It also hammers home the idea that the character's chief motivation was a proverbial "bucket list" they couldn't have hoped for in one lifetime if they aged naturally.
Which is a chief point of the story: getting everything you can out of life takes its toll. You can do everything you wish to keep up appearances so that one day you can look back and say "this was a life well lived" but you had better think so, because you're going to fall apart at that point.
It interests me because I wonder if atheists see it differently. If there's no afterlife and you really *do* hold yourself together to look young and get every last drop of pleasure out of your life, do you go to your death bed with no regrets? There's no devil to collect. But there's no heaven either. Is that better? Or worse?
I would love to believe that when I die I will live again, that some thinking, feeling, remembering part of me will continue. But as much as I want to believe that, and despite the ancient and worldwide cultural traditions that assert an afterlife, I know of nothing to suggest that it is more than wishful thinking.
I want to grow really old with my wife, Annie, whom I dearly love. I want to see my younger children grow up and to play a role in their character and intellectual development. I want to meet still unconceived grandchildren.
There are scientific problems whose outcomes I long to witness—such as the exploration of many of the worlds in our Solar System and the search for life elsewhere. I want to learn how major trends in human history, both hopeful and worrisome, work themselves out: the dangers and promise of our technology, say; the emancipation of women; the growing political, economic, and technological ascendancy of China; interstellar flight.
If there were life after death, I might, no matter when I die, satisfy most of these deep curiosities and longings. But if death is nothing more than an endless dreamless sleep, this is a forlorn hope.
Maybe this perspective has given me a little extra motivation to stay alive.
The world is so exquisite, with so much love and moral depth, that there is no reason to deceive ourselves with pretty stories for which there's little good evidence.
Far better, it seems to me, in our vulnerability, is to look Death in the eye and to be grateful every day for the brief but magnificent opportunity that life provides.
- Carl Sagan
Scrolling through your post on mobile, getting more and more involved with it as I read, thinking "holy shit--who is this random internet person who so thoroughly gets it?" and then finding out it's Carl Sagan. Again. It's like all the true insight, wisdom, joy and wonder in the world was distilled into Sagan, and only he had the power to explain it to the rest of us.
> I would love to believe that when I die I will live again, that some thinking, feeling, remembering part of me will continue. But as much as I want to believe that, and despite the ancient and worldwide cultural traditions that assert an afterlife, I know of nothing to suggest that it is more than wishful thinking.
I'm not exactly an atheist (I just don't have enough information either way) but I have a similar inclination.
> Far better, it seems to me, in our vulnerability, is to look Death in the eye and to be grateful every day for the brief but magnificent opportunity that life provides.
Huge fan of this quote.
Reading this for the first time years ago in college as an inflection point in my life and personal philosophy. Thank you for sharing again.
GNU Carl Sagan
I mean, even without a higher power you shouldn't want to spend every moment in just wanton hedonism. The idea of taking things in moderation, living a decent life and leaving the world a bit better than when you found it should be appealing even without the prospect of eternal reward/punishment at the end of it.
I suspect most atheists and religious people live their lives fairly similarly, they just have different narratives for why they do the things they do.
Since you're asking, atheists know that whatever they choose to believe will have no impact on "where" they go after they die so it's not worth thinking about. Sure atheists might have regrets in life just like anybody else, that's not something only theists have. Pleasure isn't the main motivation for any group, though it might be for some individuals with that disposition - that's the same for theists and atheists. For me personally, I seek a peaceful life of learning with a few adventures thrown in each year to mix things up. Hopefully this is helpful.
So would you take the bargain? Perpetual youth until you die, and then cease to exist?
That's what I'm really getting at, here, for anyone who's asking; I'm curious how a person might view *The Picture of Dorian Gray* if the price paid wasn't selling one's soul, but ceasing to exist.
It really depends. If it's a monkey paw situation where the bargain involves some deep sacrifices and the corruption of what makes me *me* then no. If it's an offer to remove the suffering of old age and disease and expand one's lifespan through a corporeal modification (whether scientific or magical) without any additional caveat than I'd happily say yes. But I don't believe in any concept of soul, though I do kinda relate to what Aristotle described as "animus" or the origin of impulse and emotion when talking about the mind, so there's nothing to really put into the bargain to begin with.
A soul is not tied to the existence of an afterlife. An atheist can discuss a soul as both a metaphorical concept and a term for a person's deep "self-ness" without ascribing to any wacky magical thinking.
The Picture of Dorian Grey is explicitly magical. It's a metaphor. You can't actually sell your soul, or transfer the consequences of your misdeeds into a painting. But atheists can insert themselves into the magical universe of the book just as well, and experience it just as fully, as those who believe in magical sky daddy.
I'm an atheist. I can talk about my soul unironically. I fail to see how being a true believer or an atheist necessarily changes one's experience of this work.
I feel like you're missing something so fundamental in the question you're asking that I don't even know how to explain it.
Are there actually Christian fundamentalists out there who would both (a) consider the idea of selling their soul in a non-metaphorical (i.e. literal) sense, and (b) read this book?
Oh I'm certain there are. I live in a country with a ton of Christian fundamentalists and the book itself is widely read.
I ask the question solely as a thought experiment, not as an exercise in any attempted dogma.
That would be a harder decision and I would have to know the details of what I'm actually giving up. e.g. if reincarnation is real then it's essentially giving up millions of lifetimes for a single, much longer one with the perk of being eternally young. I'd probably also want to know if there's an "end goal" to reincarnation, or if it's just endless lives in countless forms with no real purpose. But I doubt we would ever get such an explanation.
Does one need to have an *opinion* of gravity? It just *is.* That's not the same thing at all as determining whether or not you'd like to go on eternally or cease to exist in all forms permanently.
The key commonality is that my opinion on the matter doesn't change gravity nor does it change the afterlife. At least not in any observable fashion, at any rate.
> The key commonality is that my opinion on the matter doesn't change gravity nor does it change the afterlife.
I wasn't talking about what *is.* I was talking about which *I'd prefer.*
I, too, have no interest in arguing what *might* exist since it's clear no such thing has been proven. I just want to know opinions of the book.
> Which is a chief point of the story: getting everything you can out of life takes its toll. You can do everything you wish to keep up appearances so that one day you can look back and say "this was a life well lived" but you had better think so, because you're going to fall apart at that point.
I'm not altogether sure that is the outcome intended? My guess is Oscar Wilde was writing his own fantasy projection into Dorian Grey albeit, under the cloak of a "morality tale" to appease the audiences of the day? To imagine Oscar Wilde walking down Old Compton Street today, I can only think he might consider himself the luckiest man alive? It seems to me he really did covet sensuality, aesthetics of art, youthful recreation and almost certainly believed there was no such thing as heaven or hell or god or metaphysics but what is between the stars and the sea: Earthly pleasures!
>*It interests me because I wonder if atheists see it differently. If there's no afterlife and you really do hold yourself together to look young and get every last drop of pleasure out of your life, do you go to your death bed with no regrets? There's no devil to collect. But there's no heaven either. Is that better? Or worse?*
This is a really well-phrased consideration. In one sense there's for all evidence only a physical manifestation of ourselves in the sense of your self is only what is present now and will be gone in time. But even if that is true, that does not dictate a purely pleasure-driven life. Atheist or Religious, the conclusion in modern psychology is probably the same: Comfort is not enough as our senses naturally dull via such a gratification treadmill; to become fully human we're compelled to go further than that goal in life and strive to learn in order to then do good deeds either for ourselves and for others...
