Beauty Is a Form of Genius. | The Picture of Dorian Gray and Other Writings (Bantam Classics)

From Humor to Horror | The Picture of Dorian Gray and Other Writings (Bantam Classics) | Oscar Wilde

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	• The Picture of Dorian Gray and Other Writings (Bantam Classics) Oscar Wilde Bantam Classics, 1983 - 592 pages average customer review:based on 22 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

The picture ain't pretty...

I'm being made to read this book for the third time (once in high school, twice in college), but I've always rather detested it. I've been told I need to "appreciate" it, and to that effect I've been reading a number of reviews (both positive and negative) of this book, trying to get a grip on *why* it's so highly regarded. The basic story is this: Dorian (a pretty twentysomething without much personality) makes a tacit (implied, not stated) bargain with a painter: his portrait will grow old and sick while he remains young and beautiful, no matter what he does to himself. And he does *plenty* to himself. 230 pages later, he grows a conscience and tries to destroy the painting, bringing age/sickness on himself and thus dying, unpunished for his "sins." The Faust parallels are evident; unfortunately Dorian Gray is no Faust, and lord Henry (his "corrupter") is no Mephistopheles. The book is told as a series of banal witticisms and jests which sound good the first time you read them but get chewed up and spat out the second they're exposed to intelligent analysis. (Example from the preface: "All art is at once surface and symbol. Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril. Those who read the symbol do so at their peril. It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors. Diversity of opinion about a work of art shows that the work is new, complex and vital. When critics disagree the artist is in accord with himself. We can forgive a man for making a useful thing as long as he does not admire it. The only excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it intensely. All art is quite useless.")

Synthesizing all the reviews, I get the sense that people who *really* like it--the "witty" verbiage, the Faust-lite storyline, and the moral heavy-handedness--like it because it shields them from the knowledge of their own inner emptiness. That sounds harsh; let me explain further. Since everything is stylized, pre-determined, and "fake," there's no danger of self-discovery--no danger of discovering anything true. Oscar Wilde was deeply alienated against his own self (most homosexuals living at that time and in that society were), and so is not capable of feeling honestly, or expressing himself with any sincerity. Human nature (in the wider, not baser, sense) is "reduced"--that's the only word I can think of to describe it. Words are everything; appearances; everything. But words are empty sounds without the meanings attached to them (anyone who knows more than one language knows *that*), and appearances are superficial and deceiving, to trot out that old cliche. Human beings do not exist merely to think up verbal ripostes to personal attacks, and yet, here, this is all they do. Well, that and "sin." But what a "sin" is is never really defined, and Dorian Gray doesn't really "sin" much (he seduces a girl, dumps her, and there's some implied homosexuality---*yawn*).

"Dorian" is a morality tale, like the story of Jesus. It is something to tell children with no imagination, to warn them of the dangers of societal rejection--the dangers of being "different." In a subtle way, it encourages conformity--and it *definitely* encourages repression. It is false to me in so many ways that I can hardly stomach it.

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Beauty Is a Form of Genius.

Oscar Wilde was one of the foremost representatives of Aestheticism, a movement based on the notion that art exists for no other purpose than its existence itself ("l'art pour l'art"), not for the purpose of social and moral enlightenment. Born in Dublin and a graduate of Oxford's Magdalen College, he initially worked primarily as a journalist, editor and lecturer, but gradually turned to writing and produced his most acclaimed works in the six-year span from 1890 to 1895, roughly coinciding with the period of his romantic involvement with Lord Alfred "Bosie" Douglas, sixteen years his junior. Douglas's strained relationship with his father, John Sholto Douglas, Marquees of Queensberry, eventually resulted in a series of confrontations between Wilde and the Marquees, which first led to a libel suit brought by Wilde against his lover's father (who had openly accused Wilde of "posing as a sodomite" and threatened to disown his son if he didn't give up his acquaintance with the writer) and subsequently to two criminal trials against Wilde for "gross indecencies," based on a law generally interpreted to prohibit homosexual relationships. Sentenced to a two-year term of "hard labor" in Reading Gaol, Wilde emerged from prison in 1897 a spiritually, physically and financially broken man and, unable to continue living in England or Ireland, after three years' wanderings throughout Europe died in 1900 of cerebral meningitis, barely 46 years old.

