Old Books, New Readers discussion

When this book came out it was considered amoral and scandalous. It was the only novel written by Oscar Wilde and was not considered a success at the time of publishing.
1. Did you find the book engaging and easy to get into? Why or why not? Why do you think it is more successful now then at original publication?
2. Which character in the book can you relate to the most. Not necessarily in a personal way, but in a way that moved you and made you care about the character and the story?
3. Do you feel that perhaps the story of Dorian Gray is also in a way a caricature of Oscar Wilde himself?
4. Have you seen any film adaptations? How do they compare to the book? Can the movie capture the character and prose of the book?

I am starting this when I finish 1984 =) This book looks intriguing!

I read the book last August so I hope it's okay if I jump in a bit early.

1. It took me a while to get into it largely because of the lengthy philosophical dialogue. I admit, I got lost in it a few times through the book. I honestly don't really know why it might be more popular now, except maybe the obsession with outward appearance. Today we have the media always showing beautiful celebrities and super models with little or no regard for the type of people they often are on the inside. Does that make sense? It will be interesting to read others' thoughts on this.
2. Again, I honestly don't know. I've read Wilde's biography and I believe that authors put a lot of themselves in their books/stories whether on purpose or not. It will be interesting to read others' take on this too.
3. No, but I've thought about it.

Sorry for the rather straight forward, non-indepth answers. I always had a hard time digging "deeply" into books and pulling out allegories and messages.

Like Aiyana, I have also recently read this book, and I look forward to reading everyone's discussion points! This is a great book! Nothing deep here, just some opinions:

1. This book and I have a ten year history with each other. I tried reading it in seventh grade and could not get into it. As a teen I felt really bored with the descriptions of the garden in the beginning, and it wasn't as "exciting" as I had expected. Tried reading it again one summer in high school, then the next summer, but still couldn't get into it. Finally, last year, I thought "Enough is enough. I'm sick of seeing this on my bookshelf and feeling guilty about never finishing it." So I made it through the much-dreaded garden description (which was not boring, as I had previously thought) and then I couldn't put it down. I think it's interesting for a lot of different reasons: struggle between right and wrong, desire for control in our lives, vanity and obsession with looks and our youth, and people back then and nowadays are fascinated by the grotesque things humans will do to get what they want (I'm thinking of one specific example in this book.) People in today's world seem perhaps a bit more self-obsessed and that's what the book explores.
2. Sibyl Vane and Basil Hallward. They were my favorites but I don't know why exactly. I guess because I felt sorry for them? I felt sorry for Dorian by the end of the book, but pretty much despised him for the first 85%.
3. I could see where perhaps his brain would go a lot of the same places as Dorian, but no, I don't think it's a caricature of the author. I don't know a great amount about Oscar Wilde, but from what I understand he was delightful and eccentric. The impression I got from Dorian was more of a pretty-boy who takes himself too seriously. I would almost see a bit more of Lord Henry's light-hearted grimness in Oscar Wilde. But again, my opinion doesn't really mean much here because I don't know much about the author.
4. YES! I personally liked the 1945 film version the best, but maybe that's just because I really like George Sanders. In my book, the book is almost always better than the movie, and such is the case here. I have found very few movies that "capture the character and prose of the book". They did a decent job with this film, especially with the characters, but it wasn't as fulfilling as the book.

I'm going to do my best to read it again this month, but I have a sister-in-law, husband, mother, and friends who are urgently (and always) trying to get me to read several things. :)

Oh my! I completely skipped over one of the questions!
I didn't really feel I could relate to any of the characters. I liked Basil Hallward the most of all the characters, though I found his artistic obsession with Dorian rather weird. I did not like Lord Henry and, frankly, I didn't like Dorian either. I might have felt a tad sorry for him at the end though.

Matt wrote: "One little piece of trivia about The Picture of Dorian Gray - as you are entering The Haunted Mansion in The Magic Kingdom at Disney World, there is a portrait of a handsome young man that changes...."
The same effect exists in a portrait just inside the entrance to the Haunted Mansion in Disneyland (California).

