The Picture of Dorian Gray (Penguin Clothbound Classics)

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How sad it is!" murmured Dorian Gray with his eyes still fixed upon his own portrait. "How sad it is! I shall grow old, and horrible, and dreadful. But this picture will remain always young. It will never be older than this particular day of June. . . . If it were only the other way! If it were I who was to be always young, and the picture that was to grow old! For that -- for that -- I would give everything! Yes, there is nothing in the whole world I would not give! I would give my soul for that!" He won’t like you the better for keeping your promises. He always breaks his own. I beg you not to go.” Dorian Gray laughed and shook his head. Even if we haven’t read the book everyone knows the plot. A painter paints a portrait of a beautiful young man. The portrait ages while he keeps his beauty. But the portrait also reflects his evil, not just aging, but turning eventually into a portrait of a devil.

This Penguin Classic is performed by Ben Barnes, star of the film adaptation of Dorian Gray, also known for his roles in Westworld and The Chronicles of Narnia. This definitive recording includes an Introduction by Robert Mighall.

I make a great difference between people. I choose my friends for their good looks, my acquaintances for their good characters, and my enemies for their good intellects. A man cannot be too careful in the choice of his enemies.” It begins with a simple realisation, and perhaps an obvious one. But, for Dorian it is completely life changing. He realises that beauty is finite. It won’t last forever. It’s like a flower, temporary and splendid. So if you’re a young man whose appearance is your singular quality, then this is some damn scary news. People only want to be with you because you’re attractive and charming; they want to be near you, and with you, for your looks only. On a painter’s reputation “…as soon as you have one, you seem to want to throw it away. It is silly of you, for there is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.”

Oscar Wilde drags us into the dark depths of the human soul, and once you get there you don’t want to return to the surface anymore. This is the first time I've read this classic book....but I've loved Oscar Wilde for as long as I can remember. Let’s start off by my confession. Most people won’t describe this book in these terms, but it’s my review, and this is my take…. Warning: You are now entering the gallery of “Spoilery Spoilers” and since this is one of my all-time faves I’ll probably end up writing an entire essay about it. If you prefer to stay innocent you better leave before my spoilers get to you and corrupt your soul! ;-PBut beauty, real beauty, ends where an intellectual expression begins. Intellect is in itself a mode of exaggeration, and destroys the harmony of any face. The moment one sits down to think, one becomes all nose, or all forehead, or something horrid. Look at the successful men in any of the learn professions. How perfectly hideous they are!

There is much to take away from this book. Themes exploring shallowness, selfishness, superficiality, hedonism, morality, and flaws of life and being human. Words! Mirror words! How terrible they were! How clear, and vivid, and cruel!… Mere words! Was there anything so real as words?” There is no such thing as a good influence, Mr. Gray. All influence is immoral-immoral from the scientific point of view." This is the cover of the audiobook I listened to which was published by Author's Republic and narrated by John Gonzalez.<--if you see this version, swerve to avoid! I don't want to be at the mercy of my emotions. I want to use them, to enjoy them, and to dominate them.”I mean, having to hide that you're in love with someone is awful no matter what the reason, but potentially getting tossed in the clink and having your life ruined because people think it's wrong is a whole other level of horrible. Re-reading this masterpiece and coming upon these highlighted lines was possibly more interesting than the book this time. Why had I highlighted these lines? Do they still mean the same thing to me, as they did when I first took note of them, enough to highlight them? I still love all of those lines. But no longer feel so strongly for them.

Possessing eternal youth and beauty produces exactly the same effect as sentencing a man to life without the possibility of parole. Both have nothing to lose and morals disappear before the desire for immediate self-gratification in all things. And so it is with Dorian Gray. It's a moral story so eventually his evil catches up with him and he dies, as does the criminal. Is Oscar Wilde saying that it is man's essential nature, to be so internally psychopathic and selfish that so long as he can keep his reputation he will wreak havoc on people's lives and not care in the process of enriching his own? For instance, if all the others would still age while one stays young. From a sociopathic or dark empath perspective, this wouldn´t seem that bad. One should probably camouflage oneself with makeup to seemingly age, to not let others get too suspicious regarding bathing in the blood of virgins that wasn´t extracted by harmless and consensual blood donations, selling one's soul to the devil, and sacrificing humans to the flying spaghetti monster or whatever one is into fetishizing to get kinky style aroused. Without proper aging style, this could lead toWhen I first read this book in the fruitless years of my youth I was excited, overwhelmed and a blank slate (as Dorian is, upon his first encounter with Lord Henry) easily molded, persuaded, influenced, etc. While sitting for the painting, Dorian listens to Lord Henry espousing his hedonistic world view, and begins to think that beauty is the only aspect of life worth pursuing. Tropes show how literature is conceptualized and created and which mixture of elements makes works and genres unique: