The Picture of Dorian Gray has been one of my favourite books. It’s sure fun to read Oscar Wilde. When I was 12, I discovered he was gay & man I was literally mutilated as at that time, I loved almost every quote by this guy. Now it’s a different story…although I love him but at times I do find him a smartmouth. He’s a charming writer. One never gets bored of his writings.
Anyway when my sister told me that they have made a movie on this book, I have been all excited about it ever since. And I’m sure Ben Barnes & Colin Firth would do justice to the movie. Ben Barnes seems to be one cool Dorian Gray.
I even liked the idea of Faustus. However in this book the protagonist in exchange for eternal youth gives his soul to be corrupted by his mentor Lord Henry Wotton. He has been so very spellbound before the sight of his own portrait. Yeah it’s too vain but one can even worship himself! Anyhow Dorian only brings misery & death to those who love him. And the portrait is watching him all the while. The homosexual hints are deeply buried beneath Dorian’s conventional heterosexual villainies (the seduction of Sibyl Vane, the debauching of society wives, the ruining of young girls, the inhaling of opium).
Oscar Wilde very rightly says:
“It has been said that the great events of the world take place in the brain. It is in the brain, & the brain only, that the great sins of the world take place also.”
Dorian Gray comes across this work of literature that changes his life. And I really liked when he said, ‘I didn’t say I liked it, Harry. I said it fascinated me. There is a great difference.’
And I would like to share another passage & you’d notice his anguish & helplessness in it.
‘I wish I could love, ‘cried Dorian Gray, with a deep note of pathos in his voice. ‘But I seem to have lost the passion, & forgotten the desire. I am too much concentrated on myself. My own personality has become a burden on me. I want to escape, to go away, to forget.’
