emerge.When the reader starts the book it is the powerful descriptive writing which impresses. It is possible to admire the beauty of the prose alone, without bothering too much about meanings, overt or hidden. It has been called a "manifesto" of hedonism, and certainly the early chapters have so many passages of beautiful description in Basil's garden - so much emphasis on the senses (even his name is both an aromatic and a flowering herb!) This culminates in chapter 11, which is full of dreamlike illusory beauty and evocative descriptive passages. The lengthy lists of beautiful objects d'art do however feel a little self-indulgent on the author's part, and a distraction from the thrust of the novel itself. It is a kind of a paean to Aesthetics, intended to convey Dorian's succumbing to hedonism. He explores a world of sensual beauty, with different aromas, jewellery, embroideries and types of music, as a result of reading the novel Lord Henry has given him, "Against Nature" by Joris-Karl Huysmans. This is an infamous "decadent" novel about an eccentric recluse who lives in his own virtually created world of Art. There are lengthy discussions on Art and Aesthetics too, where Oscar Wilde is clearly trying to get to grips with a theory of his own, through the debating characters of Basil and Lord Henry.The book also features many witty aphorisms. In the first chapter alone we have these bon mots by Lord Henry,"there is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about and that is not being talked about""the one charm of marriage is that it makes a life of deception absolutely necessary for both parties""I can believe anything provided that it is quite incredible""a man cannot be too careful in the choice of his enemies" Lord Henry nearly always speaks in paradoxes, which is perhaps why people thought he was Oscar Wilde's depiction of himself. Interestingly, the reason for the humour in many of his aphorisms is that they are paraprosdokians, where the second part of the sentence is surprising or unexpected in a humorous way, making us reinterpret the first part.These early chapters with their streams of witty epigrams are very reminiscent of his plays. In fact it could almost be said that this would have made a better play than a novel. Lord Henry never misses a chance for a waspish, sharp, clever retort. The narrative in these conversations is very entertaining - it really sparkles in places. You may well feel that you have heard some of the epigrams before, in "The Importance of Being Earnest" for instance, and you would be right. Many of the most memorable lines from this, his only novel, ended up getting recycled in his plays.Then there is the moral compass, and a philosophical and spiritual discourse about the soul, and conscience. Much of this consists of debate between Lord Henry, Dorian and Basil, but feels to the reader very much as if Oscar Wilde is exploring and propounding his own views, trying to work towards and form his own thesis on ethics, spirituality, aesthetics, beauty and Art. These three distinct threads do not even touch on the area the book's reputation lies on, and that which film-makers want to point up - that of gothic horror. Of course, the story is irresistible. A young impressionable man sells his soul, goes from bad to worse, begins to grow corrupt and indulgent, turning into a voracious predator. (view spoiler)[He drives an innocent girl to suicide, taints the reputation of those around him, recklessly destroying lives without compunction, until he eventually murders his closest friend. Right until the final paragraph of the book, the contaminated, decaying painting is the reality, and the personal bodily appearance of Dorian is the illusion. (hide spoiler)]
What do You think about The Picture Of Dorian Gray (1998)?
Arguably literature's greatest study of shallowness, vanity, casual cruelty and hedonistic selfishness, Wilde lays it down here with ABSOLUTE PERFECTION!! This was my first experience in reading Oscar Wilde and the man’s gift for prose and dialogue is magical. This story read somewhat like a dark, corrupted Jane Austen in that the writing was snappy and pleasant on the ear, but the feeling it left you with was one of hopelessness and despair. The level of cynicism and societal disregard that Wilde’s characters display towards humanity is simply staggering. Despite the dark (or more likely because of it) this is one of the most engaging, compelling and lyrical pieces of literature I have read. The quality of the prose is nothing short masterful. I assume most people know the basic outline of the plot, but I will give you a few sentences on it. The three main characters are Basil Hallward, Lord Henry Wotton and Dorian Gray. Basil Hallward is an artist who after painting a picture of Dorian Gray becomes obsessed with him because of his beauty (the homosexual vs. art object love Basil feels towards Dorian are left vague, likely because of the time it was written). Dorian then meets a friend Basil’s, Lord Henry, and becomes enthralled with Lord Henry’s world view, which is a form of extreme hedonism that posits the only worthwhile life is one spent pursuing beauty and satisfaction for the senses. 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. Well at one point, Dorian utters the famous words quoted at the beginning of my review and the “Faustian” bargain is struck.While this story is often mentioned among the classics of the Horror genre (which I do have a problem with) this is much more a study of the human monster than it is some boogeyman. My favorite parts of the story were the extensive dialogues between the characters, usually Dorian and Lord Henry. They were wonderfully perverse and display a level of casual cruelty and vileness towards humanity that make it hard to breathe while reading. Oh, and Lord Henry reserves particular offense for the female of the species, to wit: My dear boy, no woman is a genius. Women are a decorative sex. They never have anything to say, but they say it charmingly. Women represent the triumph of matter over mind, just as men represent the triumph of mind over morals.. YES folks...he absolutely did. One of the most intriguing quotes I have seen from Oscar Wilde regarding this book is his comparison of himself to the three main characters. He said that he wrote the three main characters as reflections of himself. Wilde said, “Basil Hallward is what I think I am: Lord Henry is what the world thinks me: Dorian is what I would like to be—in other ages, perhaps.”I was somewhat floored by this as I found Dorian to be a truly stark representation of evil and could not see how Wilde could find an idealized form within the character. When I say evil, I don't mean just misguided or weak-minded, someone bamboozled by the clever lectures of Lord Henry. I found Gray to be selfish, vain, inhumanly callous and sadistically cruel. I intend to try and learn more about Wilde’s outlook on this character as it truly escapes me.Regardless, this is a towering piece of literature. Beautifully written and filled with memorable characters and a deeply moving story. A novel deserving of its status as a classic of English Literature. 5.0 stars. HIGHEST POSSIBLE RECOMMENDATION!!!!P.S. For of audiobooks. I listened to the audio version of this read by Michael Page who has become one of my favorite narrators. His performance here was amazing.
