The Picture of Dorian Gray

I was surprised how much I enjoyed this book. As much as I love reading, the stigma around classic literature being erudite, snobbish, and boring has a deeper hold on me than I'd like to realize. Plus, my introduction to the character Dorian Gray was through "The League of Extraordinary Gentleman". It wasn't what I expected.

First off, the book was chock full of quotables. Things that made you stop and think, put the book down, take a second to debate the validity. For instance:

"Being natural is simply a pose, and the most irritating pose I know" (Wilde 7*)

How is Oscar defining "natural"? Is he saying that natural is the social standard/expectation and that it is actually far from a default state of being? Or is he saying that "natural" is impossible b/c humans are just representations of their surroundings and that trying to assert an identity of one's own is just too troublesome to be pursued (that may sound bleak and cynical, but that's Lord Henry/Oscar Wilde for you).

Good stuff, right?

The intro, written by some professor at Cambridge I think, says that Oscar was part of the aesthetic movement of literature. Aestheticism, according to a quick Wiki browse, was a movement that glorified beauty above all things. This term fits the book perfectly in the sense that both the topics covered in the book and the actual writing (syntax and such) of the book all dwell on beauty.

The words are so beautiful, but you see him portray contradicting ideas with the same magnificent prose style, forcing you to question the sincerity of everything he writes. But then again, if art is meant to be beautiful and art is simply "for art's sake" (the aesthetic mantra) then the only real contradicting idea in the book is beauty vs. ugliness.

Either way, Oscar Wilde is a master at what he does, and if you're looking for a thought-provoking, entertaining book, I highly recommend The Picture of Dorian Gray.

Couple Quotes:
"I like persons better than principles, and I like persons with no principles better than anything else in the world." (p. 11)

"Is insincerity such a terrible thing? I think not. It is merely a method by which we can multiply our personalities." (p. 146)

"No theory of life seemed to him to be of any importance compared with life itself. "
(p. 136)

The entire preface...man, this is a cool book.

*all the page references are not an attempt to cite sources. I just wanna know what page if ever I try to go back and look them up.