The Uncensored Picture of Dorian Gray
Ratings874
Average rating4.1
How beautiful. First thing I read by Wilde other than some loose quotes but definitely will look for some other things written by him,
Quite possibly my favorite classic along with Gatsby. The themes and lesson of it is so rich that in ever era of my life I learn something new from it each time. I cannot understand why Victorian England hated this book but they were missing out and missing the point of the novel entirely.
Don't know why I like this book so much... it's awful, I hate Lord Henry...
Not difficult to see why this is considered a masterpiece. The way Wilde phrases his sentences often made me go back and re-read them because they're so richly textured and witty. Beautifully written with a compelling protagonist to boot.
I didn't really know anything about the plot when I started the book, and I'm glad I didn't.
I didn't even know it was a horror novel; all I knew was there was a portrait, and I had a vague sense there was a macabre feel to the story.
I highly enjoyed the book whilst despising the characters (in the best possible way), would recommend to anyone who likes stories about uppity victorian era English aristocrats, and those who don't mind disliking the main characters.
One of those classics with a moral lesson, you know how it's going to end and the journey keeps you excited throughout. The characters are very well written, I had strong feelings towards/against them. Makes for a great book club read.
This is my favorite book of all time.
So far, I haven't come across anything that tops this one. I remember reading it for the first time when I was 18 and feeling like I understood something deeper, like I could see right through human emotions and impulses in a much improved and precise way.
I just can't sum up this book in any way that will do it justice. The extents someone can go to retain that what is considered to be most precious. The nature of human desires. The essence of one's soul. How fickle can our wishes be sometimes.
I found this book to be so powerful and ahead of its time. I will for ever cherish it.
“Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming. This is a fault. Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are the cultivated. For these there is hope. They are the elect to whom beautiful things mean only Beauty. There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.”
this book makes me love philosophy
I really liked this book for the most part, it is a very easy read, the language is beautiful at parts and some of the twisted Henry's thoughts make sense sometimes, but well even if he is evil he is a very interesting conversationalist.
I wanna give a four because I feel like execution was lacking especially at the end, I feel like the resolution wasn't enough to cement the themes. The characters were also a bit dummy thic which maybe brings some frustration to me.
I think it shows that the author did not like realism and I do like realism so dhdnsjsjs lol. I do like the aesthetics, but it would be even better to me if they were combined with a more satisfying conclusion.
These characters were so gay, I guess I read the censored version, but it's so hard to believe that they did not start kissing each other or smh while talking the way they did.
I'd read the censored version a long time ago but hardly recall anything except for some of the main plot details. I felt it to be a great discussion of sorts on vanity through three very different characters. A very enjoyable read and one that I'd be revisiting in the future.
I finished this last night and contemplated giving it 4 stars, mostly due to some of the omitted information. Like, what did Dorian write on that piece of paper to Alan Campbell?
But then i spent hours thinking about it and I believe part of the genius of this work lies in exactly that - omitting the exact sins and letting the reader conjure them in their mind, which would make them uniquely horrible, as nothing can scare or disgust us more than our own imagination.
I loved reading this and I find the philosophical monologues by the author utterly fascinating.
Oscar Wilde's writing is as always exceptional and I am happy I finally got to enjoy it in English as well.
“Each man sees his own sin in Dorian Gray.” Oh how painfully true that quote was from Oscar Wilde. This book is a masterpiece. The whole book is full of marvelously written words.
pretty entertaining and easy to read, for a classic! i really wish we got to see more of those corrupt years, but oh well.
“You will always be fond of me. I represent to you all the sins you never had the courage to commit.”
I would consider this the Wal-Mart version of Edgar Allan Poe. Pretty good story but I would be better if I was alive when he wrote this book because a lot of the references I don't understand. Also the relationship between Dorian, Basil, and Henry had creepy homoeroctic undertones.
Summary: Dorian Gray, a very handsome young man of good social standing, befriends Basil Hallward, a painter, and Lord Henry, a charming society man with a corrupting influence. When Basil gives Dorian a portrait of himself, Dorian cannot imagine the secrets this portrait holds or the drastic turn it will cause his life to take.
oh god where to start. i can definitely say that the book was a lot better than the film. i felt the film more homoerotic, and more focusing on dorian's sins rather than dorian's madness. the book talks of beauty and we see a lot of concepts from harry. i think the homoeroticism is definitely still present in the book with the relationship of basil and dorian, and perhaps dorian and alan. basil worshipped him until his death. harry is a more complex character. when i say complex i mean he gets on my fucking nerves. team basil !!!!! the book is absolutely eerie and amazing to read as you sort of fall into this madness WITH dorian. you see how he is changed by harry's ideas, and how harry and basil are contrasted like angel and devil. basil pulls him to the surface whereas harry drowns him. eventually, dorian becomes overcome by the guilt of the murder, i suppose, among other things. he realises that eternal beauty and the boyishness of youth isn't something that he needed, anymore. this book focuses on vanity and how some, like dorian, take it for granted. it shows how one would do anything to stay looking youthful.
“I suffered immensely. Then it passed away. I cannot repeat an emotion. No one can , except sentimentalists.”
I always find it a little pointless to comment on anything considered a classic. Everything to be said has already been said.
But this novel has always stuck with me, even when i first read it years ago and didnt really understand the crux of it.
Sometimes i'm still unsure i do.
The detrimental effects of influence that one person can inflict on another is genuinely terrifying — how one person can entirely alter the makeup of another person just by exisiting and relaying themselves, even if the former doesn't entirely mean to do this.
I have this odd concern about myself all the time — that i'm not really my own person but just a makeup of all the people around me and all the things and art I consume. That i'm nothing but flesh and bone and mannerisms and ideals and jokes that inherently aren't mine.
In this book, Lord Henry says that art has no influence upon action, that we can indulge in it without being privy to it. He doesn't see art for what it can be, what it becomes for Dorian.
Poison.