Reviews tagging 'Violence'

El retrato de Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

141 reviews

blau_elmo's review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

The question remains: was Dorian Gray always bound to go down the road of depravity, or was it purely because of Lord Henry's influence? The artist's desire to keep him pristine and untainted - was that realistic or reasonable, or was it just out of his infatuation?

When
Dorian dies after destroying the portrait out of disgust at his twisted character and he just ends up perishing
, I don't know how I was still legitimately surprised at the turn of events, but the ending really caught me off guard. But it is a very deserved ending for our titular character and his sinister debasement.

Is Lord Henry's hedonism a reasonable way to conduct ourselves? Clearly, the answer is no. Thank you Wilde, for this inspection of sin.
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mirandaleighhhh's review against another edition

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dark 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

3.0

This was a solid, readable classic. I tend not to like philosophical droning, but there was enough plot to balance it. My only understanding of Oscar Wilde came from quotes on Forever 21 t-shirts circa 2016, and I hadn't realized how interesting he was or how he was persecuted for his identity. I didn't care for the way he wrote about women, it icked me out, but I could get through it since it wasn't the main purpose of the book and, honestly, because it was all very gay. 
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macliffe's review against another edition

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dark tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

I have been wanting to read this book for so long and it did not disappoint! Fully lived up to the hype. 
I was hesitant because I’m not a horror reader, but this book did a good job of being gothic without having unnecessary gore or uncomfortable scenes. 
The characters were so well done, especially Dorian.
I love how the message of the book is stated subtly at the beginning with Lord Henry saying the world needed a “new hedonism”. Then the plot gives Dorian that new hedonism, but he comes to realize that it doesn’t satisfy and only leaves him miserable. 
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eloiseyoung's review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

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lydsquids's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

I’ve never read a book about characters that I disliked so much and still enjoyed. I found this book fascinating as a character study. There is a part in the middle that lags way more then it should but other then that I can see how the book is still very popular in modern times- the Dorian Grey of today would have a much bigger following.
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queeniecraft's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense slow-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

4.0

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eve_kadou's review against another edition

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dark funny mysterious medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? N/A
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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kananineko's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

I loved this! Great classic. Probably one of the most digestible bc of its relatively short length. My only complaint would be that some sections dragged in the middle to me (all the super long descriptions of what Dorian was learning)
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seapotatohowisitalrtaken's review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective sad slow-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

4.0

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thequeercaseofmarius's review against another edition

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dark mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

Dark, bewitching, and so very gay. 

‘Why is your friendship so fateful to young men?’ 

In The Picture of Dorian Gray; Oscar Wilde crafts a narrative of Queer love, desire, vanity, and fear, embodied in a twink who wishes to remain young and beautiful forever. Wilde’s only novel is one that is both frighteningly fantastical, but also harrowingly personal. In Dorian we see the picture of the dark version of ourselves; the Hyde to our Jekyll, and it is his ability to transform with each reader that makes The Picture of Dorian Gray so enduring as a staple of Queer Literature, and one of the bestselling titles in Penguin’s Classics series.

Wilde’s writing and descriptions are breathtakingly beautiful, so much so that I would find myself rereading the same sentences over and over again. Wilde’s genius and intellect is also evident in the text, and his use of Queercoding through historical and art references is very clever.

Our main cast of characters are so very gay, and it’s crazy because it’s almost like Wilde met my gay friends and acquaintances and wrote a book about us (I like to think that I am Basil). But I also see each character as a different side to the Queer experience; Basil being the Queer artist who represents the beauty and tenderness of love between men, Lord Henry as the witty sass Queen that gay men are often viewed as from the outside, and Dorian represents Queer fears and anxieties that most of us have experienced some point in our life. The result is one of the most ingenious Queer horror stories ever written. 

The Picture of Dorian Gray should be a (not-so) straight five-stars, however it does contain some racism and anti-semitism that I can’t ignore. It is a book of it’s time, but I’m also aware of writers and people from Wilde’s time who tried their best at not being racist. I think it’s important to appreciate this novel for everything good about it, but also to recognise it’s faults rather than excuse them, so that we as the readers can grow as people. 

‘Each man sees his own sin in Dorian Gray. What Dorian Gray’s sins are no one knows. He who finds them has brought them.’

-Oscar Wilde 
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