How sad it is! I shall grow old, and horrible, and dreadful. But this picture will remain always young. It will never be older than this particular day of June...If it were only the other way! If it were I who was to be always young, and the picture that was to grow old! For that – for that – I would give everything! Yes, there is nothing in the whole world I would not give! I would give my soul for that!
The Picture of Dorian Gray is one of those old classics of literature that I hadn't read (or even seen a film adaptation of) because I thought I knew everything about it: somehow, a handsome young dandy remains forever young while a portrait of him in the attic grows old in his stead. Now having read it, I'll confirm that that is a pretty rude outline of the plot, but as Oscar Wilde's only novel, this book gives space to so much more: a philosophical examination of art vs culture as two separate entities; a pushback against repressive Victorian values, and especially as they criminalised sexuality; and a deep dive into fin de siècle London, with its decadent high society, repressive class distinctions, literary allusions, peak of empire, and the rise of scientism. There is so much thought stuffed into this slim novel that I did find it tedious at times (and especially the chapter on all of the jewels, perfumes, textiles, and musical instruments Gray had collected), but it still stands as a perfect encapsulation of the times that Wilde was living in; it may have been too philosophical to have weathered the years as an entertaining novel (to my tastes), but it stands as a valuable and necessary artefact of thought.
The book begins with the painter Basil Hallward (the embodiment of Art) showing his friend, Lord Henry “Harry” Wotton (the embodiment of Culture), the portrait that he has been painting of a young man, Dorian Gray, who to Hallward's estimation, had been endowed with all the best gifts of beauty, purity, and innocence: this portrait is his masterpiece, but only because it captured his own affection for its subject. Lord Harry contrives to meet Dorian, and finding him charming but witless, endeavors to corrupt him: outlining a popular philosophy of hedonism and pointing out to the youth that although his looks positioned him to experience every sensual/sensory pleasure there is to be had – which is, in Harry's mischievous telling, the only reason for living – once Dorian's youth and beauty fade, as they must, he will no longer have a meaningful life. This causes the impressionable Dorian to make the opening exclamation I quoted above, and by some unexplained device, we learn about halfway through the book that Dorian's Faustian fate has been sealed: after committing an act of cruelty, Dorian discovers that his portrait has acquired a nasty sneer, while his own face remains unlined. He concludes that he can behave in any way he likes, and while the portrait will serve as proof of the corruption of his soul, so long as he can hide the picture away and remain outwardly beautiful, Dorian will be free to experience every decadent pleasure he likes without societal censure – and to a closeted homosexual like Oscar Wilde, this wouldn't have been a strictly philosophical exercise.
Wilde is quoted as having said of this book, “Basil Hallward is what I think I am: Lord Henry is what the world thinks of me: Dorian is what I would like to be – in other ages, perhaps.” Wilde isn't specific about the various self-described debaucheries that Dorian indulges in – although more than one young man is said to have been corrupted by him in some unspecified manner – but in a Preface added to later editions of this book, in response to those critics who called this narrative smutty and immoral, Wilde points out that because the actual “acts of depravity” aren't described, any critic who claims offence is projecting filth from his own imagination, “It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors.” Even so, when Oscar Wilde was later on trial for gross indecency regarding his relationship with another man – for which he would be found guilty and sentenced to two years of hard labour – the prosecutor quoted from The Picture of Dorian Gray as evidence; Wilde may have thought that he was being discreet, but even today, Basil's adoration of the young Dorian reads as sexual infatuation and it seems pretty clear that Dorian himself slept with anyone – man or woman – that he wished to. The portrait in the attic doesn't seem so much to be a physical representation of the age-old struggle between good and evil, as in the contemporaneous The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, but more an embodiment of strict societal (not to mention legal) codes: the homosexual reality of Dorian/Wilde is literally locked away in a cupboard so that the man is free to walk unblemished through society.
As for the writing, there are many The Importance of Being Earnest-type drawing room scenes with flippant characters quipping out enduring aphorisms:
• Nowadays people know the price of everything and the value of nothing.Wilde doesn't present many female characters, and what few there are aren't as fleshed out as the males. Lord Harry in particular seems to harbour a dislike for women – he is married but explains early on that he and his wife both cheat; she eventually leaves him for another man – and in addition to dismissing women as “sphinxes without secrets”, Harry also states:
• Men marry because they are tired; women, because they are curious: both are disappointed.
• There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.
• My dear boy, no woman is a genius. Women are a decorative sex. They never have anything to say, but they say it charmingly. Women represent the triumph of matter over mind, just as men represent the triumph of mind over morals.(I wasn't at all offended by Wilde's treatment of women, just noting it.) As I said above, I was bored by the long chapter on Dorian's collections of exotic items (from perfumes to tapestries), but I was impressed by the citing of the diverse sources that prompted Dorian's curation – from the “flutes of human bones such as Alfonso de Ovalle heard in Chile” to “Marco Polo had seen the inhabitants of Zipangu place rose-coloured pearls in the mouths of the dead”; quoting stories from Democritus, Procopius, Brantome and many others, I marvelled at the number of such references Wilde had assembled long before Google searches. Dorian also displays scientific thinking that reveals Wilde to have been a reader, in addition to all of these literary references, of scientific theories:
• As for conversation, there are only five women in London worth talking to, and two of these can't be admitted into decent society.
• Was there some subtle affinity between the chemical atoms that shaped themselves into form and colour on the canvas and the soul that was within him?And, although this book is more about philosophy than pure plot, Wilde does insert some lovely Gothic horror writing:
• I wonder who it was defined man as a rational animal.
• He inclined to the materialistic doctrines of the Darwinismus movement in Germany, and found a curious pleasure in tracing the thoughts and passions of men to some pearly cell in the brain, or some white nerve in the body, delighting in the conception of the absolute dependence of the spirit on certain physical conditions, morbid or healthy, normal or diseased.
The suspense became unbearable. Time seemed to him to be crawling with feet of lead, while he by monstrous winds was being swept towards the jagged edge of some black cleft of precipice. He knew what was waiting for him there; saw it, indeed, and, shuddering, crushed with dank hands his burning lids as though he would have robbed the very brain of sight and driven the eyeballs back into their cave. It was useless. The brain had its own food on which it battened, and the imagination, made grotesque by terror, twisted and distorted as a living thing by pain, danced like some foul puppet on a stand and grinned through moving masks. Then, suddenly, time stopped for him. Yes: that blind, slow-breathing thing crawled no more, and horrible thoughts, time being dead, raced nimbly on in front, and dragged a hideous future from its grave, and showed it to him. He stared at it. Its very horror made him stone.Also in the Preface, Wilde states, “There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.” I completely agree with that argument, and if I'm fit to judge it, I'd say that The Picture of Dorian Gray– with its philosophy, wit, erudition, and creepy secret in the attic that eventually comes to the fore – is certainly well-written; what it preserves of Victorian English society makes it important, as well. Only the bits that bored me (which I will eagerly blame on my own poor taste) prevent me from giving this classic the full five stars.
And this is me at Oscar Wilde's grave in Paris:
