The Picture of Dorian Grey Review
Genre📚
Fiction: gothic/philosphy
Quick Summary📝
An extraordinarily looking young man, Dorian Gray, enjoys a simple life of studying philosophy, attending social gatherings, and having his picture painted. That is until one day a stranger, Lord Henry, tells him a new perspective on life. This single little parasite of knowledge slowly rots Dorian’s character. He suddenly begins to commit all sorts of heinous acts, his picture gradually tarnishing like his soul.
Review🤔
Yeah this was a strange one. So on a technical level, its not all that well written; the actual “mystery” element of this novel is never truly resolved, the story suffers from numerous pacing issues, and it's just a bit disorganized with some of its ideas. And still, somehow in the mess of this story, there are sprinkles of genius everywhere.
In between some of the more or less typical dialogue, Wilde will just fling out a passage like this,
“There is no such thing as a good influence, Mr. Gray. All influence is immoral—immoral from the scientific point of view.”
“Why?”
“Because to influence a person is to give him one’s own soul. He does not think his natural thoughts, or burn with his natural passions. His virtues are not real to him. His sins, if there are such things as sins, are borrowed. He becomes an echo of someone else’s music, an actor of a part that has not been written for him. The aim of life is self-development. To realize one’s nature perfectly—that is what each of us is here for. People are afraid of themselves, nowadays. They have forgotten the highest of all duties, the duty that one owes to one’s self. Of course, they are charitable. They feed the hungry and clothe the beggar. But their own souls starve, and are naked. Courage has gone out of our race. Perhaps we never really had it. The terror of society, which is the basis of morals, the terror of God, which is the secret of religion—these are the two things that govern us. And yet—”
“Just turn your head a little more to the right, Dorian, like a good boy,” said the painter, deep in his work and conscious only that a look had come into the lad’s face that he had never seen there before.
“And yet,” continued Lord Henry, in his low, musical voice, and with that graceful wave of the hand that was always so characteristic of him, and that he had even in his Eton days, “I believe that if one man were to live out his life fully and completely, were to give form to every feeling, expression to every thought, reality to every dream—I believe that the world would gain such a fresh impulse of joy that we would forget all the maladies of medievalism, and return to the Hellenic ideal— to something finer, richer than the Hellenic ideal, it may be. 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 filled you with terror, day-dreams and sleeping dreams whose mere memory might stain your cheek with shame—”
“Stop!” faltered Dorian Gray, “stop! you bewilder me. I don’t know what to say. There is some answer to you, but I cannot find it. Don’t speak. Let me think. Or, rather, let me try not to think.”
Come on this is fantastic, and the book is littered with this stuff. The beautiful descriptions and literary devices all over the conversations that convey abstract concepts like relationships, love, and life. The rhythm and emotion Wilde incorporates into his dialogue is truly stunning.
The plot is actually pretty suspenseful too. There were quite a few moments where it went in a direction that I never saw it going, this definitely keeping the relatively simple narrative from getting bland. Specifically some of the twists in the middle to later part of the story, which reminded me of that childhood wonder in guessing where the author would take the narrative next. It’s essentially a case study on materialism and ego; slowly witnessing Dorian’s life turn for the worst after one stranger fills him with nonsense. And it's actually funny, because many times in this novel Lord Henry was so convincing. There were moments where it became obvious Dorian was very much in the wrong, but I could still almost agree with Lord Henry’s arguments justifying his actions. It's definitely a philosophical novel, forcing you to think deeply about morality, youth, beauty and how all these things affect one another.
And still, for every stroke of brilliance Wilde writes like the passage above, there are two to three other philosophical monologues that seemingly go on forever. And that's really my main complaint of the novel: it goes on for a bit too long. There were many moments when the story was heating up with a suspenseful new development, but right after I would have to sit through a few pages of Lord Henry spouting more nonsense. The organization was overall just pretty messy. For instance, the story begins with a 35 minute monologue from someone who is sporadically in the novel. I don’t know any modern day author that has the balls to write like this. And while I applaud Wilde for trying to structure the story in a unique way, it doesn’t always keep the narrative focused. This flaw is most glaring in the mystery involving Dorian’s painting from the beginning of the story. I genuinely believe it was one of the strongest subplots and more attention could have been dedicated to this fantasy element of the narrative. The focus is more directed toward the philosophical ideas, which were cool, but could have been shortened. I think I just wanted the book to be something it wasn’t, more of a fantasy mystery than a philosophical case study.
I would say that it’s definitely still worth reading for the bits that are genius though. And it is only 200 pages, so yeah, take a look if this sounds like your thing. I enjoyed it.
Who is this for? 🤷🤷♀️
People interested in dark stories.
Anyone who enjoys a narrative that is consistently unpredictable
Those who want to read “the classics”
Top 3 Quotes💬
“The reason I will not exhibit this picture is that I am afraid that I have shown in it the secret of my own soul."
"You are a wonderful creation. You know more than you think you know, just as you know less than you want to know."
“The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame.”
Reading Difficulty Level📊
Relatively simple to read and understand.
Book vs. Audiobook📖/🎧
The audiobook was fantastic. Tovey does a great job with the narration, and I didn’t have any difficulty at all following the story.
Final Score out of 10⭐️
7/10 - Would recommend to most readers, super cool ideas and concepts littered throughout the narrative.