—Stephen
“What sort of life would his be if, day and night, shadows of his crime were to peer at him from silent corners, to mock him from secret places, to whisper in his ear as he sat at the feast, to wake him with icy fingers as he lay asleep!” Everyone Dorian Gray came into contact with, was disbarred from regular society, his or her life tarnished, his or her future vanished. Was Dorian Gray just one person, or the embodiment of something else? To cure the soul by means of the senses, and the senses by means of the soul.Those words rang in his ears and in mine, as I pondered their deeper context. Sometimes books leave memorable lines that you remember, and this is one. The picture of Dorian Gray is a larger-than-life portrait created by the artist, Basil Hallward, as an ode to the man Basil worships. Yet the moment he creates it, Basil senses his wrong. It is idolatry, he tells Dorian later, “you became to me the visible incarnation of the unseen ideal whose memory haunts us artists like an exquisite dream.” Ok seriously, this is when I’m wondering, but why? What is it about this character that has everyone so attracted to him, and I, the reader, can’t seem to get close enough to him in order to like him? I went through my checklist, does he exhibit: Charisma? No. Vulnerability? No. Intellectual stability? No. Sincerity? No. What then? The picture, changed or unchanged, would be to him the visible emblem of conscience. This is one of those books whose first scenes you have to read carefully, because it sets the thematic stage for everything that will transpire later. Just when you sense the unveiling of a love story, you get the unearthing of philosophical meanderings. Is this a gothic novel about a tortured protagonist, or the celebration of art through the magical realism of a painting? Or is this simply a manifesto of conscience and passion, two themes that seem emboldened in almost every chapter?When he met Dorian Gray, the character Basil said, “something seemed to tell me that I was on the verge of a terrible crisis in my life. I had a strange feeling fate had in store for me exquisite joys and exquisite sorrows.”This gave me pause to think, didn’t Wilde’s life also take a downturn turn once he met Douglas? Although, according to scholars, it is suspected that Dorian Gray was actually modeled after an artist named John Gray, a friend of Wilde. I hate that Oscar Wilde had to suffer for his art because of his lifestyle; for one to stand trial for one’s sexuality—how heartrending (although I will save my commentary until I read a biography or two because there is vague mention of his "gift-giving" to students and so forth…) When this book came out, there were concerns about homosexuality, so according to Wilde’s scholars, most of the scenes were edited. There are no blatant sexual scenes here, but what if there were--so what? Is this not why we have a choice between different genres, like erotica for instance? While there are a few subtleties between Gray, Basil, and Lord Henry, the most indicative scene is the one with Adrian Singleton, the man whose life has been ruined because of his relationship with Dorian Gray. In the end, Adrian spends his time in an opium bar, in a discarded section of town, where Dorian Gray runs into him and is immediately distraught when he sees Adrian, “memory, like a horrible malady, was eating his soul away…he wanted to be where no one would know who he was. He wanted to escape himself.” Perhaps loving a character takes a back seat to realizing the thematic undertones of this novel, for theme surpasses story here, But it appeared to Dorian Gray that the true nature of the senses had never been understood, and that they had remained savage and animal merely because the world had sought to starve them into submission or to kill them by pain, instead of aiming at making them elements of a new spirituality, of which a fine instinct for beauty was to be the dominant characteristic.Still, I wished that Lord Henry Wotton, Hallward’s friend and Dorian Gray’s companion and mentor, would just stop talking. Just as Lord Henry thinks he knows the world, he is so sure that he also knows women. For women are either worshipping men, (“women treat us just as humanity treats its gods. They worship us, and are always bothering us to do something for them”), or a man was to be “happy with any woman as long as he does not love her,” and so on. Lord Henry continued to fill the novel with blocks of dialogue that could have easily been expository narrative. The characters seemed to be sit-ins for themes, and even as I followed Dorian through the dungeon of his despair and was with him as he committed his violent crime, I felt as if I never did know him. Who was Dorian Gray, really? Even he didn’t know. Perhaps the answer really is in the painting. Sorry, Oscar, but I do believe James Joyce showcased a better portrait.
