My decision to read Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray was based on two things. The first was that the back page of the Dracula edition I read listed Wilde’s book as a “classic of good and evil”, describing it as “one of the most famous stories in English literature”, and saying it “has sent chills down the spines of readers for over one hundred years”. This was quite an endorsement and intrigued me to check out a novel I didn’t really know anything about. And although I’ll go into a little more detail below, rest assured I never felt any chills down my spine. The second reason I decided to read The Picture of Dorian Gray was that it was a free download for my new Kindle. That’s right, this became my first read on the Kindle (I’ll post thoughts on the Kindle soon). And hey, free is good.
The best thing I can say about The Picture of Dorian Gray is that I didn’t hate it. It’s a relatively short novel, so I made it through quickly. And I think there’s a good story in there somewhere. The problem is that the good story would fill about 50 pages, so the fact that the book is around 200 pages means once again I find an author in need of an editor. I’m not sure if Oscar Wilde hung out with Bram Stoker, but they should have joined a writers anonymous therapy group about self-editing. Wilde fills his story with a lot of irrelevant detail, which did nothing to move the story forward and instead made me consider skipping ahead pages at a time. The plot, which involves a young man who makes an ill-fated wish that a portrait that is painted of him will grow old and allow him to stay young definitely had some potential, but in the end the story fell flat. But like I said, at least it was free.
Next up: Empire Falls by Richard Russo
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