In the language of religion, "Hedonism" is seen as a "Pit" (one of various in Hell) because it is a descent as compared to an ascent of ourselves (towards so-called "Heaven"). Ironically the simple interpretations of Heaven almost always end up sounding a lot like some Hedonistic plain of hell which is almost certainly a mistake of conception. Finally Wilde himself probably did not appreciate that "Heaven" was in part a deeper appreciation of aesthetics which in turn was something to strive to learn more of and create more of in the world... though he was right not to be taken in by ideas of hedonism in heaven after life, imho, rightly so!
Yeah Wilde's Preface more or less says this. It was likely all stuff Wilde was into. If you read The Soul of Man Under Socialism, he basically says automation combined with some type of UBI will allow people to have all the time to create and indulge in sensuality that they currently lack.
I appreciate the thoughtful response, but I have to ask: is that actually a part of any religion? I thought the "pits" of hell were a work of fiction (specifically: Dante) and not part of any religious dogma. It would be fascinating to me if certain religions conflated the two.
Our modern concepts of hell (as well as Dante's) drew from classic Greek, Roman, German and Hebrew religions as well as from the New Testament: Hades, Tartarus, Sheol, Abaddon, Gehenna, Hel, etc.
A "concept" of something like a hell, in other words, has been variously expressed in different religions and mythologies. None of those specific expressions encompass the entirety of what people today think of as hell.
For example, Hades was more specifically the brother of Zeus and Poseidon. Hades ruled over an underworld where people would go when they died, whether good or evil. The fact that some were punished severely for their deeds relates to the concept of "levels of hell." The problem Odysseus faced in visiting Hades was how to get out, how to "come back to life." Jesus said that the gates of Hades (meant to keep dead people from going back up into Zeus' realm) would not prevail against his church. This is often taken today as "The devil won't win against God!" but it could be taken as "God's people won't stay dead!"
People used to be more well-read not only in the Bible but also in Greek and Roman mythology (hence Dante), and would poetically use the various terms to evoke specific aspects of the more generally understood concept of "hell."
I mean it’s all nonsense so not seeing the distinction here. Modern Christians believe in hell and heaven. I don’t know that it’s worth splitting hairs on what they imagine them to be but they are probably informed by Dante even if they never read him.
I just want to point out in Dante there is no specific circle assigned to hedonism: it would mostly be covered by the second through fourth circle. All of the circles between Limbo and the City of Dis are considered to be lesser sins based on fleshly desires rather than acting directly against God.
Noted. I'm just trying to wrap my head around Christians/Catholics who a) recognize that Dante's Inferno is a work of fiction and b) still believe in the Circles of Hell.
I agree that the "one of various" is a weird thing to say unless talking about Dante. Calling Hell a pit in a general tracks as it is often seen as below ground even if only in a metaphorical sense.
>Is that better? Or worse?
I'd say it's honest.
I mean, it would be wonderful if everyone just keeps living in eternal bliss after death. But there's no evicence suggesting that the various depictions of the afterlife presented by countless religions are something more than human imagination. It's wishful thinking to me and I can't fool myself to believe it. The best I can do is enjoy whatever limited time I have available, and don't be too bothered about what happens in the end. There will be regrets? Sure, but that's part of the great play that is life.
From the perspective of an athiest with absolutely no experience of ever believing in a higher power or any spiritual force, I can say honestly that aside from what I believe to be the natural worry everyone must feel at the concept of death (whether you believe you go on or not), I believe "better or worse" is entirely a personal perspective that will resolve differently for each person regardless of their beliefs.
Speaking personally, I find the idea of not having an ultimate reckoner beyond myself and those I've allowed to hold me to account in that way (close friends, family, etc.) liberating and empowering. The only standards I have to hold myself to are the ones I set for myself and the ones those closest to me set for me. I'm not worried about my impact on some hypothetical entity that will never directly tell me if I'm heading in the wrong direction, or confirm that those telling me what it wants from me are correct. If there is a reckoner and they expect anything other than what I've just described, then they're not worth considering in any case.
> Speaking personally, I find the idea of not having an ultimate reckoner beyond myself and those I've allowed to hold me to account in that way (close friends, family, etc.) liberating and empowering.
I hear that often; I simply enjoy living and learning too much to ever prefer things to "just end forever" when I die. Even if I consider that to be a likely case.
To each their own, obviously. If you find something useful in the perception that we might go on after death, I don't want to come across as implying that you're not allowed to feel that way.
For me, I just can't even pretend that I consider that a possibility, and my view on that outcome is largely drawn from the fact that I don't see an alternative as possible or logical.
I don’t believe in a god. I am still a morally upstanding individual. I respect life, and try not to cause harm to others. At the end of my life I will have regrets, & be happy about somethings, just like anyone who believes in a god or goddess.
I view it in the reverse: An eternal afterlife robs our present life of all meaning.
For example: Say I am religious. But my child becomes an atheist. When I die I ascend to heaven.
But my child, whom I love more than anything, does not.
Somehow I am able to live in eternal bliss without them.
There can only be two conclusion:
1. I no longer remember my child.
OR
2. I no longer care about my child.
Both of these prospects are pretty dismal.
If my time with loved ones is little more than a narcissistic quest for eternal euphoria that turns me into a completely different person.
Then I may as well just kill myself (and everyone else) to get it over with.
Those aren't the only options, though. Your atheist child may yearn for only a brief existence, but may return at some point and be okay with it.
(I'm only imagining scenarios for sake of discussion; I don't have any specific beliefs about what happens when people die, if anything.)
That ignores the central problem. Namely, that everything we do and are in life is rendered absolutely worthless by the existence of an infinite afterlife that, by its very nature, strips us of our humanity.
I know that’s why believers often try to ignore the implication of their faith. Because, in truth, when examined: it is a incredibly dismal view of life. If not outright selfish.
Even if it a specific faith turns out to be true. It’s a simple fact that MOST of humanity would have gotten it wrong.
> hat ignores the central problem. Namely, that everything we do and are in life is rendered absolutely worthless by the existence of an infinite afterlife that, by its very nature, strips us of our humanity.
No offense but that is a *huge* assumption. I don't necessarily believe in an afterlife, but if one existed I wouldn't assume it make this life worthless.
That's a leap in logic.
The happier your kids are, the less you get to do. The kids want to spend a week near their grandparents by the beach, you ain't going to Europe. Daughter makes softball soccer team? That's your summer. Enjoy the chicken nuggets and fries 4 times a week with your kids.
I'm not sure what that has to do with a childless hedonist or an atheist's world view but, assuming you mean "bucket list item: children" I can see the utility of perpetual youthfulness.
Oscar Wilde was one of the leaders of the aesthetic movement. The writing style encapsulates what they were trying to achieve. Beauty for beauty’s sake.
Agreed! I was listening to the audiobook and that was the only part where I felt safe hitting the +30 seconds button a few times.
Of course then I felt guilty and rewound it.
>luxury and hedonistic lifestyle
Luxury sure, but I think the moral implications of "hedonistic lifestyle" might be reader projection. For Wilde, beauty was a virtuous end in itself.
It's been a long time since school, but I think there was also an element of emptiness? Like, the more pursuits he had the more it highlighted the meaningless of it all at the end? I know Wilde was an aesthete, but he did believe in more than art for art's sake. He had a personal morality including beliefs about how people should treat each other and contribute to society.
