Why I chose to read this book:
1. Since I have self-appointed February 2022 as "Classics Month", I thought I would start with this particular story since I own a hardcopy; and,
2. I first learned of this story in the 1980s from a satiric sketch performed by Canadian comedic duo, Wayne and Shuster, called "The Picture of Dorian Wayne" in which the spoof revolved around Dorian's wish to remain forever slim while his portrait would gain weight! (If only!

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character is also so fascinating, especially since Wilde is writing at the end of the century where physiognomy is an outdated science.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 already, you HAVE TO read this! Wilde delves into the cartesian dualist debate, asking us to question where the self truly does reside (and contradicting the popular Victorian idea of physiognomy). In his personal Fall and descent into sinfulness I saw similarities with H.G. Wells's 'The Invisible Man' where sin thrives simply because the individual cannot be held accountable. Similarly, the debate about the value of art is intriguing and, after reading this, I recommend reading Poe's 'The Oval Mirror' because, again, there are definite similarities.

ما هو أبشع كابوس تخيلته في حياتك؟
ما الذي تراه أصعب شيء يمكن أن تتعرض له

ماذا لو استطعت تجميع كل خطاياك و تخبئتها في مكان سري لا يعلمه ‏سواك

ماذا لو استطعت أن تنفض يدك عن أي جريمة ارتكبت‏
وأي شر اقترفت

ماذا لو استطعت تحقيق المستحيل
وضمنت الخلود..؟؟

وماذا لو كان ذلك المكان السري هو وجهك الذي نحته فيلسوف فنان ‏على الورق..‏

وماذا لو كان بإمكانك رؤية جميع مفاسدك تتجلى يوما بعد يوم على ‏وجهك الكامل الجمال في عيون الكل

سواك..‏

:::::::::::

ما رأيك يا دوريان في قول المسيح
ماذا يستفيد الإنسان لو خسر روحه وربح العالم أجمع؟
---------
‎ ‎
هذا هو ملخص الرواية في نظري

الرواية المعتقة بالفلسفة
والسخرية
والفانتازيا
‏
‏ الرواية المدهشة والمخيفة وكاشفة خبايا النفس البشرية‏‎ ‎

يعري فيها وايلد -لا النفس البشرية فقط بل المجتمع الإنكليزي بأكمله
وزيف من كان يطلق عليهم الطبقات النبيلة

إنها كاشفة لكلل ما هو خاوٍ بريقه خادع
فور ما تقترب منه يتكشف لك الخواء والسطحية ‏والأنانية

....
والرواية تترك منبهرا
فمك مفتوح على أخره في شهقة لا صوت لها
‎
‎

:::::::::::

ربما من أسباب عشقي لأوسكار وايلد هي قدرته الفذة على الخيال
وقدرته على الإتيان بأفضل العبارات إدهاشا
في عمقها وفلسفتها وسخريتها
أكثر بكثير في رأيي من شو أو مارك توين

دوريان جراي كان العمل الأول الذي أقرؤه لهذا العقل اللامع
ومن يومها أدمنته

I should probably admit that most of what I thought I knew about Dorian Gray came from pop culture references. In my defense, I'm actively trying to branch out and read more than comics and trashy romance novels, but it's slow going and I've got a lot of catching up to do.
Shockingly, I didn't bother to read the blurb, and it turns out this was a bit more complex than I thought it would be.



Point is, I had no idea it was about gay dudes!
And I'm always thinking that the guys in classic novels seem kinda gay, but then everyone tells me no, men were just more sensitive back then, and I just sorta pretend to believe them and we all go on about our day.
But there's no way that's the case here.



Anyway, I said that to say this: this book was waaaay more interesting than I thought it was going to be when I first decided to read it.
I mean, having to hide that you're in love with someone is awful no matter what the reason, but potentially getting tossed in the clink and having your life ruined because people think it's wrong is a whole other level of horrible.
Poor Basil! My heart just went out to that guy! He was so decent and so sweet. And yet somehow his love for Dorian, so pure it created a painting that seemed to capture the essence of Dorian's soul, became twisted by Lord Henry's influencing Dorian to desire youth and beauty above all else.
Enter the wacky Crayola curse!



And the really sad thing was that Dorian wasn't evil in the beginning. Selfish and silly, yes. But not truly bad. Which made watching him slip slowly at first, then eventually plunge headlong into villainy, even more tragic. The longer you live the easier it is to see what a slippery slope life can be, and how one bad choice left uncorrected can lead to far worse things.



The only one who escaped relatively unscathed was the instigator, Henry.
And isn't that just the way it always goes?
There's always that fucking asshole who sets shit into motion and then steps aside to watch everyone else flail around in the mess they've created.
Albeit, this time around it was a bit of a supernatural mess...



