A review by swordsandsapphics
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

4.0

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

Yup. That quote right there is a pretty good line to describe this book.

I've had this book recommended to me so many times that it's not even funny. I finally caved recently and boy, should I have listened to them sooner. This book was super incredible -- Dorian, Basil, Lord Henry, and even Sibyl Vane were all fascinating characters, and some of the things that Dorian actually had the audacity to do later on just drove me speechless. I adore Wilde's prose, too. I wrote a little bit after reading this book, and I swear, his style rubbed off on me so much. But in a good way.

It's also good to read this book knowing the context behind it, mainly in relation to Wilde's homosexuality. If you don't know about that, I'd recommend looking into it while reading the book, because it gives you a whole new perspective. It becomes obvious that this was a deeply personal book for Wilde.

My one complaint was that sometimes the prose felt bloated, and stuffed with references to classical literature that didn't quite need to be there. Seriously, there was literally one whole page that had nothing but analogies relating to other literature. I just skimmed that section. But given the rest of the good about the book, I think it's relatively easy for me to overlook.

Super good book. Now I actually want to read more classics. Who would have thought?