Regarding “The Picture of Dorian Gray”, I’d say that I very much enjoyed it. I found deep meaning and it was very philosophically written, not like much of the books I’ve read. The problem it represents still exists and many people battle with it every day. Unlike fiction, though, they can’t make a wish and have eternal youth like Mr. Gray. I doubt they’d care if their soul was as filthy as their thoughts, thought. Everyone cares about external beauty rather than internal as well.
I couldn’t find deep meaning in “The Infanta”, but maybe because I’m not mature enough, who knows? I liked them all, to be honest. They were a nice read, fun at times, too. My favourite character has to be Lord Henry. His personality and way of being is something I desire to have. Or maybe have someone in my life that resembles him, even if it’s a 1000th part of the original.

An entertaining marriage of the gothic and the decadent, two genres that often overlapped, just never before with quite so many witticisms. Wilde's prose is deliriously easy to read, skating along on a shiny surface of rapid-fire exchanges and facile summaries of the fin-de-siècle worldview, but there are certainly some intriguing things going on beneath that surface. The link between outer beauty and inner beauty, so beloved by the Renaissance, is reexamined but not necessarily disproven, just left ambiguous. And the "love that dares not speak its name," the same "sin" that ended up with Wilde in prison, is part of Dorian's debauchery, although he seems to be bisexual rather than gay (he "ruins" many young women as well as men). I think Wilde is most effective in his dramas, but his one novel is simultaneously thoughtful and superficial: not a bad combination.

The story is sooo well written! All the characters are believable and fun and different. I loved the passages were all the characters would just talk; I underlined so many lines! For example Lord Henry literally scares me because of the way he thinks and because of his frightening intelligence. The entirety of the book was so good and it really made you addicted to the story. Although some passages were long and not very interesting, they were only a small number. Most of the passages were interesting and eventful. And the end!! I was half expecting it but it still shocked me.

Yikes. There is much cognitive load to unfold the many facets of this book. I am not one to read much fictional or classics, but this was in a reference of another book. I gratefully appreciated the paradox of many of the phrasing. The author was eloquent in passages like few others I have read. It humbles me to the real literary art of another. And, abstractly, very abstractly, think that I agree with this arch character as a common journey for a man. It a final break in that awareness too late to recover the innocents lost and comfort with ones foibles. The author had it right.

I wonder who said the word 'sins' and 'morality' so much to Oscar Wilde for this man to be so hurt by it. The whole book feels like a response to this entire stigma of such a straight line between what's good and what's supposed to be bad— which Oscar Wilde is so obviously sick of, and that's why this book is still an icon.

He's talented, he's got ideas and he ain't wrong about one thing… the fact that he's a badass despite his scandalous ideals. I would like to have a chat with Mr. Wilde and wonder which one of us would be the most offended by the other. I feel like I'd be terribly scared of him and he'd be tremendously bored of me without even saying a word. Let's celebrate a raging gay man who's sick and completely enamored by life and people.

You can open to any page at all and find there numerous lines you want to commit to memory. The writing style is marvelous~ makes you suspect hidden meaning in every syllable...
This tale is a powerful dissection of our attachments, justifying selfishness, passing it off as lovely.
Dorian, as well as the short stories included, all have a strong theme of deterioration that is hard to look away from.

There are already so many reviews of "Dorian Gray" that I am sure what I can say has already been said ad infinitum ... I will says this, the final of the additional short stories added in this volume/edition, "Lord Arthur Savile's Crimes" is a masterpiece (5 stars!)

What a banger. Wilde is such a master at encapuslating a hauntingly beautiful atmosphere. I had a previous notion as to what The Picture of Dorian G(r)ay entails, however, the narrative itself followed a pltline that I did not expect (but absolutely loved!!). Truly it was perfection. The way Gray's character developed was so masterfully executed, and his prose just reads as poetry. This is a highlight for a classic read for me and I recommend all to read it, I believe it explores the themes of vanity, beauty, and morals in such a universal and artful way that I cannot help but be in love with Wilde and his talent. Go read it now!!!

I really loved this book. It wasn't exactly what I expected but I was not disappointed. Especially not by the end. Dorian was a compelling character and it was interesting to see how Henry and Basil influenced him in their own ways. And Sybil was a neat character too.

I also very much enjoyed the other three stories, particularly 'The Birthday of the Infanta' and its more tragic poetry.

This has quickly become one of my top-ranked classic novels. I hadn't read it until now and I think that's because I saw a cheesy movie adaptation of it when I was a kid and it put me off. Gothic suspense is my favourite horror sub-genre: creepy houses, ghostly guests, locked rooms, shadowed hallways. While there is an air of eeriness about this novel, I found it to be more of a character study on human nature at its worst and most selfish.

Dorian Gray is a beautiful, vain, and naive young man, who is the muse of a portrait painter. The painter's friend, an intelligent, hedonistic lord, becomes Dorian's greatest influence and over time leads the impressionable man into a corrupt lifestyle. The painter gifts Dorian his portrait and it becomes obvious as the years pass that while his face remains young and beautiful, the portrait he now keeps locked away, ages and begins to show the darkest effects of the terrible wrongs Dorian inflicts upon others.

The plot is interesting, but it was Wilde's witty dialogue and romantic imagery that captivated me and put me directly into the story. I found myself re-reading scenes like this one in a garden: "The wind shook some blossoms from the trees, and the heavy lilac-blooms, with their clustering stars, moved to and fro in the languid air. A grasshopper began to chirrup by the wall, and like a blue thread a long thin dragonfly floated past on its brown gauze wings. Lord Henry felt as if he could hear Basil Hallward's heart beating, and wondered what was coming."

I could smell the lilacs and hear the buzzing of insects and the beating of a heart. That's the genius of Oscar Wilde's writing and I now want to read everything he wrote--plays, more short stories, poems. I'll probably read this novel again (his only novel) because I'm sure I missed important plot points while losing myself in the words.

Highly recommend you read it because I doubt any movie adaptation has done the story complete justice. Also, Oscar Wilde's own personal life story is heartbreaking. I'm sure that greatly affected his writing, and eventually influenced the creation and destruction of the once innocent Dorian Gray.

What an amazing piece of literature!! Wilde writes with such care and passion—I felt compelled to underline something on nearly every page.

Very thought provoking, and it made me feel so many things! It also had such a grand twist after the first two chapters I wasn’t expecting but grew to appreciate artistry/character arc wise and stuck with it through the end. Wilde has so much to say about art, beauty, and the extent to which someone would go to truly *live* life (even if through VERY morally wrong/ambiguous means).

The short stories here are also very reflective of the political, class, and social issues of the time that were addressed in Picture, so it was nice seeing that continuity and getting a glimpse of what life was like at the time! Also they were all absurd in their own ways and also hilarious at times?/!: (In Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime, Arthur is convinced that he needs to kill someone because his palm reader told him?? and when his poison plan doesn’t work his solution is instead to just explode someone???????)

I really don't understand why it took me so long to finish this book.
Wilde sure knew how to write great stories.