This is one of the few classics that I've found to be meaty, interesting, and still has characters that ring true.
Loved it!

n  This is the cover of the audiobook I listened to which was published by Author's Republic and narrated by John Gonzalez.n <--if you see this version, swerve to avoid!

  

I've had great luck in general with classic audiobooks, but this was the exception to the rule. It seemed to me as though the narrator almost stumbled over words sometimes, and beyond that, the reading was just sort of off.

just might fuck around and start channeling my inner dorian gray by flinging myself dramatically on the nearest sofa and bursting into tears

n  Before you die, experience the love of a writer, poet or painter. If you're lucky enough to be an artist's muse, they will immortalize you.n

Find The picture of Dorian Gray on Amazon/Kindle/Audible

Funny how books are moulded by the circumstances in which they have been read.

In Dorian Gray, some of its aspects are very easy to grasp and do not need great explanations.

For example, Wilde’s epigrammatic style is so very distinct. I have had a lot of fun selecting quotes and peppered with them my reading progress.

His sentences are like small diamonds. They can be held and set against the light and moved around so that their different facets will shine and reflect the world around them. They are also so tightly self-contained with an inner perfect structure that cannot be easily modified. They are perfectly balanced. I am thinking of sentences such as:


Nothing can cure the soul, but the senses, just as nothing can cure the senses but the soul.

These nicely constructed phrases seem to form part of the collection of precious objects that are presented in this novel as in a gallery or Kammerschatz. There is an abundant series of orchids, amethysts, velvety tapestries, emeralds, ivory caskets, jonquils, skull-caps parsemés with pearls, Japanase Foukousas, hyacinths, ear-rings of emeralds, Arabian aspilates, carbuncles of cinnamon-stones....

Yes, Wilde's precious epigrams could dangle nicely from a bracelet.

Wilde got clearly infected with préciosité during his extended visits to France. This novel has such an obvious debt to the French aesthetic tradition, with its explicit references to the Symbolistes and personalities such as Gautier (with his consolation des arts) and Huysmans, that I almost felt embarrassed. Wilde liked to shock but he himself was bewildered by Huysmans À rebours, published about six years before his own work, in 1884. This “book without a plot” and with that curious jewelled style,.. that characterizes the work of some of the finest artists of the French school of Symbolistes is the culprit of Wilde’s novel. As he diagnoses: Dorian Gray had been poisoned by a book.

If Wilde’s book echoes the luscious elements of the French A Rebours, it, however, does have a plot. It is burdened with a very Gothic intrigue which I associate so strongly with Britain and the Victorian puritanical culture. Even if at the time of publication the book run into trouble with the authorities and was partly censored, the moralist background is there.

Another clearly discernible aspect is its Faustian theme. And this has fitted very well in my recent book choices. I have lately read the original anonymous Doktor Faustus, plus three of its later variations (Marlowe, Mann, Banville). Dorian Gray presents an interesting adaptation in which Art is the Devil and one of the characters, Lord Henry Wotton, who, like Wilde, loves to pronounce epigrams, plays a sort Mephistophelian role as the messenger or instigator. Wotton spells out the Faustian theme: By the way, what does it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose – how does the quotation run?—his own soul. P. 209.

Another echo to my parallel reading is the Dantean contrapasso that unfolds in some sections of the story, for each crime bears its misshapen brood.

But the aspect that has intrigued me the most is less obvious and has to do, again, with the circumstances surrounding the moment I have chosen to read this book. Unavoidably these shape my interpretation.

I have recently read Balzac’s Le Chef-d'œuvre inconnu and visited a couple of art exhibitions for which this novel is relevant. Both Cézanne and Picasso were fascinated by Balzac’s work because they identified with one of the characters, Frenhofer, the artist who seeks to represent the ideal in art, with tragic repercussions. In several of his paintings Picasso developed Balzac’s theme: the painter in front of his canvas trying to extract from the model its inner qualities and the ability to represent them through beauty. Cézanne’s practice of working and reworking a given motif confirms a similar obsession in this quest for the ideal.

So, it is to this particularity in Dorian Gray that I have devoted most thinking. For Wilde has also developed this theme: the relationship between the artist, the sitter and the painting. But in his pen, it becomes a devilish dance, and, as in Balzac, it also proves to be fatal.

Art and life and the act of representation. A trio. Which one is to have the upper hand?

In his Dorian Gray, Wilde does away with the creator once he has achieved the ideal. The artist has become redundant when it is recognized that his painting had gone quite off. It seemed to me to have lost something. It had lost an ideal (p.208).

Without the artist, the process of representation is corrupted and the nature of the sitter is not captured but instead comes apart. Beauty and eternity are split in the pact and the canvas grabs the soul.

The trio becomes a duel and just one survives.

Art withstands.




