The thread all about good books

The Picture of Dorian Gray-Oscar Wilde

 Spoiler

The story's title character is an exceptionally handsome young man who, both in the eyes of the artist tasked to paint his portrait, Basil Hallward, and in those of their somewhat older friend Lord Henry Wotton, epitomizes perfect beauty and is coveted by both men for that very reason. Seduced by hedonistic Lord Henry into believing that beauty can literally justify anything, including any act of immorality, Dorian sells his soul for maintaining his beautiful appearance, letting his portrait age in his stead. (In that, his character resembles Goethe's and Marlowe's Faust.) He then quickly turns from an innocent youth into a cruel and calculating man whom society, in its shallow adherence to appearances, nonetheless never associates with any of the results of his cruelty, never looking beyond the surface of his handsome exterior and assuming that a man so beautiful must necessarily also be good.

God, this book was awesome. I recently finished this for a high school Western Literature class. Oscar Wilde's wit and sarcasm found in epigrams and some of Lord Henry Wotton's dialogue kept the book actually fresh and somewhat humorous at times for me. Lord Henry Wotton is definitely one of classic literature's more interesting characters. What I really liked about this was how excellent Wilde is at presenting Dorian's gradual changes in character and the impact of the painting on himself as it builds slowly towards the revelations at the ending. However, the one thing I dislike about this book is the large amount of ambling, directionless conversations that appear within the book; but the rest is pretty riveting and thrilling to me. Wilde himself said that he did not like for morals to mix with art due to the aestheticism movements going around in England during his time, so I'm not entirely sure of this, but I felt that the story moves in a direction where the reader is almost hoping for some sort of moral justice to satisfy them at the ending due to Dorian growing increasingly cruel.

 About the ending

I found myself wondering what gets him in the end: is it because he attempts to mix morals into the teachings of aestheticism and the morals he was indoctrinated by society are actually what caused him to die instead of just continuing living on life to the teachings of aestheticism, or is it that he realizes his character is corrupt and any attempts to be "good" are just facades thereby making his attempts for genuine redemption from the weight of his sins worthless and thereby killing himself just to free himself from the burden of his sins for some sort of triumph of morals?
As I mentioned before, the ending may feel satisfying as the moral retribution the reader has been longing for at the end. However, if we look at this from the perspective that perhaps Wilde himself would have viewed it, where Dorian's death serves as a reminder of why art/beauty and morals should never, this also feels conclusive: if we view all of Dorian's hedonistic actions as fulfilling and actually in a positive light despite them seeming "pimento-ish" to our own eyes as a reader, we see that he meets his demise because of morals clouding his judgment and giving him this self doubt and dislike of his soul instead of continuing to act on his desires for pleasure. Still good ending either way.

So, I'm thinking about trying that Kafka on the Shore novel someday. I'll definitely set time one day to get that book from Borders or rent it from the library and read through it at home or during a trip.