My Thoughts on The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

Recently I wrote a post telling about what I've been reading. You can find it here. And I promised to come back with my thoughts on this classic book. Well, here's a review repost from my other blog Labyrinthus XXI, about this great book by Mr. Wilde.

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Today it's my turn to bring you the next instalment of our monthly book review. My pick for this month is a book that I've been wanting to read for a long time, but have never gotten around to reading. I bought a copy quite a while back, sometime last year and put it into my pile of books that I was planning on reading once I finished the degree that I was working on. Well, once I finally finished with my degree, I realized that my pile of books had grown quite a bit. So one day I just closed my eyes and picked one from the pile and The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde was the lucky one.

I enjoyed the book from the very beginning and it seems that the story doesn't take long to get going which is always a plus for me. We meet Dorian Gray quite early on after the initial conversation about him between Lord Henry Wotton and the artist Basil Hallward.

I don't want to give away any spoilers for those of you who haven't read it, so I have to be careful here. First of all, it's definitely an excellent book and is a cautionary tale that makes me think that we must be careful what we wish for. Dorian Gray is a handsome young man and desires to stay as young and handsome as he is in the portrait that Basil paints. He wants the portrait to take on the signs of aging instead of him. He gets his wish. The portrait takes on all the harshness of life whilst Dorian does all manner of things and remains unspoiled on the outside.

The book goes on to explore this interesting plot and it really makes you think about what beauty really is. I won't go any further so that I won't spoil the book for those who haven't read it. I really enjoyed this classic novel by Oscar Wilde. It lived up to my expectations and that doesn't happen all the time with books that you've heard so much about. I will give it 4 and a half stars out of 5!