A review by meitalkam
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

5.0

I don't usually write reviews, but after reading this book I feel like I need to share just a tiny portion of my thoughts. After realizing I should approach this book, not as a novel, but as a philosophical text (sort of the way I would read Thus Spoke Zarathustra or the Stranger), the book and its ideas blew me away. It raises excellent questions on theories of art like: Who does a work belong to? The artist or its patron? It looks into ideas of mimesis, not just mimesis of appearance but of a subject's character. It questions ideas of autonomy, physical beauty, and love. It shares how deeply artworks, books, and performances can affect people. Perhaps it can make someone fall in love with someone else; perhaps it can make someone fall in love with themselves. These are just a small percent of the thinking points that this book has given to me. At some point, regarding the book that Lord Henry gave Dorian Gray, Dorian says something along the lines of not liking the book, but being fascinated by it. That accuratley sums up my thoughts on this book, almost like Oscar Wilde knew...

I need to reread this book, and annotate it even further. I will do that soon.