I will definitely give this a try. I know and have read The Importance of Being Earnest, so I am familiar with Wilde's very inventive bait-and-switch style of compelling drama. And to me, Wilde is one of the great tragic figures in English literature. He made no attempt to conceal his homosexuality, and even flaunted it in the face of the Victorian moral order. He was of course punished unfairly (in my humble opinion) and paid a very steep penalty as a result.

This has been on my To Read Lust for a long time. I've already got a ton of reading to do this month, but will try. :-)

As usual, I will be delayed on the start of reading the Picture of Dorian Gray. Once again the library is slow in updating its records for my request to check it out in ebook format. Grrrrr....... In the meantime, I will continue reading Umberto Eco's The Prague Cemetery. When I finish that one, I may try to find a way to provide some kind of review somewhere on Goodreads (but not on this link). The downside is that this group is really for combined resources, not individual book reading reports.

I read on my iPad and got a free book from iBooks. They had a couple of versions that were free, plus several just a dollar or two.

I'm all in. I found a free copy on my Kindle. And, it's an illustrated version. Even has a picture of the original Lippincott's magazine cover. :)

Free Kindle Version: http://www.amazon.com/Picture-Dorian-...

For web browser: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/174/17...

Other sources http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/174

Count me in. This will be my 1st BOTM ever!

Evan wrote: "Free Kindle Version: http://www.amazon.com/Picture-Dorian-...

For web browser: http://www.gutenberg.org/fi..."

Thanks for that suggestion. The Gutenberg Project ebook works quite well, so I can use it until the library ebook is available to me.

It might not be proper but I have a little contention carrying over from the hate in this group over my dear Custom House last month.

I am really enjoying The Picture of Dorian Gray. It requires a lot of attention to internalize and fully comprehend many of the concepts though.

Sure, the writing style and publication is much more modern than the Scarlet Letter, making scenes easier to imagine but as a whole this is much more burdensome on the work load, yet there have been no complaints like we got last month

Poor Evan, I'm sorry you aren't improper. Archaic language has always been a problem for me in fiction. Now in nonfiction I'm fine but the likes of Hawthorne, Austin, and even some Dickens is just very challenging for me. It's wonderful that you enjoy it though. That way the rest of us can learn through you! And who knows we might even grow to like it one day (as for me probably not)!

It wasn't even the language of Hawthorne that put people off it seems. Mostly everyone enjoyed the Scarlet Letter after that, and I too struggle with older works like Dickens, so perhaps that is not really the case.

I am very glad this book was chosen for this month though as before hand I knew nothing about it other than peoples love for the title and Oscar Wilde as well as 50 shades of gray's namesake.


I expect to annoy many people by making the comparison but I feel like it will be impossible to avoid this subordinate/master culture. I am only at 5% so speaking out of turn about the nature of the relationship which could be the conventional inspirational driven of one ups manship attempted to impress the s/o that has both in the couple constantly striving to improve- however that is not where I see this going.


With that said let us remember this quote and keep conversions civil before we continue,
"There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all."

I am sure there will not be a problem with civil conversation. I would not expect everyone to agree or disagree about the meaning of books. What does the s/o mean though? I am sure I am missing something by not understanding the comment?

s/o = significant other

That is an interesting thought Evan and I will definitely keep that in mind as I read the book. I am only on chapter 2 so I have yet to meet Dorian.

Just one comment about archaic language, and its effect upon modern readers: it has not slowed the appreciation of most of Shakespeare. Same for the Bible. So to me, it is really just the measure of the reader's interest that dictates the trouble over archaic terminology. If you are really intrigued by the story, you will put in the time to figure it out. I had no trouble with The Scarlet Letter, and so far no problem with The Picture either. But that is personal to me, and each reader must determine his or her own tolerance for archaism.

Evan wrote: "It might not be proper but I have a little contention carrying over from the hate in this group over my dear Custom House last month.

I am really enjoying The Picture of Dorian Gray. It requires ..."

