Books like this are why I love classics. They may be old as hell, but in another, much more real way, they never get old.We as a society will never outgrow the need for a beautifully written book about being hot and evil.End review.Bottom line: Valiantly resisting the urge to make this book my entire personality.----------------------pre-review"To get back my youth I would do anything in the world, except take exercise, get up early, or be respectable."and who says the classics aren't relatable....

RIP dorian gray you would've loved botox

Some of u have never damned ur soul to remain forever young and it shows

Facts that I know for sure:

1. I got this edition because I'm a slave to the aesthetics and that's exactly the kind of motive the ghost of Oscar Wilde would approve of

2. It’s safe to assume that no matter what I’m doing, at any given moment in time, at least 20% of my brain capacity is perpetually dedicated to making sure I am clever enough, gay enough, and dramatic enough to earn the approval of the ghost of Oscar Wilde

2021 - I re-read this for university and loved it even more the second time round... Lord Henry is a paradigmatic sophist and his epigrams are delightful (partly because it's easy to forget that he is more rhetoric than truth). The connection between youthful appearance and character is also so fascinating, especially since Wilde is writing at the end of the century where physiognomy is an outdated science. What does it mean to be young? And can innocence ever be restored?2017 - If you haven't a...

I finished reading this last night, and afterwards I spent an entire hour staring into space so I could contemplate over the majesty of this work. It left me speechless. This book is exquisite; it is an investigation into the human soul, the power of vanity and the problems of living a life with not a single consequence for your actions. It’s truly powerful stuff. It begins with a simple realisation, and perhaps an obvious one. But, for Dorian it is completely life changing. He realises that bea...

"The sitter is merely the accident, the occasion. It is not he who is revealed by the painter; it is rather the painter who, on the coloured canvas, reveals himself. The reason I will not exhibit this picture is that I am afraid that I have shown in it the secret of my own soul." And so begins this tale of art and sin. I would highly recommend first watching the movie Wilde, a film which takes the audience on a journey through the life of the tormented writer, from the beginnings of h...

Arguably literature's greatest study of shallowness, vanity, casual cruelty and hedonistic selfishness, Wilde lays it down here with ABSOLUTE PERFECTION!! This was my first experience in reading Oscar Wilde and the man’s gift for prose and dialogue is magical. This story read somewhat like a dark, corrupted Jane Austen in that the writing was snappy and pleasant on the ear, but the feeling it left you with was one of hopelessness and despair. The level of cynicism and societal disregard that...

This book reminded me why I hate classics.Like Frankenstein, it starts out with a great premise: what if a portrait bore the brunt of age and sin, while the person remained in the flush of youth? How would that person feel as they watched a constant reminder of their true nature develop? And like Frankenstein, it gets completely bogged down in uninteresting details and takes forever to get to the interesting bits. Seriously, in a 230-page novel, the portrait doesn't even start to change until 10...

Oh Dorian. Oh Dorian.When 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.Certain Wildisms (Wildeisms?) would take my breath away. Would become my mottos to believe in. To follow. To live.Lines like:"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.""But beauty, real ...