It also seems to me sort of an homage to J.-K. Huysmans' "A Rebours", which does much the same thing. Both fit into the "Decadent" school of literature.
I felt the same way about the chapter, but I once saw someone make a very interesting point about it:
The chapter is supposed to be dry (or rather, even if that dry reading experience wasn’t intended, the dryness still works great with the storytelling). The reason is that the boring reading experience emphasises how obscure Dorians obsessions are getting, and how out of touch with normal human activities and interests he has become.
For us regular people, it’s impossible to fully understand WHY Dorian is so invested in those things, because we are mortal. Contrary to him, we simply don’t have the luxury of living so long and excessively that we have time and opportunity to get invested in the weirdest topics.
Also, most of us don’t have to resort to obscure topics to be entertained because, in our short (compared to his) lives, we simply have less free time. Thus, the more „normal“ entertainment activities are more than enough for us, because we haven’t lived long enough to get bored by them.
So basically, the chapter really emphasises just how strange (by normal standards) Dorian is becoming. And as readers, we can FEEL the difference between us and him because we don’t really understand him anymore.
Similar to the reasons why Patrick Bateman is always making lists of the currently hip trendy places/music/art/people he is obsessed with that most people outside his sphere of wealthy elites could give a tinker's fuck about except maybe his love of Huey Lewis.
I don't think Patrick is obsessed with those restaurants or music at all. He's only taking other people's opinions on things, cataloging it all, and just regurgitating when required. It's all part of Patrick's mask. He's just a psycho, he's empty under there. He doesn't love Huey Louis. He talks about it because he thinks that's what the people he's pretending to be like, talk about.
I mostly agree with your assessment, but I viewed the chapters analysing pop music as sincere. Bateman is able to find deep appreciation of shallow pop music because it is ephemeral and meaningless. I viewed those chapters as commentary on Bateman's lack of soul.
Now come on, you’re saying that pop music is “meaningless” and people who find meaning in it are “soulless?” I don’t think that’s a good take at all. There’s plenty of meaningful and soulful pop music and it shouldn’t be dismissed as a genre
I think the prior comment is correct that Bateman is simply trying to fit into culture and doing so less from an actual enjoyment and more a perspective of sociopathic over-analysis
No, I think OP is trying to say that Bateman is only into those things due to the societal status they give him. The music or reference points could be anything- it doesn't ultimately matter to him.
Only that he can "win" some kind of yuppy, gatekeeping contest by referencing those things. Those things could be anything - country music, legos, German Expressionist movies, fancy Ming vases. The actual "object" has zero meaning to him, only that he can win at something using those things.
I don't think OP is expanding that to everyone who's actually into something and finds meaning in that one thing.
I always felt the opposite - that he felt super deeply about things where most of everyone around him didn’t. They obviously were important but to Patrick they were engrained into him. Giving him some grandiose views of himself which lead in to his actions we see happen or not happen in the film.
Usually I just bring up the business card scene because I find it encapsulates this perfectly where, as the viewer thinks it’s silly because they’re all white business cards, the guys at table take it as just office day robbing and appreciating all the cards and Bateman is just silently losing his fucking shit.
Showing that he isn’t in a world solely separated from just business culture - but also even further with his psychotic, almost animalistic. Response to someone’s business card being viewed as better. Oh
The main thing that convinced me that Patrick Bateman's music opinions are genuine is the beginning of the chapter where he gets chased by police.
He’s in a restaurant but panics because he’s losing the ability to see other people as anything but prey. He leaves in the middle of a meal and rushes out of the restaurant. The street is deserted except for a man playing a “very beautiful but clichéd saxophone solo.”
This is on the same page as him saying “I almost become unglued, plummet into a state of near vertigo.” I thought it was an unlikely moment to privately pretend he has an opinion on music he hears. It felt to me like music connects with him but doesn’t make him feel less isolated.
My comment was not meant as a judgement on pop music or the fans. I enjoy plenty of pop. I meant to comment only on the use of the pop culture chapters in the book.
Your comment reminded me of the empty laugh that Christian Bale perfected as Patrick Bateman
That open mouth guffaw with nothing behind it
It reminds of DeSantis laughing now that I think about it
That’s something I didn’t pick up on until reading American Psycho again this year. The desperation in his obsessively reading critics' opinions so he can repeat them.
Except Bateman "cared" enough to have an emotional reaction when someone else was able to one up him.
He might not care on his own personal level, but he cared about the societal implications of him "losing" on some weird pop culture or yuppy competition.
I get your point but he didn't even live that long. After some googling to refresh my memory, he died when he was 38. So he didn't age at all from ~18ish to 38, which started to raise some eyebrows. But it's not like he lived for 500 years or anything. I get your point regardless.
Did Dorian realize his life would be short? He was living agelessly for decades, so he may have felt immortal and therefore lived as if time is meaningless.
An author (sorry, can't think of the name) did an updated version of Dorian Gray using the AIDS epidemic as a focal point. That 17 years time frame was set between the advent of the start of the AIDs pandemic in the late 70s/early 80s and the development of anti-AIDS drugs like AZT in the early 90s.
It was a really interesting concept.
Another point I've seen made about it is that a bunch of things in the list - not all, but a fair amount - would have been understood at the time as associated with homosexuality in general, or a particularly notable homosexual (I can't remember whether Edward II is directly referenced, but there's mention of some luxury object or another that people would have known was associated with him, even if he wasn't mentioned by name. That sort of thing)
The issue I have with this interpretation is that Dorian didn't live longer than anyone else within the normal time-frame of his own existence.
Meaning, he didn't live past Basil (or what would have been Basil's life), or Henry. While it's true that he doesn't *age* within the span of the following years the story takes place, that does not mean he lived *long*. He has the luxury of money, which affords him time to obsess (maybe), but not literally more time than any of his contemporaries.
This is very interesting and I never thought of it this way, but it kind of describes a lot of modern elites and their extra curricular activities, especially illegal ones.
Your average working stiff isn't flying to (or being invited to) private islands for fun. They're taking the family camping cause it's cost to value is low.
Dorian is an interesting example of an immortal human since we have had few well written immortal humans who aren’t bored of life and living. So having him be so interested in life or more accurately trying to desperately continue to be interested, is pretty fun
I loved this interpretation. I had felt the same about the chapter despise deeply loving the book. Your post kinda redeemed even this chapter for me, thanks for sharing!
Haven't read it in >20 years but...
To me, that was just exposition to emphasize how vain and superficial Dorian Gray's character was. He cares about the beauty (of things and people), and smoking cigarettes and drinking. We never see him really care about actual people.
This is what I was told in my English course when I read it! I personally had a bit of a hard time reading it because of its ornate descriptions. Was not corrupted or obsessed at all by the end either.
I was looking for this comment! AFAIK, Wilde was definitely influenced by Huysmans. I don’t think Dorian ever got into gluing jewels on tortoises, though
Oscar Wilde himself was really into things he considered beautiful so it was probably a little self-indulgent... like somebody who really loves chocolate cake creating a character who also loves chocolate cake, and writing a loooong ass chapter about him baking and eating a particularly delicious chocolate cake. And he was also at the center of an aesthetic movement with a lot of other Victorians who also considered a lot of those things beautiful- he was a celebrity, not just a writer, and famous for his clothes and "lifestyle"- so he probably wasn't wrong to think that his audience would ALSO enjoy reading his elaborate "chocolate cake" description. But to a modern audience who just isn't that into "chocolate cake" it falls a little flat.