I agree with you to a point. I could not figure what provoked so much of the negative commentary about just The Custom House. To me it was a perfect method for Hawthorne to use to balance the story. He needed it there in order to counterweight his "conclusion" at the end, and to then perfectly place the three occasions at the scaffold from start to finish. It is a perfectly balanced story from start to finish. Whether or not the reader likes the story or the characters, there is an architectural perfection to it that I admire a great deal.

But to address the hate you mention, I did not see it myself. It seemed to me more a matter of confusion about the function of The Custom House, plus probably the archaic language. This may or may not be a comment upon the expectations of readers today, but I sometimes think we are all so accustomed to quick little sound bytes on TV or Facebook that we lose interest in anything that requires a demand upon our time, attention, or mental capacity. We have all been dumbed down by the social media, I fear.

I am not saying that about this group of readers, however. They would not be here if they were only after a quick read and no discussion. They are all here to get the best out of literature, history, and their own culture.

Jon wrote: "Just one comment about archaic language, and its effect upon modern readers: it has not slowed the appreciation of most of Shakespeare. Same for the Bible. So to me, it is really just the measure..."

I completely agree with you. Where there's a will, there's a way. The same can be said for reading authors like William Faulkner, anything pre 1800, Cajun literature, or scientific reading for a non-scientific reader. It may be difficult at first, but you get through it and learn, by the end, something new about a given time period, culture, etc.

I wasn't here when you started The Scarlet Letter or else I would have joined you. I vaguely remember that book from high school and would welcome a re-read of it. :-)

Re sound byte mentality:
I think we all are exposed to it and it is up to us to not let us become a sound byte person. Like the Scarlett Letter we have the background set over quite a few pages. It is maybe easier to read and follow. At least I think so.

So far I am finding that the first part of the book is giving us the world view or philosophy of the main characters. I assume that will be useful for understanding the rest of the book

American girls take a bow, I've never seen such shining exaltations bestowed upon someone as when the English aristocracy were complaining about how lovely they all were in Chapter 3.



This post has a point though, I want to bring up a pop culture reference;



"They say that when good Americans die they go to Paris," chuckled Sir Thomas...

"Really! And where do bad Americans go to when they die?"...

"They go to America," murmured Lord Henry.



while a very quick bit of dialogue I think Oscar Wilde was deliberately paying homage to Fyodor Dostoyevsky given the timing of publication and influence. I might be projecting here but Dostoyevsky would commonly use the phrase of, "going to America" as a synonym for death. Seeing it as both a wonderful place but wholly mechanical, without soul.

By reading very deeply into this little bit of dialogue for me it helps to paint the petty elitism of this aristocracy and how quickly judgmental people can be without any of their own personal experiences guiding them. They are carbon copies of the previous influences imprinted on them, they all suffer from the lack of originality that lord henry deems fatal of all influences.

Just a little thought

Evan wrote: "American girls take a bow, I've never seen such shining exaltations bestowed upon someone as when the English aristocracy were complaining about how lovely they all were in Chapter 3.


Thank you Evan. I haven't read Dostoevsky so wouldn't have picked up on that. :-)

Hi, guys! I just finished the chapter 8 of this book and... I need some time. Really, I feel that my soul is heavy now. It's a lot to digest. Lord Henry says many harsh but true things. It is starting to affect me... lol

I need to think about all the statements Lord Henry made until now.

I will leave one here:

"Faithfulness! I must analyse it some day. The passion for property is in it. There are many things that we would throw away if we were not afraid that others might pick them up."

Rose wrote: "Hi, guys! I just finished the chapter 8 of this book and... I need some time. Really, I feel that my soul is heavy now. It's a lot to digest. Lord Henry says many harsh but true things. It is start..."

Rose: This seems to echo an earlier comment he made to Basil in Chapter 1 about marriage versus the single unattached life. Basically, he thinks that only the unattached can really suffer the loss of love, whereas the married ones only see it as another day at the office. And only the married ones are good at deception and lies, all to keep up a pretense of what they are doing to each other. That is my crude rendition of what he said, of course.
So far, I consider him a cynical, snide chorus in this Greek tragedy. So far, that is. We'll see as the story progresses.

