Reviews

So

This freaking book 😬

I'm aware of the irony - I believe I described the last classic I read as "just about how people are terrible," and I hated it for that. This is arguably about the same thing, but I like it far better. I know exactly why, too: where Golding left us mired in the hopeless, animalistic evil of man, Wilde shows us that goodness is an option and we can perhaps find a way out. Basil Hallward implores Dorian to seek forgiveness for what he's done, to repent of his sins and live a virtuous life; he is one of the few Good things in the novel, but his light shines all the brighter for being so isolated. I think it interesting that Dorian never once acknowledges this. He just blames Basil for his initial downfall - Basil, and his own beauty.

I read it almost entirely aloud, because everything that the characters said was so delightfully British and I just couldn't help it. In spite of having never read the book, I knew the gist of it - I'm a school librarian, not to mention a former emo child, I had best know the gist of it. I got to about Chapter 6 and I was starting to get that the bad vibes were coming. Lord Henry kept saying wilder and wilder things, and where before he'd say something vaguely thought provoking or interesting and only a little crazy, in Chapter 6 his random monologues were suddenly deeply nefarious and problematic.

Or were they deeply nefarious the whole time? I started to wonder if I wasn't being played a little like Dorian himself, being drawn in to something I couldn't entirely understand.

And I think that's part of the terrible beauty of this book. Dorian's story could belong to any one of us - and, in fact, it does. We're all going through the same process of sin and shame, each trying to reach for something better, and we all have the wrong voice whispering in our ear, trying to lead us to seek Beauty in the un-beautiful. Near the end of his journey, Dorian is not only turning to vice to seek pleasure, he's using it as the nearest thing to expiation he can get his hands on - and of course, it's a poor substitute for true mercy. Instead of forgiveness, he is confronted with his own sins

in the physical form of James Vane

. Even his one attempt to "do good" near the book's end is only a selfish act, which he realizes himself. How often do we have this same battle? We have to choose to act with virtue, and sometimes it is a genuine challenge.

The true horror of this story is in large part due to Lord Henry. He remorselessly leads Dorian astray and then discourages him from reforming his behavior. He tells Dorian that the person he's become is something delightful, something somehow beautiful. I've been thinking a bit about how this still happens in society - the world views certain behavior as "good" that is decidedly unvirtuous: excessive fixation on sexuality, acceptance of our own sin as an authentic expression of ourselves, having a perverted sense of "justice" and "fairness" devoid of true justice or mercy, etc. Our children attend schools where they are encouraged to participate in sin and to acknowledge it as something positive. I don't put the onus on the teachers alone (although they can definitely be a part of it, and often are); in fact, more of it likely comes from social media, and is perpetuated by the students themselves. Dorian doesn't realize his own failings until he has already begun to act on them, and then because of the influences he's allowing himself to be lead by - namely a terrible book he receives from Lord Henry* - he fails to repent of them. Is Lord Henry's soul as damaged as Dorian's? At first I suspected that it was not. All he did was "hold the door open" for Dorian to pass through, encouraging him to act immorally, telling Dorian it gave him value. In some ways that is Lord Henry's worst crime. He struck me as being full of hot air; he talks a big game, but he didn't seem to do much beyond talk of evil and delight in bringing others to corruption. And then I realized that that may be enough to condemn him (Mt. 18.6 and all that).

*Not only is this filling the same role that social media does today, and the role of so many awful books that showcase "reality" but end up negatively influencing innocent minds, I also love the symbolism of this - Lord Henry's "gospel" is one that destroys, but he delights in sharing it no less than one who shares the gospel of Christ.

It strikes me that this is the great sin of our age. Not pornography, murder, or wanton sexuality, but that these things are spoken of with openness, acceptance, and praise. The terrible lie seeded in our hearts is that these things are right, and that God is somehow trying to hold us back. And this is the world in which we raise our families, and so many families participate in it. We're in the garden all over again, except now we play the part of the serpent. If we could all be Dorian Gray, helpless innocents led astray by Lord Henry and his perverting influence, we could in equal measure be Lord Henry. <i>That's</i> the most frightening part of the story. It's time to choose which gospel we're going to share.

**If you read all the words I wrote, you deserve at least two potatoes 🥔🥔
24 Classics in 2024: 2/24

Content Warnings