| The Picture of Dorian Gray (Penguin Classics)
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Amazon.com Review
The wish spoken by Dorian Gray as he looks at his portrait forms the basis of the plot of this story of a gilded and spoilt hedonist who is willing to sell his soul for his beauty.A lush, cautionary tale of a life of vileness and deception or a loving portrait of the aesthetic impulse run rampant? Why not both? After Basil Hallward paints a beautiful, young man's portrait, his subject's frivolous wish that the picture change and he remain the same comes true. Dorian Gray's picture grows aged and corrupt while he continues to appear fresh and innocent. After he kills a young woman, "as surely as if I had cut her little throat with a knife," Dorian Gray is surprised to find no difference in his vision or surroundings. "The roses are not less lovely for all that. The birds sing just as happily in my garden."
As Hallward tries to make sense of his creation, his epigram-happy friend Lord Henry Wotton encourages Dorian in his sensual quest with any number of Wildean paradoxes, including the delightful "When we are happy we are always good, but when we are good we are not always happy." But despite its many languorous pleasures, The Picture of Dorian Gray is an imperfect work. Compared to the two (voyeuristic) older men, Dorian is a bore, and his search for ever new sensations far less fun than the novel's drawing-room discussions. Even more oddly, the moral message of the novel contradicts many of Wilde's supposed aims, not least "no artist has ethical sympathies. An ethical sympathy in an artist is an unpardonable mannerism of style." Nonetheless, the glamour boy gets his just deserts. And Wilde, defending Dorian Gray, had it both ways: "All excess, as well as all renunciation, brings its own punishment."
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- ISBN13: 9780141442464- Condition: New
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By Paulo Maia-Lopes
A collection of some of Oscar Wilde's best texts, in careful edition, printed in comfortable size to read. Excellent foreword by professor Gerald Weales, of the University of Pennsylvania.
By Lawrence Wegeman, Jr. (Sunrise Beach, TX,)
There's not much I can say, except that it's a worthwhile read, a classic--read it. I saw the movie about forty years ago and can honestly say the book is better.
By Teddy
Dorian Gray: charming, innocent, youthful, and beautiful. So beautiful, in fact, that only the best artists can capture his charisma and perfection in a painting. When Dorian looks into the eyes of a portrait of himself, he is overcome with jealousy. Jealousy of the eternal youth and beauty of the masterpiece; youth and beauty which will one day vanish from Dorian Gray's perfect face.
It is at this moment that Dorian makes a wish to stay beautiful forever, while the painting ages in his stead. However, his youth corrupts him, a corruption which can be seen on the face of his painting. Beauty, which was once Dorian's greatest attribute, may become Dorian's greatest flaw.
Oscar Wilde wonderfully paints the story of The Picture of Dorian Gray. His simple language and sentence structures makes the story easy to read and follow, yet adds a certain level of depth to the plot. The character of Dorian Gray instantly captures the attention of the reader, and Dorian's development throughout the story provides a deeper significance to the novel.
The Picture of Dorian Gray is a timeless classic, relating the tale of a young man whose wish to be forever young becomes the greatest mistake he has made in his eternal life.
By Sergio H. Nigri (Rio de Janeiro)
This book is simply amazing. It is the first one that I read from Oscar Wilde and I have to admit I was amazed by how good he was in choosing the right words to form sentences. Dorian Gray is an amazing character and I think that it appeals to everyone in a certain way. It is a must-read.
By David Wolf (U.S.)
This novel is one of the best classics available. It is more entertaining for its controversy value than for anything else. Lord Henry Wotton is probably the most engaging character in the entire novel, and one gets the impression he is the mouthpiece of Oscar Wilde himself. For the rest of this review, it will probably be enough to suggest you read it if you haven't, and include some quotes from Lord Henry:
There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.
A man cannot be too careful in the choice of his enemies.
Those who are faithful know only the trivial side of love; it is the faithless who know love's tragedies.
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.
You are a wonderful creation. You know more than you think you know, just as you know less than you want to know.
It is only shallow people who do not judge by appearances. The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible.
Young men want to be faithful, and are not; old men want to be faithless, and cannot.
I always like to know everything about my new friends, and nothing about my old ones.
She behaves as if she was beautiful. Most American women do. It is the secret of their charm.
I can sympathize with everything, except suffering.
Humanity takes itself too seriously. It is the world's original sin. If the cave-man had known how to laugh, History would have been different.
"Can you remember any great error that you committed in your early days, Duchess?" he asked, looking at her across the table.
"A great many, I fear," she cried. "Then commit them over again," he said gravely. "To get back one's youth,
one has merely to repeat one's follies."
Nowadays most people die of a sort of creeping common sense, and discover when it is too late that the only things one never regrets are one's mistakes.
Punctuality is the thief of time.
Nowadays people know the price of everything and the value of nothing.
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.
Men marry because they are tired; women, because they are curious: both are disappointed.
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 confession of failure.
You will always be fond of me. I represent to you all the sins you never had the courage to commit.
Women love us for our defects. If we have enough of them, they will forgive us everything, even our intellects.
A man can be happy with any woman, as long as he does not love her.
It is perfectly monstrous the way people go about nowadays saying things against one behind one's back that are absolutely and entirely true.
Each time that one loves is the only time one has ever loved.
To be popular one must be a mediocrity.
It is better to be beautiful than to be good. But it is better to be good than to be ugly.
A woman will flirt with anybody in the world as long as other people are looking on.
Anybody can be good in the country.
To get back my youth I would do anything in the world, except take exercise, get up early, or be respectable.
The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame.
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