"The Picture of Dorian Gray," Wilde's only novel besides seven plays as well as several works of short fiction, poetry, nonfiction and two fairy tale collections originally written for his two sons, is critical to an understanding of Wilde's body of work and his personality primarily for two reasons: First, because it constitutes one of his earliest fully accomplished formulations of Aestheticism, and secondly because of its undeniable undercurrent of homoeroticism; an inclination which, after a six-year marriage widely thought to initially have been a true love match, Wilde had begun to explore more openly around the time of the novel's creation (1890). The story's title character is an exceptionally handsome young man who, both in the eyes of the artist tasked to paint his portrait, Basil Hallward, and in those of their somewhat older friend Lord Henry Wotton, epitomizes perfect beauty and is coveted by both men for that very reason. Seduced by hedonistic Lord Henry into believing that beauty can literally justify anything, including any act of immorality, Dorian sells his soul for maintaining his beautiful appearance, letting his portrait age in his stead. (In that, his character resembles Goethe's and Marlowe's Faust.) He then quickly turns from an innocent youth into a cruel and calculating man whom society, in its shallow adherence to appearances, nonetheless never associates with any of the results of his cruelty, never looking beyond the surface of his handsome exterior and assuming that a man so beautiful must necessarily also be good. Ultimately it is Dorian himself who brings about his own downfall when he is no longer able to face the manifestation of his evilness in Basil Hallward's picture.

Upon its initial publication in Lippincott's Monthly Magazine in 1890, "The Picture of Dorian Gray" was widely scorned as immoral by a public neither familiar with nor particularly open to the concepts of Aestheticism and its mockery of middle class morality, and repulsed by the thinly veiled homoerotic relationship of the novel's protagonists. Wilde republished the work the following year, adding a preface designed to explain his views on art. Yet, it was that preface which, along with several of his other publications and his written exchanges with Lord Alfred Douglas, ultimately would play a devastating role in his trials, where Queensberry's attorney would come to use an excerpt from that very preface - "There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written" - to extract from Wilde statements to the effect that any book inspiring a sense of beauty (including, as implied in the attorney's question, an "immoral" book, if "The Picture of Dorian Gray" could be qualified as such) was well-written and therefore commendable; that only Philistines, brutes and illiterates - whose views on art he considered invariably stupid and for which he therefore didn't "care twopence" - could consider this novel "perverted," and that the majority of the reading public would probably not be able to draw a proper distinction between a good and a bad book. It was testimony such as this, as well as the impending confrontation with a number of male witnesses ready to testify as to the nature of their relationship with Wilde, that not only caused the author's attorney to convince his client to drop the libel suit against Queensberry but also opened the door for Wilde's own subsequent prosecution.

If "The Picture of Dorian Gray" has a central theme besides the supremacy of beauty and the depiction of a society primarily interested in appearances, it is a call for individuality: Dorian's cruelty is brought out only after he allows himself to be influenced by Lord Henry's equally seductive and cynical hedonism; and similarly, Basil Hallward's blind idolizing of Dorian eventually proves fatal for the painter. - Wilde's only novel is one of the first and most poignant expressions of his own individualism; but unlike his protagonist, who ultimately pays a ghastly prize for selling his soul and giving up his individuality, Wilde paid as high a price for maintaining his. Like Dorian, he knew that "[e]ach of us has Heaven and Hell in him," and although this novel's preface ends with the provocative statement that "[a]ll art is quite useless," it was the very fact that Wilde put his entire being into his art that ultimately destroyed him. But like beauty, which is finally restored to perfection in Dorian Gray's portrait, Wilde's works have stood the test of time; and not merely for their countless, pricelessly witty epigrams. They're as well worth a read as ever.

