The Picture of Dorian Gray

I read this book last week, and I promised my brother that I would post some my thoughts on it. It wasn't the most enjoyable reading I have done recently.

I first started thinking about this book upon seeing the movie The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen in which Dorian Gray was a character. I had of course heard of the book before then, but didn't know anything about it. More recently a Dorian Gray character appeared in a book I enjoyed by Jasper Fforde, The Fourth Bear, which is literature based parody of the detective novel. In The Fourth Bear Dorian Gray is a used car salesman who sells our hero, Jack Spratt (a person of ambiguous reality), a car which never sustains any visible damage no matter how it is abused. A painting of the car shows damage instead. Jasper Fforde is an interesting fellow, and has a cool website at http://www.jasperfforde.com/.

Now for Dorian Gray:

The book reads like a play, which isn't surprising considering that all of Wilde's other works were plays. I don't know whether or not he wrote any poetry. It was a little unnerving, to me that Lord Henry sounded like Rupert Everett in The Importance of Being Earnest in my mind. The book was slow to get started because Wilde had to set up the relationship between three major characters, Basil Hayward, the artist, Lord Henry, the unrecognizedly malicious influence, and Dorian Gray, the beautiful foppish sap. I was relieved that the novel was short. I have little desire to discuss the homoerotic elements of the story that Wilde critics seem to be obsessed with. They are there, and they are obvious, enough said.

Dorian Gray is essentially a modern day Solomon, lacking Solomon's wisdom. He tries everything, denying himself no pleasure, and encourages others to try these pleasures with him. Fortunately or unfortunately for the reader, Dorian's activities are mostly hinted at. One murder, and his involvement in several suicides are obvious exceptions to this.

The part of the book that interested me most was the part in which Dorian blames all of his evil deeds on the artist who painted his portrait, rather than the man who encouraged his vanity and hedonism. He goes so far as to acquit Lord Henry of any blame, though Lord Henry is the one who feeds Dorian's imagination with his double talk and backtracking, as well as his choice of reading material. Lord Henry almost always claims the opposite of whatever good sense or morality would dictate. The artist is the one man in the story to attempts to speak the truth in love, and what does he get for it? Murdered, and the body disposed in ashes.

In this story, evil definitely begets evil, and even Dorian's late attempts at being good turn themselves to more evil ends.

There's some deep analysis to be done there, though I find that I'm not particularly interested in doing it. I don't understand the critics claims that The Picture of Dorian Gray is actually a aestheticists manifesto rather than a cautionary offering. It's a shame to remain at the level of summary, knowing as I do that too much summary is a criticism often aimed at undergraduate writing, and as a sometime graduate student I am supposed to do something better than that.

The long and short of it is, I was ultimately disappointed in the book. It didn't meet my expectations and will not find a place on my recommended reading list. The film adaptation of Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest, however, is great fun, especially since Colin Firth and Dame Judi Dench have leading roles.