-------

Picasso had felt the threat and he rabidly fought and counterclaimed the role of the painter in face of the negation of the artist that PopArt implied. His painters, his paintings, would not be annihilated.

His art is with us.

It was his doing.

n  

هي صورة الأحزان
هي وجه بلا قلب

n
n  n

هي صورة داخل كل منّا، صورة الروح أو صورة النفس أو أيًا ما كان يمكن أن تسميها.
الصورة التي تعكس وجهنا الحقيقيّ الذي لا يعرف عنه الناس شيئًا
يسعى البعض للتفتيش عنها دائمًا، تفقدها بين حين وآخر والعناية بها
والبعض الآخر يتركها، يحاول دفنها وردمها بعيدًا حتى يتراكم عليها العفن والأتربة.
جميعنا يملك هذه الصورة، هذه المرآة؛ تمامًا كدوريان جراي
الفارق الوحيد بيننا وبينه أنها كانت دائمًا أمامه، لا يحتاج للبحث والتفتيش عنها كما يفعل التقاة
ومهما حاول دفنها وتدميرها والهرب منها كما يفعل الموتى الأحياء فإنها تظهر أمامه بكل وحشيتها وبشاعتها كصفعة قوية يرسلها القدر له علّه يستفيق.
n  

ماذا يستفيد الإنسان لو خسر روحه وربح العالم أجمع؟

n
احترام الآخرين؟ ولكن كيف سيجد في هذا العزاء إذا كان يعلم أن ما يحترمه الآخرين لأجله ليس له أي أساس من الصحة؟
اللذة؟ كيف يستطيع أن يشعر بالنشوة والاستمتاع دون أن تقلق صورته هذه لحظات استمتاعه؟ كيف ستكون اللذة خالصة وروحه القبيحة تطارده؟
ماذا يستفيد؟ أبدًا لنّ نعرف ولن نفهم هؤلاء.
n  

إن منشأ احترامنا للآخرين هو خوفنا من ألا يحترمنا الآخرون، وأساس التفاؤل هو فزعنا من الكوارث لا أكثر ولا أقل.

n
منذ أن بدأت الرواية بفلسفة اللورد هنريّ وكنت أعلم أنني أمام رواية عميقة الأثر
كانت آراؤه غاية في التطرف، استمتع بقرائتها ومحاولة قياس مدى اتفاقي واختلافي معها دون أن أصل لقرار.
فأنا وعقلي نستمتع بقرائتها ونستمتع بشخصية اللورد هنريّ المجنونة الغير مألوفة وطريقته الساخرة، لكن كلما تذكر تأثير هذه الأقوال في نفس دوريان جراي حين كانت براءة روحه كما براءة وجهه أشمئز.
رغم أنه لا يمكن الجزم بأن هذه الآراء الفلسفية أو المتفلسفة هي ما غير تشكيل روح دوريان جراي، فهو بالتأكيد كان يملك عقل حين كان يستمع إليها.
ولم تكن لتغيره بهذا الشكل إلا إذا كانت تجد صدى لها في نفسه.
n  

ما أشبه الخضوع لأفكار الغير بالعبودية، وما أشبه إخضاع الغير لأفكارنا بالاستعباد. إن التأثير في الغير يُكسب الإنسان إحساسًا بالقوة لا نظير له في الحياة!

إن تأثيرك في شخص ما معناه أنك تسبغ روحك عليه، مما يملأ رأسه بأفكار ليست أفكاره ويملأ قلبه بعواطف ليست في طبعه ويجعل من رذاائله رذائل مستعارة من الغير، وبذلك يصبح صدي يرددّ ترنيمة رجل آخر، أو ممثلاً يلعب دورًا لم يُكتب له. إن غاية الحياة تقدم الذات وما خلق كل منا إلا لينميّ مَلكاته ويصون طبيعته على الوجه الأكمل. ولكن الناس هذه الأيام يخافون من أنفسهم، وينسون أن واجب الإنسان الأول هو واجبه نحو نفسه.

n
ليست القراءة الأولى لأوسكار وايلد على ما أذكر، ورغم أنني لا أتذكر ماذا كانت القراءة الأولى لكن دوريان جراي ستبقى من الروايات الاستثنائية التي لا تستطيع نسيانها ولا نسيان تأثيرها.
وأيضًا لن تستطيع نسيان نهايتها!
كلما سأتذكرها حتمًا سأفتش عن صورتيّ...

