Thoughts on reading Dorian Gray

I've just started reading The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde's only published novel. It is available online in several places; I'm reading at The Gutenberg Project. It begins as Lord Henry and Basil, the artist, are gazing at the portrait that Basil has painted of a beautiful young man.

I'm struck by the many contradictory statements that are in the first pages. Lord Henry complains that at a museum "there have been either so many people that I have not been able to see the pictures, which was dreadful, or so many pictures that I have not been able to see the people, which was worse." Also he states, "there is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about." The reader is left wondering what is true or false, and senses that truth is built on a shifting and shadowy foundation. There are corollaries in our own time, when the irrefutable, bedrock foundation of truth is elusive and even history is being constantly rewritten.

Photo from the 2009 movie Dorian Gray, starring Colin Firth as Lord Henry (left) and Ben Barnes as Dorian Gray (right).

Comments

  1. Rayn RobertsNovember 30, 2016 at 12:01 PM

    Truth needs only one foundation. Facts based on clear evidence. That isn't shifting or shadowy, but perhaps what you point to is Wilde's deliberate stating of two facts that may seem to contradict, but are true at the same time. He is famous for that. Being "talked about" can be both good and bad i.e. one can be famous and infamous. He was both and was talked about a lot. What Oscar feared most, I believe, was not being included; being forgotten. Thus not being talked about is worse that being "talked" about in any way people talk. I hope I'm not preaching to the choir here by stating the obvious.

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