Hitting the Ground Running

The Picture of Dorian Gray & Other Writings includes: The Picture of Dorian Gray (duh), De Profundis, and The Ballad of Reading Gaol. Going into this, I only wanted to read the picture of Dorian Gray. I figured, “Hey, it’s a classic, might as well try to read something people say is amazing. Plus he’s Irish.” Then I had a 6 hour plane trip back home, finished Dorian Gray about one third of the way through, and didn’t have another book to read. So I started reading De Profundis, and said I wouldn’t read The Ballad Reading Gaol if I finished De Profundis. And then I read The Ballad of Reading Gaol, too. So much for willpower.

About twenty pages into Dorian Gray I knew I would love it. The way Wilde writes is very artistic, in a way that some writing isn’t. I think you could flip to any page and find a beautiful sentence. Actually, let me do that… Ok, page 231 of the book I have: “The tragedy of old age is not that one is old, but that one is young.” That’s a quote from the quote machine himself, Lord Henry Wotton. He enters a scene, waxes poetic about some philosophy he has, then leaves. It’s a joy. The same can be said for De Profundis. It goes from roast to profound epiphany about Jesus’s role as an artists in such a way that I didn’t mind the sudden shift at all. I liked reading the words that much.

The story of Dorian Gray is also something that one can’t sneeze at either. It’s a Faustian story (selling your soul to the devil in order to gain unlimited power), told through a modern (to Wilde) viewpoint. Dorian is a young impressionable youth who sits for painter Basil Hallward. During one of these sessions, Dorian says he’ll do anything to keep his youth and have the newly painted picture grow old. Of course, this wish comes true, and with each indiscretion, the painting becomes more and more sinister.

De Profundis is a letter Wilde wrote to Lord Alfred Douglas while Wilde was imprisoned. It’s pretty much 2 parts: Wilde absolutely laying into Douglas and his family, and Wilde’s views on Christ as an artist. The Ballad of Reading Gaol is a poem about what life is like in that prison, specifically through the lens of a man who is about to hang.

So the big questions: what’s the rating? should you read it? I think everyone should read these works. They’re each extremely smart and make you think, and everyone would be better off if they read them. Even though it might seem like reading a 19th century collection of writings is homework, I think it’s worth it. The amount of beautiful language and characters Wilde portrays will make you appreciate the medium of literature.

I’m giving this collection of works a 5/5 or a Jason Williams: fun to watch, and makes you appreciate the game in a whole new way.