تمّت

I don't know what I was quite expecting here. It's a psychological horror story with a lot of comic relief, in the form of the endless witty paradoxes. After page 30 you are thinking that if Lord Henry makes just one more crack you're going to knock his monocle off his family crest and grind it underfoot. Oscar often clearly thinks he's being hilarious with his wit with a capital W – and maybe it's me, but Oscar Wilde often sounds like a parody of Oscar Wilde, like in the Monty Python sketch

WHISTLER: Your Majesty is like a stream of bat's piss.
(gasps)
THE PRINCE OF WALES: What?
WHISTLER: It was one of Wilde's.
OSCAR WILDE: I, um, I, ah, I merely meant, Your Majesty, that, ah, you shine out like a shaft of gold when all around is dark.
THE PRINCE OF WALES:
Oh, ho-ho, very good.

But of course, some of it is very good stuff :

The one charm of marriage is that it makes a life of deception absolutely necessary for both parties. I never know where my wife is, and my wife never knows what I am doing. When we meet we tell each other the most absurd stories with the most serious faces.

The fact was, one of her married daughters had come up quite suddenly to stay with her, and to make matters worse, had actually brought her husband.

One of those middle-aged mediocrities so common in London clubs who have no enemies but are thoroughly disliked by their friends.

But his character Lord Henry goes on and on with the wit and the aphorisms

She is a peacock in everything but beauty…she tried to found a salon and only succeeded in opening a restaurant…. One can't stand other people having the same faults as ourselves.

And you get a lot of guff about women

No woman is a genius. Women are a decorative sex. They never have anything to say, but they say it charmingly.

A man can be happy with any woman, as long as he does not love her.

As for conversation, there are only five women in London worth talking to, and two of these can't be admitted into decent society.

(that last one reminds me of the weird quote from Captain Beefheart – "There are only forty people in the world and five of them are hamburgers". Oh, how rude of me – Oscar, allow me to introduce Captain Beefheart.



Captain Beefheart, may I present Mr Oscar Wilde – I believe you may have heard the name.

)

Then there's the necessarily undeclared but pretty open gayness. How the two older men worship this young Adonis Dorian – they openly salivate! - and how he reciprocates too. He says to Lord Henry 30 minutes after meeting him :

I feel I must come with you. Do let me. And you will promise to talk to me all the time? No one talks so wonderfully as you do.

What a flirt. I don't think boys talk to each other like this anymore. They're a little more discreet these days.

So as the story saunters along, and at a couple of points you think there never will be a story, the banter and the brittle conversations die away and Dorian, his portrait miraculously ageing instead of him, realises he can "sin" without consequence. He turns into a vicious voluptuary, a promiscuous profligate, an effulgent epicurean and a licentious libertine. In time the word gets round, and society reacts with the strongest possible disapproval :

He was very nearly blackballed at a West End club… and it was said that on one occasion when he was brought by a friend into the smoking-room of the Churchill, the Duke of Berwick and another gentleman got up in a marked manner and went out.

That would cut a fellow to the very quick, though, wouldn't it. What would be the modern equivalent? There isn't one.

Both Dorian and the novel turn strange. You might think that the life of a young handsome sensualist would consist of orgies and opium, roofies and deflorations, and maybe a black mass thrown in for kicks, with goats and orphans, but you would be wrong. Dorian plunges into a life of strange obsessions – for ten pages we get elaborate lists of a) perfumes, b) jewels, c) tapestries, and d) world music – yes, that came as a surprise to me too :

He used to give curious concerts in which mad gypsies tore wild music from little zithers or grave yellow-shawled Tunisians plucked at the strained strings of monstrous lutes

So WOMAD then.




Dorian collects instruments like the furuparis, human bone flutes, sonorous green jaspers, the clarin, the teponazali, some yotl-bells and a Stratocaster made from the skulls of Tibetan lamas. No, I made up the last one. But this is a real quote : "he had a special passion, also, for ecclesiastical vestments". I was kind of disappointed. Is this really debauchery? I don't think Ozzy Osbourne would recognise it as such.

With the change of gear in the book, we find that Oscar can come out with some quite extraordinary sentences. Here is a favourite :

There are few of us who have not sometimes wakened before dawn, either after one of those dreamless nights that make us almost enamoured of death, or one of those nights of horror and misshapen joy, when through the chambers of the brain sweep phantoms more terrible than reality itself, and instinct with that vivid life that lurks in all grotesques, and that lends to Gothic art its enduring vitality, this art being, one might fancy, especially the art of those whose minds have been troubled with the malady of reverie.

Oscar's solitary novel is a gothic tale of a man who came to think that he could commit sin without consequence. And he couldn't. It's either curiously conservative – God will smite you down, there's no escape, and nor should there be – or it's a coded message of revolution : the idle rich have got it coming to them. I think Oscar became a convert to some form of socialism round about the time he wrote his novel, so I'm going with the latter interpretation. It suits me. I think there are fifty shades of Dorian Gray even now cashing in their half million dollar bonuses and thinking that they'll be young and invulnerable forever. But vengeance will come like a thief in the night.

n  My views about the story