At the very beggining of the book Dorian Gray, an extremely handsome and charming young man, is presented with a painting of himself. He is stunning. But because of his newly founded friendship will Lord Henry Wotton Dorian has realized his own mortality. Lord Henry has, through philosophy, made Dorian aware that as he ages and makes mistakes he will no longer be as handsome as he is in the picture. At that moment Dorian wishes fevrently that it would be the painting that aged and not him. Within a week Dorian fell in love, three weeks later he cruelly rejected the girl. When Dorian returns to his home he sees that the painting has changed. The cruelty he displayed towards his fiancee is evident on the painting, but Dorian's own face remains unmared. This opens the floodgates. Dorian's soul becomes more and more corrupt with each sin he commits. But even after years of retchedness Dorian remains unchanged though his picture is haggard and ugly. Finally Dorian commits a crime so terrible there is no going back. After running from the specters of his past Dorian finally meets his final and just retribution. The book also contains an excellent discussion of beauty, justice, and perception. Its a good corollary to Plato's "Republic".

The imagery. Wilde does an amazing job of bringing to life the characters and settings of the book.

Sometimes the discourse ran a bit long. Wilde was very profuse in his discourses on philisophical topics. If you can plod through the slow bits the novel is great though.

Slap Dorian Gray.

Frustrated. It's like a Greek tragedy. You feel that if you could sit down with the characters for ten minutes the whole story would turn out happily!

The book makes you think. It's also an example of excellent writing. Plus Oscar Wilde is always fun to read. It's a combo of fantasy and harsh reality.

It can be very disturbing. I definalty would not recommend it for young readers.

Just read it You may not like it but you won't regret it.

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Created Nov 14, 2001 at 10:59am • Submit your own review...