The Picture of Dorian Gray
Week 1
The Picture of Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde
The list of titles ahead being somewhat daunting, I fear that several of these volumes will defeat me, drive my brain to distraction with sixty page digressions on the miserable working conditions of miners in 19th Century English mining towns or devastatingly dull critiques on the minutiae of the idle aristocratic classes. I’m wrong of course, but I believe this to be why many of us shy away from The Classics. I intend to try and inject a little life into my accounts and perhaps bring a few of you along with me.
With this in mind I plumped to take the plunge with Oscar. The Picture of Dorian Gray presented, I hoped, a gentle start. I purchased my edition several years ago; a slim volume numbering a mere 250 pages. I placed it on a shelf fully intending to read it cover to cover within the week, then willfully ignored it for the next four years. And what a fool I was, the book is marvelous.
As a schoolboy my history teacher would recount a tale regarding Oscar Wilde’s father, Sir William Wilde, the eminent surgeon and antiquarian. Being a well known gentleman for the ladies, it was whispered amongst polite society, that so fecund was his virility one could not cast a stone over an orphanage wall in Dublin city without striking one of his illegitimate children.
The moral implications of stoning orphans aside, I rather liked that little story. I pictured an exceedingly stout and grand Victorian fellow, with mutton chop moustaches and a blustery manner, hurling rocks over the walls of orphanages on Merrion square, guffawing loudly as another tyke is sent to the infirmary. Then back to the gentlemans club for some roasted baby pheasant livers and brandy before rogering another dolly bird in the back of a hansom. Poor old Oscar, with a father figure like that who could blame him for playing for the other team.
My entire knowledge of Oscar’s father is summed up in this anecdote and I have no idea if he was a living embodiment of Harry Flashman or a doting and loving parent. Nevertheless, it is with such brief vignettes and thumbnail sketches that one forms a mental image of an author in ones mind. Oscar Wilde gives one great scope for grand mental images. Flamboyant, witty, debonair, brilliant, etc. It’s all true, Wilde was all those things and more. Hard as it is to believe in these cynical times, Oscar was the real deal. The Picture of Dorian Gray brings us closer to Oscar’s vision then perhaps any of his other work.
Sorry, that last bit was a bit arsey, so what was the book about?
The brutal synopsis: A repressed homosexual artist falls in love with a beautiful, repressed homosexual young man of his aquaintance. The artist represses his love for the young man and sublimates his unquenchable passion into the creation of a fabulous portrait of the object of his lust. Yet another repressed homosexual young aristocrat of his aquaintance observes the portrait and he too becomes entranced. Repressing his love for the young man he vows to corrupt, not the flower of his youth, but the content of his character.
Many of you are familiar with the conceit; so entranced is he by his own beauty Dorian Gray makes a faustian pact. He will stay forever young and beautiful and his portrait will age. But Wilde brings a darker aspect to Dorian’s naive and narcissistic declaration. For every sin he commits, every act of petty betrayal, every vice and moral corruption he indulges, the portrait grows a little uglier, a little more tainted with corruption whilst he, Dorian Gray, remains physically as fresh and youthful as a spring day.
Day by day, year by year, Dorian descends into a world of vice, corruption, decadence and finally murder, surrounded on all sides by the true scum of the earth, London high society. Gray is clearly a Victorian psychopath. Showing no remorse for his crimes beyond how simply dreadful they make him feel. He is a self absorbed, narcissistic, prick. Upon murdering his only true friend he blackmails another acquaintance, whom he has also ruined, to hack up the body and burn it in a furnace. The guy is a stone cold bastard.
There are suicides, fallen women, opium dens, repressed homosexuality (lots of it), muggings, shootings, stabbings, corpse dismemberment, not to mention a supernaturally ageless psychopathological protagonist with a penchant for opium and whores. What’s not to like? To top it all it’s real literature, laden with wit and Wilde’s awesome talent. The characters are exquisite monsters, the execution is perfection itself. Wilde let his demons loose within it’s pages and upon it’s publication the book scandalised polite society, which is what polite society is all about.
Go read it!
February 27th, 2007 at 4:42 am
Good one to start with…though I have to say I’m pretty shocked you made it through Maynooth without reading it, voluntarily or otherwise. Apart from delving deeply into it, as one does, for the MA, I was pretty sure it cropped up in the undergrad syllabus at some point too.
I’ve got a “slightly better than mediocre”(TM) dissertation on it too, if you ever want a relaxing break from something more stimulating, like watching paint dry…but I think “The guy is a stone cold bastard” is a pretty good capsule review.
For the next one, I dare ya to examine “the miserable working conditions of miners in 19th Century English mining towns”…I double dare ya. Though, in all fairness, Gaskell’s “North and South” is a lot better than it sounds. Leave the Russians till last, when you’re a broken shell of a man…that’s my plan, anyway, and I’ve still managed to avoid most of them, to my shame.
February 27th, 2007 at 3:00 pm
Welcome to the site man, thought you’d never arrive.
There are many things about me that would shock you Conor, such as my inability to pronounce the letter æ and my unerring sense of direction, North is that way >.
We don’t mention the “M” word around here, though I hope this experiment will go some way towards exorcising those demons, regrets and ‘bad thoughts’.
The next review will be Madame Bovary, followed by Robinson Crusoe. With those two under my belt I foolishly decided it was time for the Russians. I am about half and inch into War and Peace with another foot and a half to go.
February 27th, 2007 at 6:31 pm
Congratulations, Donal, on tackling the Russians up front. I did a thorough reading of everything I could get (in translation) a couple of years ago, and was quite thoroughly pleased at the process. There’s nothing like truly focusing in on the literature from a single culture (or group of cultures) to give you perspective on the peoples.
February 28th, 2007 at 3:10 pm
Hey ho, you’re working through the list quite quickly! C’mon now, ‘fess up, you’d had a few of those already read before your first post, right? That, and the TV has a solid layer of dust from non-use? Or perhaps work productivity is taking a hit?
February 28th, 2007 at 7:13 pm
I began the challenge on the first of January Cheryl, I didn’t get around to posting about it until February, as I was still a little leery of committing to the whole thing. Still, it’s done now so no going back.
March 1st, 2007 at 6:51 am
Just you wait. When you finish those, you’re not going to be able to dodge all of the suggestions for what to read next. Heh heh.