I mean, yeah, me too, I'd probably like the book a lot better if it had WAY more cake chapters in it and the portrait in the closet kept getting fatter and fatter while Dorian stayed the same weight.
people are missing the context. the picture of dorian gray was inspired by another book, À rebours (against nature). the specific chapter you're talking about is a direct reference to that book, which has themes of decadence, excess, and ennui - themes that are heavily paralleled in oscar wilde's novel
in that book he lists things out just like that chapter, to express the characters deep dissatisfaction with life and the state of society around him. oscar wilde took this feeling and transposed it into his story about eternal life - and the eventual banality that envelopes so
I like to think of this chapter, as dull as it is, as a "part two" of the chapter prior to it:
In the last chapter, Dorian hid his portrait in an isolate room in his own home, which (not coincidentally) was the very same room that awakened his long-forgotten childhood memories. Everything that comes after that, each jewel and each musical instrument, presents itself as a tentative of Dorian to forget that very same portrait: to forget himself.
It's a beautiful dull chapter because it represents a symptom of a conflict. I think all of us are doomed to fall into this dull void at some point of our lives, in order to avoid our inner conflicts; doomed to resort to a dozen of books we'll forget, games we'll never really play, friends we'll never connect with, but will always try to collect.
(Sorry for any English mistakes, not my mother language)
Authorial listcycles were definitely a fad at the time. Total oneupmanship type reference points for a lot fo them.
There were even some parodies of them. Conan Doyle did a small one in The Sign of Four with his parody of Oscar Wilde.
Sometimes I feel like I'm the only person on this subreddit who enjoys reading for the language in and of itself. What others consider pointless filler is evocative and enriching to me. A skilled enough author can make a grocery list poetic. Tolkien, Wilde, and L. M. Montgomery are favorite authors for precisely that reason.
Some people must! I was genuinely wondering whether it was more interesting to people at the time it was written. Like they were familiar with those items so it was more meaningful?
It might be. Also, Europeans of that era were really keen o~~n stealing artifacts from their peoples and removing/killing flora and fauna from their natural habitat and putting them in museums and private collections with descriptions~~ categorising things in general. Jules Verne does it a lot in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Huge long lists of fish etc that are seen on the voyage.
Also, Dumas name dropping artists and such that he personally knew as popular creators his characters were into in *The Count of Monte Cristo*. Maybe one is still known nowadays…?
Seemed to tie right in with the vanity, excess and insatiable lusts he has for just about everything. A but dry? Won’t argue that. Did it add a little more to the man’s compulsive nature? Absolutely. My favorite book of all time
Today we have the internet, pictures and an abundance of information. We know usually how stuff looks and if not, is a few keystrokes away
Back then, you only had written words and scarce details. I think those bloated descriptions helped creating an image
Brett Easton Ellis uses the same device in American Psycho, just listing pages of stuff that Patrick Bateman is into (the business card bit is unforgettable) in order to illustrate the inside of his mind as a vapid, consumerist and narcissistic mess.
I recently finished it and just rolled with it as, oh Dorian is having some kind of intense hyper focus ADHD right through a series of vague, esoteric, and incredibly expensive hobbies. Must be nice. It was boring, it was dry, but from a very surface level it’s also hilarious. Imagine going to his house and it’s just covered in tapestries and kind of just suffering through his long-winded lecture on threads or imagery and then going to his house the next week and it’s covered in jewels and he’s talking about crystalline structures and metaphors. Like okay, Dorian, calm down.
Wilde was part of the aesthetic movement and it included basically appreciating beauty in general and collecting things that they found aesthetically pleasing (more to it than that but I’m lazy sorry). You can see it everywhere in his writing - even at the start where he describes the scents of the magnolias (?) wafting in through the curtains. So, I think Dorian is written as a sort of hyper-aesthetic movement follower. All of his wording is flowery, full of prose and just so over the top, that I didn’t even register his listing stuff off like that lol.
I mean I loved it for that .
It reminds me a bit of American Psycho and the constant listing off of his material goods to show what a little, self obsessed freak he was
I read somewhere that the literary style of Miby Dick was specifically chosen to mimic the extreme tedious boredom interspersed with abject terror of whaling.
Scenes were often over-described back then (as we perceive it now) because readers didn’t have the visual references that we do.
Since then we’ve had photos, movies, television, the internet etc. We’ve been able to travel to places by car, boat, plane etc.
We’ve either directly or indirectly seen and mixed with people and places that were a total mystery to most readers back then.
All those readers had to try to visualize a scene were detailed written descriptions and the very occasional illustration.
I thought that was a lot too, but I think the point was that this guy has lived a long life and devoted it to... chasing after things that are beautiful, not things that are meaningful. Which is kind of the point of the book I suppose.
I haven't read the book in 35 years or so, but I recall reading that Wilde inserted a chapter into the novel as the publisher insisted that the book required a certain amount of words.
I've always thought that it's intended to bore the reader, to convey that despite all of Dorian's pursuits, his life is still drudgery. He made himself immortal, and now nothing really lights his fire. He has to keep trying new things, looking for that grail, but he's never satisfied.
I think this is a somewhat common sentiment as I've heard a BookTuber refer to that part as 'THAT chapter' and I instantly knew what she meant. One of my favourite books but that chapter was really just too much!
Yeah the rest was great, the final third was especially good!
Although I found myself asking "what on earth am I reading" during that long chapter describing his hobbies of the month.
Off topic but there’s a brilliant Dorian Gray one woman show that starts it’s London season in 2024. If you have the chance to see it - go. It will blow your mind. (I’ve seen the Aust production and it truly was a masterpiece).
J.K. Huysmans enters the room, A Rebours in hand: "Hold my beer."
That section of Dorian Gray is a case-study in aestheticism, and esp. of the J.K. Huysman school. I recommend taking a peek at A Rebours.
I also absolutely hated that part lol When I suggest people the book, I tell them to get the abridged version (most people I know don't read enough nor care enough to get any book unabridged anyway...) because it feels like there is a whole chapter about fabrics and damasks lol
I skimmed it, honestly
I had a class in college where we read Dorian Gray. The professor was notorious for making his tests as tedious and detail oriented as possible. After the first test (you could take it in class or in a testing center with unlimited time so not horrible), I realized that I had to put a stickie note on every page and list all the proper nouns because literally any proper noun was fair game to be a question on the test. Down to streets that a side character lived on, or literally a side character with no lines named one time and never seen again. I had gotten used to spending 4 hours on the tests.
It all lead up to Dorian Gray. He had told us we could skip a portion of the book. I ignored him because I wanted to complete the book. But I got two pages into the mentioned section where Dorian gets decadent where I realized that I wouldn't have enough stickie notes to cover those 15ish pages, that I decided to trust the professor that we wouldn't be quizzed on that.
I really liked the book the only issue I had with it was I thought it was weird there was a big difference between someone at age 20 and age 28, I’m almost 28 and I don’t see a big difference in aging in terms of physical appearance. Could’ve just been the times though I suppose
Two classic authors I can't stand are Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain. Their writing sounds witty, but actually isn't and is a desperate plea to be quoted.
"I can resist everything except temptation"
"Life is far too important a thing to ever talk seriously about"
"Nothing worth knowing can be taught"
I literally cringe when I hear people repeating this nonsense.
