Blog Post #6: ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’ by Oscar Wilde

Hey!

For me, there’s something about tales which expose the inner-workings of us humans and emphasize that no matter how much we may try to dismiss our shortcomings, life’s vicissitudes probe for ways to display them for everyone to observe. Irish writer and poet Oscar Wilde fleshes this circumstance out with literary perfection beneath the cover of his only published novel, ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’.

A young, carefree dandy of Victorian London, Dorian Gray often sits for his friend painter Basil Hallward at his home studio. But when Dorian meets Basil’s overly cynical friend Lord Henry Wotton, he becomes preoccupied by life’s elementary realities and takes them excessively serious; the primary reality being that in one month’s time, Basil’s latest painting of him would be a full month younger than him. Petrified by the certainty of growing old, Dorian wishes the painting would age instead of himself. But not only does the passage of time mature his picture, each sinful act he commits also does so. Yet given he is both directly and indirectly responsible for the death of several people over the next eighteen years, a reader could only imagine why Dorian had to eventually store his picture behind both a curtain and bolted attic doors.

Somehow, I’ll find a way to restrain myself from writing further about his story (..and giving away more of the plot, sorry!), but this novel is my all-time favorite and, like several of my adored books, I venture through its pages at least once a year.

When you grab a chance, pick it up!

Phil