The Picture of Dorian Gray (Penguin Clothbound Classics)

Super book. Beautifully written. Intriguing story.

I decided to have a quick peruse of the one star ratings before writing this review, as I was intrigued to know why people felt so negative towards The Picture of Dorian Gray. Whilst I do agree with some of the criticisms, on the whole this is a beautiful piece of classic literature and the Kindle version is relatively well formatted (could do with page breaks on chapter starts). This was Oscar Wilde's only novel and upon reading it, I'm not entirely surprised. The narrative is largely driven by dialogue / monologue, although this isn't necessarily a problem. The characters are shallow, aristocratic types, obsessed with fine living and aesthetics, which was precisely what Wilde intended. True, it is often difficult to identify with them, apart from the artist who painted the portrait itself perhaps. The opening chapters are beautifully homoerotic, in the sense that Wilde clearly couldn't overtly describe the interactions between the characters; thus, the language used cleverly hints at the relationships for what they are and this is actually rather a nice change from the contemporary 'in your face' approach. The only bit I didn't enjoy comes somewhere in the middle, where Wilde sets about describing Dorian Gray's love of things - fabrics, gemstones etc. etc. ad nauseum. After a couple of pages of this I did feel like skipping to the next part. Otherwise I found this novel almost addictive, to the extent that I even used the experimental text to speech to listen to some of it in the car on the way to work (an interesting experience). It does come to a very abrupt end, which is odd, considering the extensive description and elaboration given to everything else. All in all, given that the Kindle edition is free and the novel is historically of some importance (as well as being a clever idea), it has to be worth a read. It left me disappointed that Oscar Wilde didn't write more novels, although the reviews here cover the whole range of opinions, so this is definitely one that is in the eye of the beholder.

Good book

I rate this book 7/10 Beautifully written good and was such an easy read. I do not agree with a single thing that my favourite character of the book - Sir Henry Wotten had to say, but I absolutely loved his cynical witticisms. You will have an idea of what this book is about from the other reviews, but the jist of it is basically a very well done story about the descent of the title character. Not so much an innocent fall from grace, but a leap from grace down into the bowels of self indulgence, evil and hypocrisy. I must admit that I have only read the 1891 expanded edition and I shall return and edit this review after reading the 1890 Uncensored Edition. What I have knocked a few marks off this book for is that I feel there are plot holes (there must have been some very harsh editing and censoring done in this 1891 edition) and that the book is far too short. The character development could have been done in more depth and detail. Some people may interpret this story as a fantasy novel where a portrait painting starts magically changing overtime, to show the soul of the title character, but I like to interpret it in a more philosophical way, where Dorian projects his own thoughts of his inner self onto the canvas. I want you to interpret it how you will.

Wilde should never have gone to jail Wonderful story

A classic novel.

Very happy with the book but would have preferred it to have a dust cover.

Beautifully written (of course). Slightly dated, but still capable of holding one's attention. A classic without doubt.

Well priced

tutto ok!

Does anybody on here write a bad review of Oscar Wilde? I am not qualified to give this author less than five stars 🤣

Idk like fake printed? It was a weird size and the paper felt like printer paper other than that it was fine

Undoubtedly the best novel written by Oscar Wilde... Storyline is quite attractive, and you will find many profound comments concerning such as love, art, life,etc. Readers should keep in mind that Lord Henry (intimate friend of Dorian Gray ) is the 'shadow main character' of this story.