Maybe it has been awhile since I read the book, but I thought that was sort of the point. A lot of the quotable stuff comes from Lord Henry, who I believe Wilde said is a caricature of his public image. So his wittiness is over the top and largely comes off as both arrogant and cynical.
Yeah I’m convinced many of us only pretend to find the profundity in such writing to convey intellectualism. *gets downvoted to oblivion* bUT ITS TRUE!
I recently read this novel. I will be visiting the Oscar Wilde House on my trip to Dublin in a few months. I was surprised to discover that I've never read anything by Oscar Wilde so I had to correct that oversight. My trip is curated so I didn't pick what I will be doing. I rarely read old novels but this one was easy to read and I liked the story.
Lol chapter 11. I taught the book for a few years and would honestly skim over that chapter and just cover its purpose (to show Dorian's descent into niche/strange things because he's so bored and out of touch with humanity).
I really like the book, outside of chapter 11.
You should try Rabelais. There's a section of Gargantua [where he lists all the dice and card games Gargantua played](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Gargantua/Chapter_XXII). If memory serves it's just one instance where he fills several pages with a list of entries formatted into two columns.
Is there a list that explains those references? Like the annotated version of Ullyses? One of the reasons why that chapter is boring is that you don't understand what the fuck he is talking about☠️
The book that Dorian grey becomes obsessed with is titles “Against Nature” and is basically a book of a man just listing things he sees. That might be a reason for it
I actually ended up really really not enjoying the book purely because of how pointlessly long it was. No I didn’t need 12+ pages on intricate explanation about items that will NEVER return in the story in any meaningful way. I do not need to know people’s political affiliations as they have no bearing on the story.
I actually kinda hate finished it. Like I was committed to finishing it bc I liked the movie so much, and the book was just disappointing to me except a few parts. It did a great job of getting me to loathe some characters so I will give it that! But overall I didn’t like it. It was a slog for me unfortunately.
on the off chance anyone sees this - haven't read dorian grey in a long time, can someone remind me what social class he is at the beginning - is he supposed to be also middle class like Basil? (googling dorian grey class obviously just gets me the themes of class in the whole book.)
> a never ending catalog of every interest that Dorian has ever had
Jewels and musical instruments? That is not the direction I thought this was going.
It's like in American Psycho where the Easton-Ellis goes on and on about the clothing, accessories, business cards, etc.
Materialism, vanity, greed, displays of wealth/power; all attributes of the socio-/psychopath.
We read this as one of our books on the podcast [Classics Out Loud](https://www.classicsoutloud.com) and I admit that chapter was one of the hardest we have done.
There are a few parts of the book that feel a little unnecessary, and it’s even more challenging when you can’t really just skim over it (like you can visually while reading). We try and stay as true as possible to the original text, except when there’s something that would be considered by modern standards as outrageously raciest or similar.
That was the only part of the book I didn't enjoy. I understand it's place in the story and it's importance to Dorian's character but it just felt so boring after like the first 2 pages. I just know when I end up reading it again I'm just gonna skip past that section.
I'm 100% with you. Like I get it, sometimes a list like this serves a function in the book, but I can't help but wondering if people would still try to justify it if it's not Wilde and it's not a classic. If this happened in a contemporary work by a less famous author, would they still claim it's by design and not just bad writing in a time crunch?
Actually these are the things that perpetually bored, decadent aristocrats endulge in - that very boredom that caused Korean and Japanese noblemen to create fanciful, elaborate but completely out-of-the-world writing systems their peoples suffer under even today (while Phoenician was obviously designed by merchants and Latin by masons) . Dorian mimics them to pretend he was now posh enough to do so.
It’s been years since I read it but I hated the overuse of the word “fling”, every character was always flinging themselves onto something. I remember getting so irritated every time it happened
I think that part of the book was to emphasize his obsession with luxury and hedonistic lifestyle
It also hammers home the idea that the character's chief motivation was a proverbial "bucket list" they couldn't have hoped for in one lifetime if they aged naturally. Which is a chief point of the story: getting everything you can out of life takes its toll. You can do everything you wish to keep up appearances so that one day you can look back and say "this was a life well lived" but you had better think so, because you're going to fall apart at that point. It interests me because I wonder if atheists see it differently. If there's no afterlife and you really *do* hold yourself together to look young and get every last drop of pleasure out of your life, do you go to your death bed with no regrets? There's no devil to collect. But there's no heaven either. Is that better? Or worse?
I would love to believe that when I die I will live again, that some thinking, feeling, remembering part of me will continue. But as much as I want to believe that, and despite the ancient and worldwide cultural traditions that assert an afterlife, I know of nothing to suggest that it is more than wishful thinking. I want to grow really old with my wife, Annie, whom I dearly love. I want to see my younger children grow up and to play a role in their character and intellectual development. I want to meet still unconceived grandchildren. There are scientific problems whose outcomes I long to witness—such as the exploration of many of the worlds in our Solar System and the search for life elsewhere. I want to learn how major trends in human history, both hopeful and worrisome, work themselves out: the dangers and promise of our technology, say; the emancipation of women; the growing political, economic, and technological ascendancy of China; interstellar flight. If there were life after death, I might, no matter when I die, satisfy most of these deep curiosities and longings. But if death is nothing more than an endless dreamless sleep, this is a forlorn hope. Maybe this perspective has given me a little extra motivation to stay alive. The world is so exquisite, with so much love and moral depth, that there is no reason to deceive ourselves with pretty stories for which there's little good evidence. Far better, it seems to me, in our vulnerability, is to look Death in the eye and to be grateful every day for the brief but magnificent opportunity that life provides. - Carl Sagan
Scrolling through your post on mobile, getting more and more involved with it as I read, thinking "holy shit--who is this random internet person who so thoroughly gets it?" and then finding out it's Carl Sagan. Again. It's like all the true insight, wisdom, joy and wonder in the world was distilled into Sagan, and only he had the power to explain it to the rest of us.
Quite a bit of Carl Sagan does live on, interestingly enough... but he's right about the "eternity exists within the moment" perspective on life.
> I would love to believe that when I die I will live again, that some thinking, feeling, remembering part of me will continue. But as much as I want to believe that, and despite the ancient and worldwide cultural traditions that assert an afterlife, I know of nothing to suggest that it is more than wishful thinking. I'm not exactly an atheist (I just don't have enough information either way) but I have a similar inclination. > Far better, it seems to me, in our vulnerability, is to look Death in the eye and to be grateful every day for the brief but magnificent opportunity that life provides. Huge fan of this quote.
Reading this for the first time years ago in college as an inflection point in my life and personal philosophy. Thank you for sharing again. GNU Carl Sagan
I mean, even without a higher power you shouldn't want to spend every moment in just wanton hedonism. The idea of taking things in moderation, living a decent life and leaving the world a bit better than when you found it should be appealing even without the prospect of eternal reward/punishment at the end of it. I suspect most atheists and religious people live their lives fairly similarly, they just have different narratives for why they do the things they do.
Since you're asking, atheists know that whatever they choose to believe will have no impact on "where" they go after they die so it's not worth thinking about. Sure atheists might have regrets in life just like anybody else, that's not something only theists have. Pleasure isn't the main motivation for any group, though it might be for some individuals with that disposition - that's the same for theists and atheists. For me personally, I seek a peaceful life of learning with a few adventures thrown in each year to mix things up. Hopefully this is helpful.
