Not as old-fashioned as I was expecting it to be
By Ali Church / Spinebreakers Crew
‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’ is not as old-fashioned as I was expecting it to be- I was expecting something to do with God and how good people come to good ends and bad people to bad ends. It’s not. Although, admittedly, it is about the soul and sinning and such, it’s not anything like you’d expect. I’d never read any Oscar Wilde before, so I was going into it a little bit blind, but I was very pleasantly surprised.
It’s about a guy called Dorian Gray who was painted by a man called Basil Hallward. Dorian Gray is unbelievably beautiful and is noticed by Basil, who becomes completely and utterly devoted to him and believes that he can’t paint without him. Basil’s friend Lord Henry (or ‘Harry’) meets him and is a corrupting influence on him; he introduces him to the ways of the world- he then believes everything that Harry says. Harry tells him that it’s a shame his beauty will fade and Dorian sells his soul. All his crimes and sins don’t show in his appearance, but on the painting.
In the book, it certainly seems to me that Basil is in love with Dorian, but I guess that it would from a modern point of view- although Oscar Wilde was gay, I don’t think even he’d write about it in the time that it’s set and was written. According to the preface, he got in a fair bit of bother about it anyway; by the by, you should read the preface that he wrote, because it really sets up the book. Not all of the footnotes need to be read, although a lot of them are interesting- some of them are about the lines that were changed by both Oscar Wilde and the editors, and the reasons they were changed.
Overall, I think ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’ is definitely worth reading. It’s one of those books that you don’t want to stop reading and it’s interesting- it’s not boring or too confusing and you can keep up with it. If you get the chance, go for it!