Well, I just summarised what I’m about to say in the title so if you have no interest in me rambling on about a modern literary classic, then stop reading here.
In part of my new quest to shift a considerable backlog of great books which I have begun reading and yet failed to finish, I reached the end of Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray this morning. One of the aims of my gap year was to read some of the classic novels which I had not previously entertained an interest in, and with a mere two months of gap year left, I have stepped-up the intensity of the drive to do so. Admittedly, I’m picking out the easy ones. Catcher in the Rye is not the longest of novels, and neither is Dorian Gray. I also bought a copy of The Great Gatsby last week, which seems very short indeed; I’ve pencilled it in for late August. Rather irritatingly, I started War and Peace a few months ago and only got twenty pages in, leaving over a thousand left. It seemed like a tremendous book, but my notoriously short concentration span kicked in and I questioned my ability to finish the book. Of course, it remained unfinished. So I have to get through War and Peace at some point, albeit after The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, a book which I love but have only read the first two-thirds of. I also got through 140 pages of Great Expectations before forgetting I owned it, so that too is on the list.
Never mind that, I was talking about Dorian Gray. The title character is a man of such great beauty that a painter, Basil Hallward, is absolutely fixated with him. At the beginning of the novel Hallward is talking in his garden with his friend Lord Henry Wooton, shortly before Gray visits him to sit for his portrait once again. Hallward is mesmerised by Mr. Gray, and believes that Gray has brought his painting to new heights. Due to Lord Henry’s well-known cynicism and individualism, Hallward is reluctant to introduce Gray to him, but Lord H. insists and thus causes a chain of events which would dominate the remainder of Dorian Gray’s life. Upon seeing the completed portrait, and admiring its beauty, Gray muses out loud how nice it would be if the portrait were to age instead of himself. Meanwhile, Gray is completely taken in by Lord H’s philosophy, and increasingly dedicates his life to the pursuit of gratification. It is a short while before he finds out that his supernatural wish has become true – whilst the portrait provides a changing visual representation of his soul, Gray does not age at all. Along with Lord Henry’s constant influence, this is a factor which influences him to pursue a life of sensual fulfillment and selfishness.
I will tell you no more of the plot; you should read it for yourself. High time to summarise my thoughts on it. In brief, I liked it. I will put it on my list of favourite books, because it is so thought provoking. I couldn’t read the book without reflecting on my own beliefs about aestheticism and hedonism, and what to do with one’s life during the short time that one has it. The characterisation is tremendous, providing a brilliant fictional case study for an impressionable young man who follows an indulgent worldview, but finds himself struggling with its implications. Dorian Gray is a very, very conflicted being.
The plot is gripping. I did not find myself bored, and was suffering from ‘just one more chapter’ syndrome on a couple of occasions. I liked the way that the book spanned decades of Gray’s life whilst managing to focus on certain events and social occasions which occurred during this time. Some of Gray’s sins are alluded to or implied, and some of them are witnessed directly by the reader. The surprising mix did compel me to read on, in the hope of knowing more about the workings of Dorian Gray’s mind.
Interestingly, there is a noticeable absence of a character to whom an unselfish person could relate. The main characters in the book are followers of a hedonistic lifestyle who look down upon the dullards who bother them with the real complications of their actions. Oscar Wilde himself was known to lead a life of excess, and his views on the credibility of his characters’ opinions are indeterminable. Wilde reportedly believed himself to be a mixture of Wooton, Hallward and Gray. There is no anchor in the book who seems to find the behaviour repulsive, except perhaps Hallward, who seems shallow due to his fixation with Gray’s looks. Although the course of Gray’s life in the book influence the reader to believe certain things about his philosophy, it remains unclear what exactly Wilde thought. The book does not seem like a manifesto, or the summary of a world-view which secretly persuades you of its merits. It seems more as though Wilde is commencing a debate on hedonism, and leaving it to the readers to form their own conclusions.
On the negative side, it seemed predictable. Some of the turns in the plot could be predicted from pages, or chapters before they happened. I’m normally quite unaware of the direction a plot is taking, but I think the reader will often find themselves a step ahead with this book. Also, great though the witticisms of Lord Henry are (in fact, Wilde used some of the quotes in this book in other works), the lack of an eloquent character to argue against him causes his own quotes to lose their potency. Like Socrates in Plato’s writing, Lord Henry is largely followed by people that put up only weak challenges to his arguments. Despite their obvious flaws, his arguments are upheld in face of a lack of opposition. This was quite dissatisfying to me. I should have liked to see Lord Henry in an argument with a moralist. Also, the prose is smattered with literary references which might be lost on the reader in an edition without footnotes. Several of them would have been lost on me, that’s for sure.
Nonetheless, this doesn’t take from how compelling the book is to read, or how thought-provoking it is. The unrealism of the plot’s ageing-picture premise amidst an otherwise realistic plot adds to the book’s allure. I thought it was tremendous, and deserving of the ‘modern classic’ label which it often receives. Definitely one of those books which one would consider ‘an influence’ whilst developing their own worldview and analysing others.