—Cheryl
إن كان لي أن أصنف هذه الرواية تحت أي فرع من فروع الأدب فسأصنفها كرواية رعب نعم، هي رواية رعب خالصة بما تثيره من أفكار ومخاوف ما رأيك يا دوريان في قول المسيح: ماذا يستفيد الإنسان لو خسر روحه وربح العالم أجمع؟ حينما قرأت الجملة السابقة تمثلت لي صورته بسيجاره الضخم بهيئته التي أراها ممسوخة، باستمتاعه بلعبه دور محام الشيطان ... لا أستطيع نزع الصورة من مخيلتي ... وأتذكر سيدة شابة أعرفها شخصيا -وإن لم تكن يوما ما صديقتي ولا أرتاح لها أبدا ولم أعد أقابلها منذ سنوات حمدا لله- استعانت به لتطليقها من زوجها -وكان ذلك من حوالي ست سنوات وهي تكبرني بسبع سنوات- ثم أقنعها بضرورة الإقتران به لينتزع لها إرثها المسلوب من أمها ... والغريب عدم استنكار أختها -وهي صلتي الوحيدة بالسيدة المذكورة - للفكرة إلا أنها أخيرا لم تفعل كيف يمكن أن يكون هناك شياطين من الإنس تحيا بيننا وتستطيع إقناع الناس بأشياء عجيبة؟ كيف؟ في الحالة السابقة أستطيع أن أقول بضمير مستريح أن سيماهم على وجوههم فصورة هذا الشخص لا تختلف عن هيئته الحقيقية ... أما الباقين ممن أراهم من شياطين الإنس حولنا فنعم، مهما أصابوا من الدنيا من حظوظ فسيماهم على وجوههم هم أيضا ... مهما انخدع بهم من انخدع من بشر فجرائمهم قد حفرت خطوطها على سحنتهم حتى لو برئوا بقوانيننا الأرضية البالية وثغراتها المختلفة وهذا من رحمة الله بنا أما دوريان جراي بطلنا فقد كتب عليه الشقاء مهما ظهر للناس العكس كلنا نخطئ ونذنب ونتوب حبا في الله أو خوفا من عقابه أو ربما يخاف البعض نظرة الناس له فيكف عن ارتكاب المعاصي، ولكن هل يمكن لمن يأمن شر انكشافه أن يعيش سعيدا إن وجد من يحمل عنه وزر آثامه حتى لو كان جمادا من الجمادات؟ينتشر على صفحة جريدة ما على موقع الفيسبوك خبر موثق بالصور لفنانات تم القبض عليهن على ذمة عدد من القضايا التي لا يعنيني كثيرا كونها حقيقية أو ملفقة ... وفي كل مرة أصادف الخبر أتمنى أن أمتلك سر صورة دوريان جراي لأرسل لكاتب ومعد الخبر وناشره ورئيس تحرير الجريدة صورا لهم تكون مرايا لأرواحهم أخاف أن أمتلك أنا نفسي مثل هذه الصورة وأتمنى أن يرضى الله عني ويصلح لي جميع أعمالي ويغفر لي ذنوبي علمت بها أم لم أعلم الرواية رائعة ومخيفة وكاشفة للنفس كتبها أوسكار وايلد بقلم لا يخلو من جنون العبقرية وأودع بها جزءا كبيرا من نفسهقام بكشف عيوب المجتمع الإنجليزي ونقده في كثير من المواضع، ولم يخف انبهاره ولو جزئيا بالثقافة الأمريكيةوللغرابة وفي نادرة من النوادر فأنا أود قراءة الرواية بلغتها الأصلية مرة ثانية وقراءة ترجمات أخرى لها فقد اكتشفت من تصفح اقتباسات الرواية أن كل ترجمة تأثرت بمترجمهانسخة هذا الكتاب حملت ترجمة أمينة غالبا وكاملة ولكن عابها كثرة الأخطاء المطبعية والإملائية وغياب الكتابة في نصف صفحة كاملة وإن لم تؤثر على فهم الفصل ولا سياق الحواررواية رائعة أنصح بقرائتها
—Yousra
