The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
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Web ID: 16596516Delightful
I started reading again recently and I'm very happy this was one of the books I finished. I enjoyed it a lot and the cover is gorgeous
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Customer review from barnesandnoble.com
“Youth had spoiled him”
By now, the story of Oscar Wilde’s only novel is well known, and the title object has become something of a symbol for hiding from the public one’s vices and shame. In that sense, The Picture of Dorian Gray has achieved a form of literary immortality—more people are familiar with the symbol than they are with the novel. The edition reviewed here is the “expurgated” 20-chapter edition, and I can only wonder whether how much of the expurgation was counterbalanced by the numerous passages that read like filler and do nothing to advance the plot or refine characterization. There is so much of this (for example, Lord Henry’s constant pontification on human nature, English society, the tribulations of married life, etc.) that I found myself wishing the novel were a more compact and focused novella. Perhaps the original 13-chapter edition is. I suppose I will need to read that edition and compare the two. At any rate, Wilde’s tale remains a provocative depiction of the consequences of indulgence and depravity and the ultimate cost of valuing youth and beauty over truth.
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Customer review from barnesandnoble.com