The Great Book Adventure: The Picture of Dorian Gray - Part One
Published January 10, 2008
For Basil, Dorian is the impetus for a new school of painting. For Lord Henry, it seems as though Dorian is going to become the poster child (or painting child, I suppose) for his philosophy of all-important, but mindless, youth and beauty.
It's really only a matter of paragraphs before Lord Henry is laying down his philosophy. While talking to Basil about the portrait, not knowing yet whom it depicts, he says "But beauty, real beauty, ends where an intellectual expression begins." This statement and its following reinforcements made me so passionately hate the character that I gave serious thought to tossing out the book right then and there.
Three chapters in, I found myself despising Henry with a surprising vehemence. He goes on about how beauty and youth are paramount, and thought or wisdom are the ruination of the old. The thing of it is, he puts a fair amount of thought into turning Dorian to his philosophy.
In this respect he reminds me a lot of Iago from Shakespeare's Othello. Both use their words to quickly corrupt the mind of an initially virtuous and unsuspecting character. I think I like Iago more than Henry at this point because Iago is at least conscious (albeit unrepentant) of his own depravity - an awareness Lord Henry seems to lack.
A little less than a quarter of the way in, I found myself interested in The Picture of Dorian Gray, if not totally committed. I admit I was still having trouble separating out the character of Lord Henry from Oscar Wilde and that made it hard for me to read the book at some points. This may come from a lack of understanding of both the book and the author.
The premise still holds promise and, depending on the path of the story, this could end up being as much a commentary on our society as Victorian London. After all, it doesn't seem as though the philosophy of youth and beauty at any cost has lost much of its luster. Lord Henry says, "The moment one sits down to think, one becomes all nose, or all forehead, or something horrid." For some reason, after I read that line, a Botox commercial popped into my head. How odd.
Part Two of my review is now available.
- The Great Book Adventure: The Picture of Dorian Gray - Part One
- Published: January 10, 2008
- Type: Review
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- Filed Under: Review, Books: The Reading Life, Books: Literature and Fiction, Books: Classics
- Part of a feature: The Great Book Adventure
- Writer: Chris Bancells
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- Chris Bancells's personal site
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Most of Wilde's work seems to have a Henry-esque character, some dispenser of pretentious statements inserted to liven things up. Certainly these guys bear a likeness to the dandy reputation of Wilde himself, but surely there's an element of auto-critique in those character insofar as they are explicitly obnoxious, ostentatious sorts. And anyway they are often the most interesting and comical figures in the dramas.
Now granted, I haven't finished the book yet, but I'm having a hard time finding anything comical about Lord Henry. I would agree that he is a driving force behind the book, however I wonder how much the format has to do with the difference. This is, after all, the only novel Wilde wrote.
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I loved this book. In fact, we even considered naming our son Dorian at one point - but by morning we realized that probably wasn't the best way to go, considering the character of Dorian Gray! Maybe we should have just named him Oscar...
Interesting post here! I like your perspectives, and I also somehow pictured Oscar Wilde as Lord Henry as well!