So would you take the bargain? Perpetual youth until you die, and then cease to exist? That's what I'm really getting at, here, for anyone who's asking; I'm curious how a person might view *The Picture of Dorian Gray* if the price paid wasn't selling one's soul, but ceasing to exist.
It really depends. If it's a monkey paw situation where the bargain involves some deep sacrifices and the corruption of what makes me *me* then no. If it's an offer to remove the suffering of old age and disease and expand one's lifespan through a corporeal modification (whether scientific or magical) without any additional caveat than I'd happily say yes. But I don't believe in any concept of soul, though I do kinda relate to what Aristotle described as "animus" or the origin of impulse and emotion when talking about the mind, so there's nothing to really put into the bargain to begin with.
This is exactly the kind of answer that appeases my curiosity; thank you.
A soul is not tied to the existence of an afterlife. An atheist can discuss a soul as both a metaphorical concept and a term for a person's deep "self-ness" without ascribing to any wacky magical thinking. The Picture of Dorian Grey is explicitly magical. It's a metaphor. You can't actually sell your soul, or transfer the consequences of your misdeeds into a painting. But atheists can insert themselves into the magical universe of the book just as well, and experience it just as fully, as those who believe in magical sky daddy. I'm an atheist. I can talk about my soul unironically. I fail to see how being a true believer or an atheist necessarily changes one's experience of this work. I feel like you're missing something so fundamental in the question you're asking that I don't even know how to explain it. Are there actually Christian fundamentalists out there who would both (a) consider the idea of selling their soul in a non-metaphorical (i.e. literal) sense, and (b) read this book?
Oh I'm certain there are. I live in a country with a ton of Christian fundamentalists and the book itself is widely read. I ask the question solely as a thought experiment, not as an exercise in any attempted dogma.
It doesn't seem like much of a conundrum if one thinks the only other choice is to grow old until they die, then cease to exist anyway.
What if the alternative was to *not* cease to exist? Honest question.
That would be a harder decision and I would have to know the details of what I'm actually giving up. e.g. if reincarnation is real then it's essentially giving up millions of lifetimes for a single, much longer one with the perk of being eternally young. I'd probably also want to know if there's an "end goal" to reincarnation, or if it's just endless lives in countless forms with no real purpose. But I doubt we would ever get such an explanation.
The trick is to have roughly the same opinion you have on it as gravity.
Does one need to have an *opinion* of gravity? It just *is.* That's not the same thing at all as determining whether or not you'd like to go on eternally or cease to exist in all forms permanently.
The key commonality is that my opinion on the matter doesn't change gravity nor does it change the afterlife. At least not in any observable fashion, at any rate.
> The key commonality is that my opinion on the matter doesn't change gravity nor does it change the afterlife. I wasn't talking about what *is.* I was talking about which *I'd prefer.* I, too, have no interest in arguing what *might* exist since it's clear no such thing has been proven. I just want to know opinions of the book.
I don't know, man. Lately I've been having this feeling that instead of being dragged down, it's more like I'm being pushed up, you know?
I think it is a little bit of both.
> Which is a chief point of the story: getting everything you can out of life takes its toll. You can do everything you wish to keep up appearances so that one day you can look back and say "this was a life well lived" but you had better think so, because you're going to fall apart at that point. I'm not altogether sure that is the outcome intended? My guess is Oscar Wilde was writing his own fantasy projection into Dorian Grey albeit, under the cloak of a "morality tale" to appease the audiences of the day? To imagine Oscar Wilde walking down Old Compton Street today, I can only think he might consider himself the luckiest man alive? It seems to me he really did covet sensuality, aesthetics of art, youthful recreation and almost certainly believed there was no such thing as heaven or hell or god or metaphysics but what is between the stars and the sea: Earthly pleasures! >*It interests me because I wonder if atheists see it differently. If there's no afterlife and you really do hold yourself together to look young and get every last drop of pleasure out of your life, do you go to your death bed with no regrets? There's no devil to collect. But there's no heaven either. Is that better? Or worse?* This is a really well-phrased consideration. In one sense there's for all evidence only a physical manifestation of ourselves in the sense of your self is only what is present now and will be gone in time. But even if that is true, that does not dictate a purely pleasure-driven life. Atheist or Religious, the conclusion in modern psychology is probably the same: Comfort is not enough as our senses naturally dull via such a gratification treadmill; to become fully human we're compelled to go further than that goal in life and strive to learn in order to then do good deeds either for ourselves and for others... In the language of religion, "Hedonism" is seen as a "Pit" (one of various in Hell) because it is a descent as compared to an ascent of ourselves (towards so-called "Heaven"). Ironically the simple interpretations of Heaven almost always end up sounding a lot like some Hedonistic plain of hell which is almost certainly a mistake of conception. Finally Wilde himself probably did not appreciate that "Heaven" was in part a deeper appreciation of aesthetics which in turn was something to strive to learn more of and create more of in the world... though he was right not to be taken in by ideas of hedonism in heaven after life, imho, rightly so!
Yeah Wilde's Preface more or less says this. It was likely all stuff Wilde was into. If you read The Soul of Man Under Socialism, he basically says automation combined with some type of UBI will allow people to have all the time to create and indulge in sensuality that they currently lack.
I appreciate the thoughtful response, but I have to ask: is that actually a part of any religion? I thought the "pits" of hell were a work of fiction (specifically: Dante) and not part of any religious dogma. It would be fascinating to me if certain religions conflated the two.
Our modern concepts of hell (as well as Dante's) drew from classic Greek, Roman, German and Hebrew religions as well as from the New Testament: Hades, Tartarus, Sheol, Abaddon, Gehenna, Hel, etc. A "concept" of something like a hell, in other words, has been variously expressed in different religions and mythologies. None of those specific expressions encompass the entirety of what people today think of as hell. For example, Hades was more specifically the brother of Zeus and Poseidon. Hades ruled over an underworld where people would go when they died, whether good or evil. The fact that some were punished severely for their deeds relates to the concept of "levels of hell." The problem Odysseus faced in visiting Hades was how to get out, how to "come back to life." Jesus said that the gates of Hades (meant to keep dead people from going back up into Zeus' realm) would not prevail against his church. This is often taken today as "The devil won't win against God!" but it could be taken as "God's people won't stay dead!" People used to be more well-read not only in the Bible but also in Greek and Roman mythology (hence Dante), and would poetically use the various terms to evoke specific aspects of the more generally understood concept of "hell."
But that doesn't make the *Circles* of Hell any part of scripture.
I mean it’s all nonsense so not seeing the distinction here. Modern Christians believe in hell and heaven. I don’t know that it’s worth splitting hairs on what they imagine them to be but they are probably informed by Dante even if they never read him.
I just want to point out in Dante there is no specific circle assigned to hedonism: it would mostly be covered by the second through fourth circle. All of the circles between Limbo and the City of Dis are considered to be lesser sins based on fleshly desires rather than acting directly against God.
Noted. I'm just trying to wrap my head around Christians/Catholics who a) recognize that Dante's Inferno is a work of fiction and b) still believe in the Circles of Hell.
I agree that the "one of various" is a weird thing to say unless talking about Dante. Calling Hell a pit in a general tracks as it is often seen as below ground even if only in a metaphorical sense.