Yes, Jon. I think he is a cynical too. But sometimes he makes sense and that's sad... hahaha

Describing Lord Henry, Page 74

...touching the thin stem of his glass with pale fine-pointed fingers



Context
"To be good is to be in harmony with one's self," he replied, touching the thin stem of his glass with his pale, fine-pointed fingers. "Discord is to be forced to be in harmony with others. One's own life—that is the important thing.


Rose it is just not you, as time goes on I am seeing Lord Henry literally become the devil. So far he has changed more than the picture.

It is like having a little devil and angel on your shoulder when Basil and Henry enter a scene.




While certainly corrupting, how evil is Lord Henry really?

"I believe that you are really a very good husband, but that you are thoroughly ashamed of your own virtues. You are an extraordinary fellow. You never say a moral thing, and you never do a wrong thing. Your cynicism is simply a pose."

Is Lord Henry really so bad? OR just too smart for his own good. He is never truly accountable for his influence as only slight nudges and general prose work as less than a guide. While he plays devil advocate to a corrupting degree, he is only a contrarian challenging what his audience holds to be true (through influence) but lack from experience.

Growing up, and if you can tell, I am still a lot like Lord Henry, our playful silly little devil's advocate, yet I never try to do more than share and impart my wisdom from experience.

Evan, I actually think Lord Henry is too smart for his own good. But you know, truth hurts sometimes... I think I was a lot like Dorian Gray when I was younger and everyday with life experiences I am becoming a little more like Lord Henry. I don't know if he is the devil. Maybe he is just the reality of life (although I don't agree with everything he says). And perhaps, that's what makes me so uncomfortable. He destroys my pink world (in portuguese we say "mundo cor de rosa" I don't say if it has the same meaning in english... hahaha).

I liked what you said, about Lord Henry being the devil and Basil being the angel. I didn't think about it.

Rose wrote: "Evan, I actually think Lord Henry is too smart for his own good. But you know, truth hurts sometimes... I think I was a lot like Dorian Gray when I was younger and everyday with life experiences I ..."

My instinct is to resist all black and white characterizations. The psychology of people is far too complex to put into neat boxes like this. If you followed the Scarlet Letter discussion, do you recall my comment that the Puritanical system of governance was utterly incapable of recognizing degrees of good and evil? That is because Calvinist law dictated that only the elect were going to heaven, and the rest be damned. I completely reject that kind of thinking, and even more here in The Portrait of Dorian Gray.

In short, I hear you very much as to the complexity of both Basil's and Lord Henry's thinking. Human behavior is messy, and can't be quantified so easily. If Wilde is as good a writer as I think he is, then that will be his purpose. Of course, if he is just writing a modern parable, then that is different.

Just dropping in to say that I'm halfway though this book and enjoying it immensely. Evan, I like your analogy about Henry and Basil being the little angel and devil on Dorian's shoulder. The more I read on, the more Henry's influence on Dorian frightens me.

Michelle wrote: "Just dropping in to say that I'm halfway though this book and enjoying it immensely. Evan, I like your analogy about Henry and Basil being the little angel and devil on Dorian's shoulder. The more ..."

I'm not sure I can buy such a simple concept. First, Henry's influence is simply not that great, at least following the death Sybil Vane.

Second, Henry has a valuable piece of advice for Dorian in Chapter 8: "Religion consoles some. Its mysteries have all the charm of a flirtation, a woman once told me; and I can quite understand it. Besides, nothing makes one so vain as being told that one is a sinner. Conscience makes egotists of us all."

I think there is some truth in that, and it also casts a very different light upon Basil, who did everything he could to provoke that same vanity in Dorian.

In short, this story so far (through Chapter 9) is just a parade of different vanities. Vanities that feed upon themselves to create more delusional conceits about self-worth.

Re Lord Henry and Basil's influence on Dorian Grey:

I agree that to likening Lord Henry to a devil and Basil to a little angel is an oversimplification. I do think Lord Henry wants to influence or more like it control Dorian for his own benefit and pleasure, but Basil is not free from it either. So far I have noticed at least a couple of times where Dorian buys into Lord Henry's values.