Also recommended:
Complete Works of Oscar Wilde (Collins Classics)
Oscar Wilde
Wilde (Special Edition)
The Oscar Wilde Collection
The Picture of Dorian Gray
The Importance of Being Earnest - Criterion Collection
The Importance of Being Earnest
An Ideal Husband
A Good Woman

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From Humor to Horror

Part humorous fable, part mystery, part gothic suspense, "The Picture of Dorian Gray" is another example of the late 1800s fascination with the soul, the senses, and science.

Dorian Gray is a mere teen when the story begins, the muse of a local gifted artist, who paints Dorian's portrait in hopes of capturing his youth and beauty. Dorian's charm is also appreciated by Lord Henry, a rascally fellow, able to twist phrases and morals with his sly tongue. His winsome ways captivate Dorian, but Dorian soon finds himself pulled in the direction of a beautiful actress as well. These two loves tear Dorian in different directions, resulting in unexpected turns of events that send him down a road of sin and pleasure, though never with the rewards of true happiness. As his actions lead to even more drastic results, he finds himself fearing every shadow and questioning his own sanity.

These events do not occur in a vacuum. With Dorian's sliding moral state, the portrait of his beauty begins reflecting the dark decay in his soul. Even as his own face refuses to age or show corruption, the painting becomes uglier by the day. Dorian is both fascinated and appalled by this. When, at last, he faces the consequences of his own selfish choices, he makes one final decision to try to destroy the evidence.

I laughed aloud at many parts, particularly early in the book, then found the tone growing eerie and black. What a thought-provoking book! And one that kept my attention throughout. This is no glossed-over portrait of Mr. Gray, but a grisly depiction of evil--even when it masquerades in a cloak of civility.

Oscar Wilde joined other writers of his day--H.G. Wells, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Joseph Conrad--in wrestling with concepts of the soul and the senses in the light of scientific discoveries. What about the conscience? Where did theology and psychology fit in? What about free will? In the last few pages, Wilde paints his own sobering portrait of a man who has tried to live as though the soul and senses have no effect on each other.

This now ranks as one of my favorite classic novels. The results of Dorian Gray's experiment serve as a mirror for all those who consider themselves holy, heathen, or hypocrite.

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great book, minor flaws

First off, for the audience looking to read this book after viewing the character from the movie LXG, know that the characteristics of Dorian are no as they were in the movie. Dorian does not die when he looks at his portrait; in fact his observation of the changes in his picture is one of the main elements of the story. Basil, an artist that is obsessed with the beauty of one man, Dorian, paints a portrait so beautiful that the subject is pained by the fact that the portrait's beauty will outlast that of his mortal body, and he wishes that this formula could be reversed, with the portrait aging in his place. He gets his wish, but at what price? Dorian, now free from the bounds of mortality, is no longer afraid to sin, since there he thinks that nothing can happen to him. But his behavior was not all due to his immortality; it was also due to the fact that the negative influence from Lord Henry corrupted his pure soul. The fact that he was able to keep his beauty but not able to keep his soul shows that judgment based on appearance is not only wrong, but inaccurate. This book is recommended, but not to the highest extent. The story picks up quickly, as it must with such a limited amount of pages. One of the only flaws in this book is chapter 11, the long, unwanted pause. A classic nonetheless, one that should no be overlooked.

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Flamboyant and controversial, Oscar Wilde was a dazzling personality, a master of wit, and a dramatic genius whose sparkling comedies contain some of the most brilliant dialogue ever written for the English stage. Here in one volume are his immensely popular novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray; his last literary work, ?The Ballad of Reading Gaol,? a product of his own prison experience; and four complete plays: Lady Windermere?s Fan, his first dramatic success, An Ideal Husband, which pokes fun at conventional morality, The Importance of Being Earnest, his finest comedy, and Salomé, a portrait of uncontrollable love originally written in French and faithfully translated by Richard Ellmann.

Every selection appears in its entirety?a marvelous collection of outstanding works by the incomparable Oscar Wilde, who?s been aptly called ?a lord of language? by Max Beerbohm.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

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