The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

Let me start by noting that my Modern Library hardcover edition (~ 1959) of The Picture of Dorian Gray also includes Oscar Wilde’s De Profundis, a letter of sorts he wrote during the last few months he spent in prison. Further included are two outstanding letters from Wilde to the “Daily Chronicle” editor concerning prison reform.

I’m glad I finally read The Picture of Dorian Gray. I’ve seen references to it in many other books as well as movies and television shows. Having worked my way through it, I can say I liked it but it won’t enter my list of favorite books. At times, it moves very slowly, and I needed to climb an almost insurmountable wall of words. This may be due to Wilde’s background as a poet and a playwright, or he might have simply liked to hear the words he wrote. I’m not advocating a Hemingway-esque approach, but simply some editing of much of the earlier part of the novel. The latter part of the novel progresses quickly and fluidly, though the ending is abrupt.

Let me start with some negative thoughts about Dorian Gray. The story is extremely sexist. As I’ve noted in other reviews, it’s not wrong to call a text of this era sexist. H.G. Wells, George Bernard Shaw and others, were able to write about woman-positive issues and could create female characters who were more than simply a sexy lampshade in the corner of the room. Both men were contemporaries of Wilde’s and Wilde knew their work. Wilde dismisses women throughout the novel, that is when he bothers to bring them into the picture in the first place. Second, I thought there was some nasty antisemitic stuff going on in his treatment of the theater manager where his first love, Sibyl Vane, performed. I didn’t think that necessary and Wilde never discussed such things with his other characters, minor or major. This singling out disturbed me.

There are some excellent lines that Wilde writes, illustrating that in the novel format, he remains a master of the epigram. Perhaps the best quote of the book, that should sum up how all books should be regarded once they are put into the public sphere, is: “The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame” (p. 241). Simply fantastic. He also touches on artists and how they interact with the public. To paraphrase, Wilde writes that the best artists are the most boring of people. They focus only on their art. The worst artists, on the other hand, are the most fascinating companions to have at a party (p. 62).

Here are three reasons why I think this book should continue to be read today. They resonate as much now as they did in 1890:

"We live in an age when unnecessary things are our only necessities" (p. 103)
"Society, civilized society at least, is never very ready to believe anything to the detriment of those who are both rich and fascinating" (p. 157)
"Each class would have preached the importance of those virtues, for whose exercise there was no necessity in their own lives. The rich would have spoken on the value of thrift, and the idle grown eloquent over the dignity of labour" (p.14)

Let me now turn to De Profundis. This letter from prison partly addresses his past life and then addresses his deepening religious faith. To me, it lunges back and forth between "woe is me" and "I am the center of the universe". In some ways, when Wilde wrote this in 1897, he had become his fictional character, Dorian Gray.

While the preachiness of De Profundis turned me off, his experiences in jail also led him to write about the conditions in prison. He didn’t focus on himself, but on the plight of all the prisoners. He touched on food, access to exercise, both physical and mental, and being allowed some common dignity. English prisons, he writes in his two letters to the editor, desperately needed reforms. He describes the problem and lists simple solutions to address them. Based on history, it appears many of his recommendations eventually made it into the penal system, both in England and throughout the world. The shift from punitive punishment to attempts at rehabilitation had begun. Sadly, today, we need new individuals to write about the sorry state of prisons, especially in the United States, where both private for-profit prisons and public institutions have been bullied back into implementing some of the sad conditions of the 19th century.