Steve-Calvert.co.uk
Steve-Calvert.co.uk
A Passion For Horror
|
By
Oscar Wilde The Picture of Dorian Gray first saw print in 1891 and it was considered quite shocking at the time. Times change though and I would be surprised if anything in the book shocked a modern reader. There are three main characters in the story: a talented artist named Basil Hallward, Lord Henry (Harry) Wotton, and, of course, Dorian Gray.
The first chapter of the book is set in Basil's studio, on a warm summer's day with the scent from the flowers in the garden blowing in through the open door. Wotton, who is visiting the painter, sits smoking cigarettes while watching him working on a portrait. It is a full-length portrait, but Wotton is not the subject and neither does he recognize him. The young man, captured in paint on the canvas, possesses extraordinary good looks and both men agree that it is the best picture that Basil has ever painted.
While they are talking Basil accidentally mentions the name of his subject -- Dorian Gray -- and Wotton is keen to know all about him. Basil talks freely enough about Gray, but he is not keen on Wotton meeting him and he tells him so. Unfortunately for Basil, the words have barely left his mouth when his butler enters the room and announces that Mr Dorian Gray has arrived.
Dorian Gray is quite an innocent individual and does not really appreciate how exceptionaly good his looks are, even though he has often been complimented on them. While Basil is putting the finishing touches to his masterpiece Wotton and Dorian talk together. Lord Henry has rather a lot of shocking views about rather a lot of things, and, as they talk, Dorian begins to see life a little differently, but he is not being influenced for the better. Basil is a sensitive and thoroughly nice guy. Wotton, however, is not. He has a lot of controversial views and a real talent with words. He believes, for instance, that women are for decoration only, and that they never have anything to say, but say it charmingly. "My dear boy," he tells Dorian, "The people who love only once in their lives are really the shallow people. What they call their loyalty, and their fidelity, I call either the lethargy of custom or their lack of imagination."
When Dorian sees how magnificent the portrait is he gets, for the first time, a sense of his own beauty and, with Wotton's words still running through his mind, he casts his mind forward to a day when he will no longer be young and no longer beautiful. When the world will not be at his feet. "How sad it is," he murmurs; thinking about how he will one day be old and decrepit, but the picture will always be young; and he wishes that it could be the other way around. "I would give my soul for that!" he says. The words are quickly forgotten, but, some time later, when Dorian causes a young girl to take her own life, he notices a change in the painting -- a touch of cruelty around the mouth that was not there before -- and he remembers his wish.
Basil Hallward takes a back seat for most of the book. Once they have been introduced, Dorian finds the company of Harry Wotton much more preferable, to that of the painter, and Wotton, for his part, sees Dorian as something a little like clay, that he can mould into whatever image he pleases. Under Wotton's influence Dorian's life becomes filled with excess, debauchery and pleasure and many terrible rumours circulate about him, but those who don't know him, and even some who do, find the rumours hard to believe because his face remains so angelic. Only Dorian knows the truth and he often sits in the locked schoolroom at the top of his house and takes a perverse pleasure from looking at the picture that bears the marks of his sin.
My copy of The Picture of Dorian Gray (Popular Penguin Classics) is 256 pages long and even though the story was written so long ago, and is set in a time when people drove around in horse-drawn carriages, I can't say that I found the story dated. It is a story about sin and vanity and friendships that fall by the wayside and of life and death; these things never go out of fashion, but follow man through the ages. I had wanted to get around to reading this book for a while and when I finally did I was not disappointed. There is a section, in the middle of the book, that does get a little boring, but it is only a matter of a few pages and so I was quickly past it. The section describes in long, monotonous detail how Dorian took up the study of different stones, and linens and perfumes and God only know what. It is boring! I didn't want to know! Perhaps though, all this was mentioned in order to make some kind of point. If it was, it went completely over my head.
Dorian Gray destroys a lot of lives and one of the saddest parts of the book, in my opinion anyway, is when he murders Basil Hallward. Dorian has never allowed anyone to see the grotesque picture that was once a masterpiece, and when Basil comes to speak to Dorian about certain rumours about him, which he does not want to believe, or, at leas does not want to, Dorian delights in showing him the picture that proves just how corrupt he has become. Then, overcome with a sudden loathing for Basil, Dorian sticks a knife in his friend's neck and, in a way; it seemed to me that Dorian was almost sacrificing his friend in front of the painting that was a monument to his own evil.
I think that The picture of Dorian Gray is probably more a story about corruption than of anything else and it is a timeless classic that I can easily recommend for any reader and not just for fans of the horror genre.
|
