Thoughts on : The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

Posted by Kay on July 21, 2019 1:53 am in 4.5 stars reads | 8 comments

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
Genre : Classic
Stand alone

About the Book  :

Dorian Gray is a beautiful yet corrupt man. When he wishes that a perfect portrait of himself would bear the signs of ageing in his place, the picture becomes his hideous secret, as it follows Dorian’s own downward spiral into cruelty and depravity.

Enthralled by his own exquisite portrait, Dorian Gray exchanges his soul for eternal youth and beauty. Influenced by his friend Lord Henry Wotton, he is drawn into a corrupt double life; indulging his desires in secret while remaining a gentleman in the eyes of polite society. Only his portrait bears the traces of his decadence.

My Thoughts :

I don’t feel like I have anything new to say about this book – clearly, scholars well versed into classic literature have written about it which much more insight than I ever could – but I still wanted to write something down for my own records. And I have to say, I loved it.

Going into a classic I haven’t yet read once, there’s always a feeling of apprehension. I expect to read something amazing, which stood the test of time, so obviously expectations are high. Yet this book still managed to surpass them.

First, I absolutely loved the writing. Each page is filled with quotable prose, each word having been chosen carefully. It’s a short book, but it took me twice as long as it should have to read it because I kept going back and rereading passages, again and again and again.

The story is dark and slow, and there’s a subtlety to it I really appreciated. It’s not horror as we know it today, which was actually refreshing to me, but it still managed to make me feel deeply unsettled.

This book definitely feels like it came from an another time, another place (some of the comments regarding gender will definitely remind you that you’ve stepped back in time!), but it didn’t keep me from connecting to it. I was fascinated by its unlikable characters, loved every word and thought the story had a lot to offer too, still today. This is not only one of my best read this year, but now one of my favorite books.