The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

“The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame.”

 There is one good part in riding out a hurricane, and that is that it gives one plenty of time to indulge in one's hobbies. I live in Florida, but not in an evacuation zone. I've bought my supplies, kept abreast of the weather developments, and tried my best to avoid the general hysteria sweeping through my segment of the world right now. There's not much left to do except read. What better way to escape the doom and gloom of a dire forecast than to get lost in a classic Victorian tale of hedonism and debauchery?

The Picture of Dorian Gray begins with two friends, the mild-mannered Basil Hallward and the cynical Lord Henry Wotton, enjoying a beautiful day in Basil's art studio. Basil is working on a portrait of a young man named Dorian Gray, who he claims has become the main inspiration behind all of his art. As they trade quips back and forth about life, pleasure, and morals, Dorian himself arrives for his final sitting.  

Lord Henry is immediately drawn to Dorian, and the two strike up an easy friendship. After Dorian poses for a little while, the two take a stroll in the garden while Basil finishes off the portrait. During their walk, Henry makes several comments on the fleeting pleasures of youth and beauty. Dorian is both fascinated and disturbed by this conversation. He becomes fearful of losing his own youth and good looks. When he returns to the studio to view the finished portrait of himself, which everyone considers to be a true masterpiece, he makes an impulsive wish inside his head. He wishes that instead of growing old himself, the portrait of him might grow old instead. That way, he can enjoy his youth and beauty forever while the portrait suffers the ravishes of age and decay.

He doesn't think much of his wish afterwards, and he takes the portrait home and hangs it in one of his well-appointed, fashionable rooms. His life goes on from there, and his friendship with Lord Henry deepens. He is continually influenced by Henry's sardonic sense of humor and his relationship with the less exciting Basil begins to weaken. In time, he becomes the toast of society and falls in love with a beautiful young actress. He makes plans to marry her, but cruelly breaks the engagement off after she acts poorly in a production of Romeo and Juliet. Brokenhearted, the actress commits suicide.

After this incident, Dorian notices a curious thing. His portrait has changed. There are some lines around the mouth that weren't there before, and his expression in the painting has turned cruel. He soon realizes that his wish to remain ageless while his portrait grows older has come true. In addition to absorbing the physical changes of aging, the portrait also seems to absorb the damage he does to his soul through immoral behavior. He locks the picture away so that no one else can notice the changes.

Freed from his fears of growing old and becoming ugly, Dorian sets out to experience everything pleasurable in life, no matter how unsavory. Lord Henry's cynical influence inadvertently aids him in this quest, and as the years go by, Dorian commits several illegal and hedonistic acts. He ruins the lives of many others during this spree, and begins to develop a bad reputation among some of his former friends. All the while, he remains the very picture of youth physically. His portrait, which he regularly views with lurid fascination, becomes hideous and twisted. After Dorian commits a particularly heinous act, what remains of his conscience begins to plague him. He curses his reckless wish and swears to try and turn his life around. However, by the time he makes this resolution, it is too late, and his scattered emotions begin leading him down a path to ruin. 

There was a lot to like in The Picture of Dorian Gray, but there were also some elements of the story that irked me. On the positive side, Oscar Wilde's prose is masterful. No one can turn a phrase like he can. His witty retorts, outrageous views, and clever comments fill the pages with quotable moments. At times, the conversations between the characters were so well-timed and smart that it felt like too much. One gets a true vision of what having a discussion with Wilde, who was a celebrated conversationalist, would actually be like in this novel. While the subject matter gets very dark at times, the scenes where Dorian and Lord Henry socialize are always an interesting mix of funny and scandalous.

Another element of the story I enjoyed was the creepy atmosphere. In the portions of the story where Dorian is behaving badly, a delicious sense of darkness pervades. At times, I was reminded of another classic horror story of the Victorian era, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. There's just something about evil characters creeping about during this formal and proper time period that lends an extra layer of foreboding and suspense to stories. The ending of the novel maintained this mood very well and was suitably disturbing, I liked it very much.

However, this dark atmosphere that I found so intriguing was frequently broken up by long digressions. These interruptions were my biggest issue with the book. There were a handful of chapters that could have been entirely removed from the story without harming the plot at all. For example, one chapter exists solely to list several purchases that Dorian makes throughout the years. Precious stones, embroideries, musical instruments, and more are all described in painstaking detail over the course of several pages. In another chapter, Dorian becomes obsessed with a book that Henry loans him and more pages are spent explaining the plot of that story. I found myself quite bored during these sections, and was impatient to return to what was going on with Dorian. As the entire novel is only around 230 pages long, spending 25 pages here and there on this extraneous information significantly impacted how much I enjoyed the story.

I also struggled a bit to grasp the message behind the story. The upper class to which Dorian and Lord Henry belong is the subject of both criticism and adoration, so I didn't get the overall sense that Wilde was lampooning high society. After all, he did very well within that group in his real life. If anything, he was using this novel to gently poke some fun at it, but it didn't seem like a major focus of the story. The callous disregard that Lord Henry shows towards pretty much every subject is never punished, so I don't think his cynical views on marriage or morals were the focus either. If a real message exists in this novel, it must have to do with not placing too much importance on youth, beauty, or pleasure, but this point is muddied by the fact that Dorian is never really sorry for his actions. He's sorry he made the original wish, but only because it brought him into so much trouble. He doesn't really feel remorse for any of the bad things he does.

I know that it's very possible that Wilde didn't mean for there to be an overall message at all - he was a leader in the Aesthetic Movement, which emphasized enjoying art for art's sake and not looking for a moral element in works. Maybe this was simply meant to be a disturbing and scandalous story with some interesting ideas for the reader to ponder.

Ultimately, I did enjoy The Portrait of Dorian Gray, but the plot digressions  and somewhat unclear theme definitely took away from my reading experience. As a brief side note, I was also bothered by the depiction of women in the story, as they were the target of several extremely rude quips, but I can't fault a novel written in the 1890s too much for that. This is essentially required reading for any fan of the Victorian era, so I am glad that I read it. It isn't destined to become a favorite of mine, but I am glad that I visited.


Challenge Tally 

Classics Club Challenge (#59 on my list): 18/100

Popsugar Bonus Challenge (a book that takes place over a character's life span): 5/12 

TBR Challenge: (previously owned) 45/60

Total Books Read in 2017: 57