Day Seventy-Eight

6/18

The Book: The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

ISBN: 1-59308-025-5

Suggested By: Brenda Mora

Where: Home

When: 6:30-7P

Music: Sea Change By Beck

Company: Alone

Pages: 1-55 (55)

The Lead In: Much is made of Oscar Wilde and his penchant for the “out-there.” I’m excited to read this work and see what all the fuss is about. Reading the back of the book makes it seem a bit horror fiction, but I did not get the impression that was his style.

The 411 on the 55: The namesake of the book, Dorian Gray, is introduced to us by a painter, Basil. Basil and his friend, Lord Henry, are discussing Basil’s work. His paintings are apparently all the rage, but Basil is resistant to showing his most recent masterpiece because he is enamored with his subject, Dorian. Finally, he introduces Dorian to Henry, but only after telling him to not corrupt Dorian.

Lord Henry, of course, spits out a long idea about the worth of beauty and youth which instantly changes Dorian’s disposition and view of life, which pisses of Basil to no end. Dorian begins to shun Basil and becomes the lap dog to Lord Henry, eating up all he says and thinks.

Line of the Day: “She was a curious woman, whose dresses always looked as if hey had been designed in a rage and put on in a tempest.” pg 49

The Fact on the Fiction: The description of this book reminded me a bit of Marlowe’s play, Faustus. Wikipedia agrees. “Wilde himself stated that ‘in every first novel the hero is the author as Christ or Faust.’ As in Faust, a temptation is placed before the lead character Dorian, the potential for ageless beauty; Dorian indulges in this temptation. In both stories, the lead character entices a beautiful woman to love them and kills not only her, but also that woman's brother, who seeks revenge. Wilde went on to say that the notion behind The Picture of Dorian Gray is ‘old in the history of literature’ but was something to which he had "given a new form." Wikipedia