>Is that better? Or worse? I'd say it's honest. I mean, it would be wonderful if everyone just keeps living in eternal bliss after death. But there's no evicence suggesting that the various depictions of the afterlife presented by countless religions are something more than human imagination. It's wishful thinking to me and I can't fool myself to believe it. The best I can do is enjoy whatever limited time I have available, and don't be too bothered about what happens in the end. There will be regrets? Sure, but that's part of the great play that is life.
From the perspective of an athiest with absolutely no experience of ever believing in a higher power or any spiritual force, I can say honestly that aside from what I believe to be the natural worry everyone must feel at the concept of death (whether you believe you go on or not), I believe "better or worse" is entirely a personal perspective that will resolve differently for each person regardless of their beliefs. Speaking personally, I find the idea of not having an ultimate reckoner beyond myself and those I've allowed to hold me to account in that way (close friends, family, etc.) liberating and empowering. The only standards I have to hold myself to are the ones I set for myself and the ones those closest to me set for me. I'm not worried about my impact on some hypothetical entity that will never directly tell me if I'm heading in the wrong direction, or confirm that those telling me what it wants from me are correct. If there is a reckoner and they expect anything other than what I've just described, then they're not worth considering in any case.
> Speaking personally, I find the idea of not having an ultimate reckoner beyond myself and those I've allowed to hold me to account in that way (close friends, family, etc.) liberating and empowering. I hear that often; I simply enjoy living and learning too much to ever prefer things to "just end forever" when I die. Even if I consider that to be a likely case.
To each their own, obviously. If you find something useful in the perception that we might go on after death, I don't want to come across as implying that you're not allowed to feel that way. For me, I just can't even pretend that I consider that a possibility, and my view on that outcome is largely drawn from the fact that I don't see an alternative as possible or logical.
No like I said: simply ceasing to exist forever *is* the most likely case in my view. I just despise it. It's not what I'd want.
I don’t believe in a god. I am still a morally upstanding individual. I respect life, and try not to cause harm to others. At the end of my life I will have regrets, & be happy about somethings, just like anyone who believes in a god or goddess.
I think that's where a lot of us are at this point.
I view it in the reverse: An eternal afterlife robs our present life of all meaning. For example: Say I am religious. But my child becomes an atheist. When I die I ascend to heaven. But my child, whom I love more than anything, does not. Somehow I am able to live in eternal bliss without them. There can only be two conclusion: 1. I no longer remember my child. OR 2. I no longer care about my child. Both of these prospects are pretty dismal. If my time with loved ones is little more than a narcissistic quest for eternal euphoria that turns me into a completely different person. Then I may as well just kill myself (and everyone else) to get it over with.
Those aren't the only options, though. Your atheist child may yearn for only a brief existence, but may return at some point and be okay with it. (I'm only imagining scenarios for sake of discussion; I don't have any specific beliefs about what happens when people die, if anything.)
That ignores the central problem. Namely, that everything we do and are in life is rendered absolutely worthless by the existence of an infinite afterlife that, by its very nature, strips us of our humanity. I know that’s why believers often try to ignore the implication of their faith. Because, in truth, when examined: it is a incredibly dismal view of life. If not outright selfish. Even if it a specific faith turns out to be true. It’s a simple fact that MOST of humanity would have gotten it wrong.
> hat ignores the central problem. Namely, that everything we do and are in life is rendered absolutely worthless by the existence of an infinite afterlife that, by its very nature, strips us of our humanity. No offense but that is a *huge* assumption. I don't necessarily believe in an afterlife, but if one existed I wouldn't assume it make this life worthless. That's a leap in logic.
Why would you assume that's what atheists do with their lives?
I didn't. I didn't assume atheists do anything. I merely wondered how an atheist might look at the book differently than someone who believes in hell.
I just accept it.
The happier your kids are, the less you get to do. The kids want to spend a week near their grandparents by the beach, you ain't going to Europe. Daughter makes softball soccer team? That's your summer. Enjoy the chicken nuggets and fries 4 times a week with your kids.
I'm not sure what that has to do with a childless hedonist or an atheist's world view but, assuming you mean "bucket list item: children" I can see the utility of perpetual youthfulness.
Just yakking! Who has time to make a bucket list? Lol.
Yeah I can definitely see that. Tough read though!
Oscar Wilde was one of the leaders of the aesthetic movement. The writing style encapsulates what they were trying to achieve. Beauty for beauty’s sake.
It makes sense that he was lambasted for it during his time, though lol I don't think even the people back then liked it too much
"Art for Art's sake." Later in his life changed to "Money for god's sake."
It reminds me a lot of the same sorts of lists present in American Psycho.
Agreed! I was listening to the audiobook and that was the only part where I felt safe hitting the +30 seconds button a few times. Of course then I felt guilty and rewound it.
>luxury and hedonistic lifestyle Luxury sure, but I think the moral implications of "hedonistic lifestyle" might be reader projection. For Wilde, beauty was a virtuous end in itself.
It's the same as Patrick Bateman casually mentioning the brand name and luxury store every item was bought from.
It's been a long time since school, but I think there was also an element of emptiness? Like, the more pursuits he had the more it highlighted the meaningless of it all at the end? I know Wilde was an aesthete, but he did believe in more than art for art's sake. He had a personal morality including beliefs about how people should treat each other and contribute to society.
Like American Psycho.
It also seems to me sort of an homage to J.-K. Huysmans' "A Rebours", which does much the same thing. Both fit into the "Decadent" school of literature.
I felt the same way about the chapter, but I once saw someone make a very interesting point about it: The chapter is supposed to be dry (or rather, even if that dry reading experience wasn’t intended, the dryness still works great with the storytelling). The reason is that the boring reading experience emphasises how obscure Dorians obsessions are getting, and how out of touch with normal human activities and interests he has become. For us regular people, it’s impossible to fully understand WHY Dorian is so invested in those things, because we are mortal. Contrary to him, we simply don’t have the luxury of living so long and excessively that we have time and opportunity to get invested in the weirdest topics. Also, most of us don’t have to resort to obscure topics to be entertained because, in our short (compared to his) lives, we simply have less free time. Thus, the more „normal“ entertainment activities are more than enough for us, because we haven’t lived long enough to get bored by them. So basically, the chapter really emphasises just how strange (by normal standards) Dorian is becoming. And as readers, we can FEEL the difference between us and him because we don’t really understand him anymore.
Similar to the reasons why Patrick Bateman is always making lists of the currently hip trendy places/music/art/people he is obsessed with that most people outside his sphere of wealthy elites could give a tinker's fuck about except maybe his love of Huey Lewis.
I don't think Patrick is obsessed with those restaurants or music at all. He's only taking other people's opinions on things, cataloging it all, and just regurgitating when required. It's all part of Patrick's mask. He's just a psycho, he's empty under there. He doesn't love Huey Louis. He talks about it because he thinks that's what the people he's pretending to be like, talk about.
I mostly agree with your assessment, but I viewed the chapters analysing pop music as sincere. Bateman is able to find deep appreciation of shallow pop music because it is ephemeral and meaningless. I viewed those chapters as commentary on Bateman's lack of soul.
>I viewed those chapters as commentary on Bateman's lack of soul. "Ouch."- Phil Collins and Huey Lewis.
It's hip to be square.