It is Lord Henry that talks him out of grieving over Sybil and just twists the sordid reality of death into an artistic drama that now is beautiful. Dorian likes this alternative and uses that to move on as if nothing happened.

Dorian will also quote what Lord Henry had said or espoused and I get the feeling he is more and more converting to Lord Henry's way of thinking.

Basil does not seem quite as callous and self centered as Lord Henry. He is actually shocked over Dorian not grieving much for Sybil. Dorian had gone to the opera as if nothing happened.

So far I am through chapter 11. It has been an interesting and thought provoking read.

The book from Lord Henry:

I would be interested in the role the readers may find for the book Lord Henry gives to Dorian at the end of chapter 9. In chapter 10 we see Dorian is fascinated by the book for years.

Brit wrote: "The book from Lord Henry:

I would be interested in the role the readers may find for the book Lord Henry gives to Dorian at the end of chapter 9. In chapter 10 we see Dorian is fascinated by the b..."

Nothing in the narrative indicates the name of the book, but Wilde (at trial over this story), said that the novel Dorian Gray read was À Rebours ('Against Nature'), by Joris-Karl Huysmans. A fairly decadent novel, I understand.

Hmm I'm interested in reading that book Dorian Grey read.

Michelle wrote: "Hmm I'm interested in reading that book Dorian Grey read."

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/12341

Thanks Evan!

I'm just jumping in now, and I'm at the end of chapter three and really struggling to get into it. I haven't been able to get my hands on a physical copy yet, as it hasn't come into the library yet, but I've been listening to the free USF audiobook on iTunes. Any thoughts as to if this would be an easier one to physically read rather than listen to?

(I enjoy reading more, but I have a pretty mindless data-entering job and find that listening to a good book passes the time and checks some things off of my reading list!)

Emily wrote: "I'm just jumping in now, and I'm at the end of chapter three and really struggling to get into it. I haven't been able to get my hands on a physical copy yet, as it hasn't come into the library yet..."

Who is doing the narration on your audiobook? The skill of that person can make or break the experience. It may also be that Dorian Gray is a mix of bright social conversation commingled with occasionally morose internal monologue. Maybe you are having trouble with that mixture.

I know it is a challenge for me, even though I am reading the text online.

This topic may or may not be appropriate for the critical review of The Picture ("TPDG") that I am posting here. For those readers who are a bit aghast at the homoerotic content of the book, even more than 100 years after its publication, I recommend they read this article. It is written by a skillful literary critic who is gay, Alex Ross, for the New Yorker.

These readers may find the Victorian response to TPDG astoundingly repressive, and Wilde's response to the questions at trial compelling. Above all, I suggest they consider Ross's suggestion that Wilde had a strong affection for the character Basil Hallward, as being the purest artist he could conceive.

There are numerous other comments of note, such as the endorsements of Wilde from Yeats and Joyce, despite (or due to) the extensive repression he endured.

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/201...

Jon wrote: "Emily wrote: "I'm just jumping in now, and I'm at the end of chapter three and really struggling to get into it. I haven't been able to get my hands on a physical copy yet, as it hasn't come into t..."

I don't have the narrator's name, but it's a USF recording on iTunes. There were also some on Livrivox that I looked into, but they were worse!

you should get a text version.
you can spend a lot of time analyzing the preface and lord henry's first appearance.
an audiobook I imagine would be too quick with its pacing to properly internalize themes before preparing yourself for the main course.
amazon has the book for free and should have a whisper sync version for 99cents.
a lot of the book later on feels like filler you wouldn't miss out of by listening to. im surprised nothing has made you pause or go over many times yet since so much is espoused early on.

Evan wrote: "you should get a text version.
you can spend a lot of time analyzing the preface and lord henry's first appearance.
an audiobook I imagine would be too quick with its pacing to properly internalize..."

I can see that! I listened to chapters 2 and 3 a couple of times trying to understand. I'll try to get my hands on that copy. Thanks!

Evan wrote: "you should get a text version.
you can spend a lot of time analyzing the preface and lord henry's first appearance.
an audiobook I imagine would be too quick with its pacing to properly internalize..."

