Reviews

"What of art?" she asked.

"It is a malady."

"Love?"

"An illusion."

"Religion?"

"The fashionable substitute for belief."

"You are a sceptic."

"Never! Scepticism is the beginning of faith."

"What are you?"

"To define is to limit."

anonymous8961's review against another edition

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5.0

4.75⭐
wow. i really loved it. it was my first philosophical classic literature book. took me long to complete it, and it was a bit boring and slow a couple times but apart from that it was amazing. the more i think about it, the more i like it. its certainly very thought provoking. this book is about beauty, youth, morality, good and evil, vanity, narcissism, hedonism, (bad) influence, self identity, conscience, guilt, shame, regret, temptation, and so much more. read the censored version, but i do plan to read the uncensored one sometime. i think this was a great book to step my toes into philosophical literature - which i'm sure i'll be reading more of very soon.

mitchell's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious reflective fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

bunny_herondale's review against another edition

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Bno ando leyendo a la vez la edición sin censura y la edición censurada para comparar

awebberly's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense medium-paced

5.0

anyavedantambe's review against another edition

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4.0

Very engaging book– both the plot and the writing style. The ending fit really well with the rest of the story, which I don't usually find. I loved Wilde's ornate writing, and most of the time his long descriptions of objects were interesting/funny rather than tedious. He had some really insightful lines, like:

"It is the confession, not the priest, that gives us absolution." (126)

I was a little confused about how much of the book was fantasy/ in a 'secondary world' vs in our primary world and governed by laws of nature. It seemed like the portrait was the only fantastical element of the story, and that one piece of magic felt a little out of place in its very realistic story backdrop. Also, it took me a while to finish the book because I wasn't super gripped by it at first. The more I read, though, the more gripped I became.

Would recommend overall!! I want to read more Oscar Wilde.

sweetrosegirl76's review against another edition

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slow-paced

Diverse cast of characters? No

3.75

3.5? Maybe I'll round? Bc there were some funny lines and some profound lines.I made quite a bit of highlights. I liked the plot and I like the premise, but because it was written in 18 whatever there were some parts that were really hard to read. It just felt like old english and it was too long winded, like where are we going with this. I was told it was queer coded and it kind of was in the beginning but not the rest of the book. I was told it was a horror and it definitely wasn't. I read a lot of it because of how it's written and because the audiobooks (I tried 2) suck and like I said I didn't hate it but some parts just felt unnecessary.

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