I remember really enjoying this book when I first read it, but this time around my reaction was much less enthusiastic. Perhaps I wasn’t in the right mood, but I found myself bogged down in page after page of men lecturing on their personal views of life and morality. Although I remember once finding this interesting it now felt a lot like dreary mansplaining.
For anyone unfamiliar, the story follows Dorian Gray, a beautiful young man in Victorian London who becomes the subject of a portrait. After falling under the influence of Lord Henry Wotton’s hedonistic philosophy, Dorian makes a wish that he could remain young and untouched by life, while the portrait ages instead. Over the years Dorian plunges into a life of self indulgence and cruelty and his body remains yuong and beautiful while his portrait becomes a monster.
It’s a novel often celebrated as Wilde’s great work of fiction. Looking through other reviews and commentary it’s been described as a warning about vanity, a study of aestheticism, and even an early exploration of queer desire.
And yet, despite all that, I didn’t enjoy it this time. I could admire the cleverness and understand why it’s considered significant, but as a reading experience I found myself more frustrated than anything else. It’s a reminder, I suppose, that some books resonate at certain times in our lives, and not at others. This was one of those re-reads where the magic didn’t return.
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