Rupert Graves Books

Am I no less agreeable? I remain in good humor and fine favor. Yet I am changed. My approbation of this miracle is boundless. This work intoxicates and leaves one wanting more. In my esteem nothing is more beautiful or useless than this masterpiece

It will be a while before I forget this book. Dorian teaches me a very important lesson:

You can never escape the consequences of evil and regardless of how fortunate you are in some areas of your life, there are always lurking in our souls those moments of shame and regret.

I know that the book has many messages about narcissism, beauty, art, conscience, friendship, social classes and other topics, but Dorian's inability to shake his evil actions is what I will remember the most.

`So, Henry, how is that young Protégée of yours progressing, hem?
Lord Henry paused to saviour his glass. Pleased, he set it down, just so, beside his dinner plate, and turned to Lord Fermor.
`Pundits say troubles come in threes, Uncle,' replied Lord Henry. `What the pundits omit in their gabardine rush to spread their misery to others in a foolish attempt to alleviate their own, is that the best in life never travels solo. Take, for example, the wine and dinner before us. Both French. Together they constitute a meal to entice the gods down from the Mount. When did you ever come across a bad French meal, or a good French man? Yet when wine and food march together, they repay the Creator.'
`No doubt,' replied Lord Fermor, `but you evade the issue. I asked about the young chap you have taken into your entourage, you know.' Lord Fermor struggled to recall the name, `that chap who poses for Mr Hallward here.'
Basil Hallward felt the heat of recognition first on his brow, then running through his whole body. A retiring man, more at home with his easels and sitters than at high table, he shrank from the public glare.
Recognising the signs, though failing to sympathise with them, Lady Agatha piped up.
`Mr Hallword has many sitters, do you not, Sir.'
`Er, yes, indeed I do,' replied Mr Hallward, grateful for the prompt. `For example, just today I encountered a young man of exquisite appearance, youth in all its pomp. He has promised to sit for me. Lord Henry, I fancy, will try to take him away and teach him of the world, thereby spoiling him as a object d'art.' He laughed to denote humour, simultaneously glancing at his friend to convey the serious meaning behind his joke. Keep away Lord Henry, the glanced announced, shielded behind the laughter. Keep away from this young man lest you send him on the eternal search for fulfilment and in so doing corrupt his soul.
Lord Henry roared.
"Why Basil, you surpass yourself! Hiding a serious message behind a joke so that you may deliver it in public. Would that the Good Book decked itself in such garlands, the better to frighten the masses. You are a greater artist than your canvasses know.'
`I fear my husband is avoiding your question, Lord Fermor,' laughed Lady Victoria. `When it comes to hiding a serious message behind the veil of farce, he may rival Dante himself.'
`What is the name of your young beauty?' Inquired Lord Henry amidst the general humour. `I only ask,' he pressed, `so that I may avoid him. Let us hope I have more success than Eve, who expressed no desire to harvest the only tree in the garden that contained a serpent, until admonished not to. Of course,' Lord Henry continued, `our Creator did not warn off the firstborn with laughter on his lips. Had he done so, perhaps we would be consuming ambrosia still. Mind you,' he reflected, `this French cuisine is an adequate substitute.'
`Yes yes yes Henry,' broke in Lord Fermor, `but what about your young Protégée? Has he a fine future, seeking the dark mysteries of life of which you profess to be so fond?'
`Should he avoid hubris, I see for him a long, comfortable and satisfactory life.'
`And should he fail to avoid hubris?' teased Lady Agatha.
`Then I see for him immortality in print and prose. Hubris is man's affirmation of his living soul, his insistence that all must be as he ordains, and his rage that it is not. Should Basil paint hubris he would reveal Caliban.
`Modesty, on the other hand, is pleasing to the casual senses but fleeting, like snow on the chimneystack. Modesty and prose combine to produce the barely adequate. Hubris and prose combine to produce immortality, but not personal happiness.'
`And this choice, modesty of hubris, is one you see before Dorian Gray?' queried Mr Hallword.
`Dorian who?' Lord Henry responded. He reached again for the reassuring certainty in his wine glass. `I was referring to my Protégée, Oscar Wilde.'

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde is definitely a disturbing book. I think there is great worth in reading it, particularly when paired with a book such as Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe or Les Miserables by Victor Hugo. Contrasting Dorian's sordid downfall with with the heroic ascension of Uncle Tom or Jean Valjean is particularly beneficial.

The Picture of Dorian Gray begins with Dorian, a young and handsome gentleman who is involved with philanthropy, sitting for a portrait while his new friend, Lord Henry, a sarcastic and hedonistic man of society, watches on. Dorian is described as being "unspotted from the world" and his beauty inspires the artist to his very best work. Lord Henry exclaims how lovely the portrait has turned out, but laments that it is too bad that the picture will stay young forever, whereas Dorian will eventually age and lose his youth and beauty. A vexed Dorian makes a wish that he will stay timeless and the picture will age instead of him.

Taking Lord Henry as a mentor, Dorian sets out to apply Lord Henry's selfish and narcissistic worldview into nearly every facet of his life. In time, Dorian realizes that his wish has magically come true. He remains beautiful, while his painting takes on all the consequences of his wicked actions. As the debased Dorian sins more and more, the picture becomes more hideous and tortures Dorian's soul.

Despite being filled with Wilde's signature wit, this is a haunting story showing the consequence of selfish character and the downfall of the soul due to despicable and hideous behaviors. Dorian loses his inner beauty long before he realizes that his soul's ugliness will destroy him.

It's interesting to note that he chooses a French novel as his own Core Book, a personal classic which guided him throughout his life. In comparison, Uncle Tom and Jean Valjean both chose the Bible as their Core book. Near the end of the book, Dorian laments, "You poisoned me with a book once. I should not forgive that. Harry, promise me that you will never lend that book to any one. It does harm."

Wilde clearly shows that books exert an amazing influence over our lives. We must be wise in our choice of what we read. As Thoreau once said, "Read the best books first, or you may not have the chance to read them at all." I would only add to that, "Read the best books most often, for they will color your soul."

One of the great joys of fiction is the positive encouragement to discard the intentions of the author and draw out individual meaning from its pages. This positive fruition is exemplified quite extraordinarily by Oscar Wilde in `The Picture of Dorian Gray', as he weaves a tale of youth, corruption and disregarding hedonism.

The protagonist of the story is the youthful and worldly-naive Dorian Gray who, through enticement by his mentor, pledges himself to eternal youth. His wish is sanctioned and the ravishes of age are transferred onto a portrait. Knowing that his appearance will remain forever innocent, he embarks on a pursuit of reckless pleasures, spiralling further into iniquity yet remaining unchanged, whilst his picture grows grotesquely disfigured...

The novel was controversial due to the unsubtle suggestions of homoeroticism. While it is true that homosexuality is strongly suggested throughout the work, I remain unconvinced that Wilde is in anyway promoting such a lifestyle within its pages. Rather, it would appear that Dorian's homosexuality is a method to achieving his goal of ecstatic delectation; the goal which, in the end, is his destruction. But, of course, considering Wilde's own sexual practices, one may read an endorsement of homosexuality within the novel.

Ultimately, I understood this novel to be a warning against unchecked desire and the pursuit of pleasure without limits; certainly an apt lesson for our own age.