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A review by nataliestorozhenko
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
3.0
The craft and greatness of this book for its time is immeasurable. The idea of a portrait taking all of your sins, your evil, your age, and your experience instead of you is very interesting indeed.
There are a lot of progressive ideas that seemed incredulous for the peers of that time. And being a book created on the brink of centuries, it carries that «old versus new» conflict. But some of the thoughts didn’t age well.
It was somehow a little painful to listen to all of Lord Henry’s thoughts and the «progressive» challenges he threw at people. Even though he tried to break free from all the rights and wrongs defined by society, he still could not leave behind misogyny, sexism, classism, and a lot of other issues. Yes, the book depicts him kind of a villain who plays with the concept of influence and morality using real people’s lives. But he wasn’t the genius he wanted to seem. Just an insufferable bastard with a god complex. Although, it was a nice exercise to read his statements and answer in my head why I disagree.
I loathe Dorian Grey. He’s not too strong of a villain and quite a flat character. He was a clean slate to fall like a fool to such a terrible influence. I like morally grey characters and I enjoy exploring multiple complicated qualities that make them as such. But this… I don’t have even a drop of sympathy for this spineless man, and I didn’t see much dimension to his portrayal. So the ending was a relief.
The only characters I feel a little sympathy for are James Vane and Basil. However, it is hard to believe how Basil was so strongly enamored with just a pretty shell of a man.
I love classics, but this one went very slow for me. Whenever I picked it up, I read two chapters and let them marinate. The pace is languid. Some descriptions took much more space than needed and made me suffer through them to get to the next important point of the plot. And honestly, I was bored. As for Chapter 11, I thought it was killing me.
There are a lot of progressive ideas that seemed incredulous for the peers of that time. And being a book created on the brink of centuries, it carries that «old versus new» conflict. But some of the thoughts didn’t age well.
It was somehow a little painful to listen to all of Lord Henry’s thoughts and the «progressive» challenges he threw at people. Even though he tried to break free from all the rights and wrongs defined by society, he still could not leave behind misogyny, sexism, classism, and a lot of other issues. Yes, the book depicts him kind of a villain who plays with the concept of influence and morality using real people’s lives. But he wasn’t the genius he wanted to seem. Just an insufferable bastard with a god complex. Although, it was a nice exercise to read his statements and answer in my head why I disagree.
I loathe Dorian Grey. He’s not too strong of a villain and quite a flat character. He was a clean slate to fall like a fool to such a terrible influence. I like morally grey characters and I enjoy exploring multiple complicated qualities that make them as such. But this… I don’t have even a drop of sympathy for this spineless man, and I didn’t see much dimension to his portrayal. So the ending was a relief.
The only characters I feel a little sympathy for are James Vane and Basil. However, it is hard to believe how Basil was so strongly enamored with just a pretty shell of a man.
I love classics, but this one went very slow for me. Whenever I picked it up, I read two chapters and let them marinate. The pace is languid. Some descriptions took much more space than needed and made me suffer through them to get to the next important point of the plot. And honestly, I was bored. As for Chapter 11, I thought it was killing me.