I agree that the principal themes are established early on in the book. So that is certainly the place to absorb them and then imagine to yourself how the three characters evolve (or devolve) over time as those themes inexorably play out.

How you imagine their development will likely differ from what you read later. And that is fine, of course. As many artists will tell you, they may be intent upon carving an elephant from stone but the exact process of removing non-elephant features is impossible to forecast.

In this book I think Wilde is clearly positing a new aesthetic, much as Basil Hallward proclaims. Call it an "art for art's sake" polemic, if you will. That means aesthetic discipline will make no demand for social justice or any other political statement. I am sure Wilde had that idea in mind. That leaves these three characters casting about for answers to problems they have created for themselves.

I will expand a bit on this topic when I post my primary remarks later. What I am struggling with right now is how much of this book is straight forward parable, and how much is a search for an aesthetic that both creators and viewers (or readers) can appreciate.

I will post a few of my observations about The Picture of Dorian Gray ("TPDG"). This will be the first, with several more to follow later.

I think much of the story can be summarized by the quotation from Hamlet that plagues Dorian at the end. The complete sequence of lines is from Act IV, Scene VII, lines 107-109:

Claudius: "Laertes, was your father dear to you?
Or are you like a painting of a sorrow,
A face without a heart?"

To give context to the conversation between Dorian and Lord Henry in Chapter 19, I think these lines from Hamlet explain much of the psychic state to which Dorian has been driven. The scene from Hamlet sets the stage for the murder of Hamlet through the King's incitement of Laertes' need for revenge for the death of his father, Polonius. These words goad Laertes out of his gentlemanly bearing and force him to plan active retribution against Hamlet. Claudius is asking him, in effect, whether he is man enough to avenge the death of Polonius. The King is telling Laertes that a still life image cannot capture the rage he feels, because it does not act out that rage as he wants. But that image likewise tells him nothing about the consequences of killing the inheritor of the crown; it only goads him into action.

Goading seems to create all of the motivations in TPDG. What kind of goading occurs in TPDG? There are many examples, which I am sure you can consider. One that caught my attention was the way the picture goads its creator, Basil Hallward, into its completion and then its hiding. Basil is both proud of his work but also afraid of it for the simple reason it will be misunderstood. He has grandiose ideas about it. He thinks "there are only two eras of any importance in the world's history. The first is the appearance of a new medium for art, and the second is the appearance of a new personality for art." (Chapter 1) Basil is after no less than a completely new direction for art, because "the aim of life is self development." (Chapter 2) He also feels a bit exposed because he "has put too much of himself into it." He also suspects he has "shown it the secret of his own soul."

If you are sensing a self-serving, narcissistic self-aggrandizement going on here, then I agree. But I also think much more is going on here, too, because it also relates to the "art for art's sake" movement of the late 19th century. I think that is a critical part of what Wilde was attempting to describe in TPDG.

More on this separately later.

Art for art's sake:
I had to do some quick research on this and I can see that we have a connection to this movement in the book. Thanks for pointing that out Jon.

Here are my responses to the discussion questions.

1. Did you find the book engaging and easy to get into? Why or why not? Why do you think it is more successful now then at original publication?

Yes it was easy to get into and once I got going, it was quite hard to put down. It's probably more successful now because the book is less of a taboo than it was at publication. With all the outraged reactions the book got when it first came out, if I had been alive at that time, I would have been embarrassed to go out to purchase the book and read it.

2. Which character in the book can you relate to the most. Not necessarily in a personal way, but in a way that moved you and made you care about the character and the story?

I found myself feeling very sad for Basil. He cared about Dorian and remained a friend even when other people were saying bad things about Dorian. On top of not having his affections for Dorian reciprocated, Basil had to meet that horrible ending.

3. Do you feel that perhaps the story of Dorian Gray is also in a way a caricature of Oscar Wilde himself?
I'm not sure. Like Aiyanna said, I do believe that authors put themselves in some way in the books they write.

4. Have you seen any film adaptations? How do they compare to the book? Can the movie capture the character and prose of the book?
No, but after reading the book, I do wanna see a film adaptation.