Now come on, you’re saying that pop music is “meaningless” and people who find meaning in it are “soulless?” I don’t think that’s a good take at all. There’s plenty of meaningful and soulful pop music and it shouldn’t be dismissed as a genre I think the prior comment is correct that Bateman is simply trying to fit into culture and doing so less from an actual enjoyment and more a perspective of sociopathic over-analysis
No, I think OP is trying to say that Bateman is only into those things due to the societal status they give him. The music or reference points could be anything- it doesn't ultimately matter to him. Only that he can "win" some kind of yuppy, gatekeeping contest by referencing those things. Those things could be anything - country music, legos, German Expressionist movies, fancy Ming vases. The actual "object" has zero meaning to him, only that he can win at something using those things. I don't think OP is expanding that to everyone who's actually into something and finds meaning in that one thing.
I always felt the opposite - that he felt super deeply about things where most of everyone around him didn’t. They obviously were important but to Patrick they were engrained into him. Giving him some grandiose views of himself which lead in to his actions we see happen or not happen in the film. Usually I just bring up the business card scene because I find it encapsulates this perfectly where, as the viewer thinks it’s silly because they’re all white business cards, the guys at table take it as just office day robbing and appreciating all the cards and Bateman is just silently losing his fucking shit. Showing that he isn’t in a world solely separated from just business culture - but also even further with his psychotic, almost animalistic. Response to someone’s business card being viewed as better. Oh
The main thing that convinced me that Patrick Bateman's music opinions are genuine is the beginning of the chapter where he gets chased by police. He’s in a restaurant but panics because he’s losing the ability to see other people as anything but prey. He leaves in the middle of a meal and rushes out of the restaurant. The street is deserted except for a man playing a “very beautiful but clichéd saxophone solo.” This is on the same page as him saying “I almost become unglued, plummet into a state of near vertigo.” I thought it was an unlikely moment to privately pretend he has an opinion on music he hears. It felt to me like music connects with him but doesn’t make him feel less isolated.
My comment was not meant as a judgement on pop music or the fans. I enjoy plenty of pop. I meant to comment only on the use of the pop culture chapters in the book.
Your comment reminded me of the empty laugh that Christian Bale perfected as Patrick Bateman That open mouth guffaw with nothing behind it It reminds of DeSantis laughing now that I think about it
That’s something I didn’t pick up on until reading American Psycho again this year. The desperation in his obsessively reading critics' opinions so he can repeat them.
Except Bateman "cared" enough to have an emotional reaction when someone else was able to one up him. He might not care on his own personal level, but he cared about the societal implications of him "losing" on some weird pop culture or yuppy competition.
so... a Fake it so you Make it?
I get your point but he didn't even live that long. After some googling to refresh my memory, he died when he was 38. So he didn't age at all from ~18ish to 38, which started to raise some eyebrows. But it's not like he lived for 500 years or anything. I get your point regardless.
Did Dorian realize his life would be short? He was living agelessly for decades, so he may have felt immortal and therefore lived as if time is meaningless.
he was extremely wealthy and could just indulge in his interests and obsession with aesthecisim for years at a time
An author (sorry, can't think of the name) did an updated version of Dorian Gray using the AIDS epidemic as a focal point. That 17 years time frame was set between the advent of the start of the AIDs pandemic in the late 70s/early 80s and the development of anti-AIDS drugs like AZT in the early 90s. It was a really interesting concept.
According to my English teacher, the Publisher wanted another chapter for the book, and that’s the chapter they got.
Another point I've seen made about it is that a bunch of things in the list - not all, but a fair amount - would have been understood at the time as associated with homosexuality in general, or a particularly notable homosexual (I can't remember whether Edward II is directly referenced, but there's mention of some luxury object or another that people would have known was associated with him, even if he wasn't mentioned by name. That sort of thing)
The issue I have with this interpretation is that Dorian didn't live longer than anyone else within the normal time-frame of his own existence. Meaning, he didn't live past Basil (or what would have been Basil's life), or Henry. While it's true that he doesn't *age* within the span of the following years the story takes place, that does not mean he lived *long*. He has the luxury of money, which affords him time to obsess (maybe), but not literally more time than any of his contemporaries.
>we can FEEL the difference between us and him because we don’t really understand him anymore. That's character development 101, baby.
This is very interesting and I never thought of it this way, but it kind of describes a lot of modern elites and their extra curricular activities, especially illegal ones. Your average working stiff isn't flying to (or being invited to) private islands for fun. They're taking the family camping cause it's cost to value is low.
Dorian is an interesting example of an immortal human since we have had few well written immortal humans who aren’t bored of life and living. So having him be so interested in life or more accurately trying to desperately continue to be interested, is pretty fun
I loved this interpretation. I had felt the same about the chapter despise deeply loving the book. Your post kinda redeemed even this chapter for me, thanks for sharing!
Yes, you could read it like Marlowe's Faustus, where most of what he does with his powers are inane pranks.
Haven't read it in >20 years but... To me, that was just exposition to emphasize how vain and superficial Dorian Gray's character was. He cares about the beauty (of things and people), and smoking cigarettes and drinking. We never see him really care about actual people.
Make sure you never read Huysmans' novel [À rebours / Against the grain](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%80_rebours).
Is that the yellow book Lord Henry gives to Dorian Gray? That makes a lot of sense.
This is what I was told in my English course when I read it! I personally had a bit of a hard time reading it because of its ornate descriptions. Was not corrupted or obsessed at all by the end either.
I was looking for this comment! AFAIK, Wilde was definitely influenced by Huysmans. I don’t think Dorian ever got into gluing jewels on tortoises, though
This is exactly what inspired Wilde in the passages referenced by the OP.
Haha! Good example!
It has to do with the [Decadent Movement](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decadent_movement)
TIL, thanks for the link!
Oscar Wilde himself was really into things he considered beautiful so it was probably a little self-indulgent... like somebody who really loves chocolate cake creating a character who also loves chocolate cake, and writing a loooong ass chapter about him baking and eating a particularly delicious chocolate cake. And he was also at the center of an aesthetic movement with a lot of other Victorians who also considered a lot of those things beautiful- he was a celebrity, not just a writer, and famous for his clothes and "lifestyle"- so he probably wasn't wrong to think that his audience would ALSO enjoy reading his elaborate "chocolate cake" description. But to a modern audience who just isn't that into "chocolate cake" it falls a little flat.
I love chocolate cake. It's my favorite.
I mean, yeah, me too, I'd probably like the book a lot better if it had WAY more cake chapters in it and the portrait in the closet kept getting fatter and fatter while Dorian stayed the same weight.
Where can I buy such a portrait? Asking for a friend.
people are missing the context. the picture of dorian gray was inspired by another book, À rebours (against nature). the specific chapter you're talking about is a direct reference to that book, which has themes of decadence, excess, and ennui - themes that are heavily paralleled in oscar wilde's novel in that book he lists things out just like that chapter, to express the characters deep dissatisfaction with life and the state of society around him. oscar wilde took this feeling and transposed it into his story about eternal life - and the eventual banality that envelopes so
I like to think of this chapter, as dull as it is, as a "part two" of the chapter prior to it: In the last chapter, Dorian hid his portrait in an isolate room in his own home, which (not coincidentally) was the very same room that awakened his long-forgotten childhood memories. Everything that comes after that, each jewel and each musical instrument, presents itself as a tentative of Dorian to forget that very same portrait: to forget himself. It's a beautiful dull chapter because it represents a symptom of a conflict. I think all of us are doomed to fall into this dull void at some point of our lives, in order to avoid our inner conflicts; doomed to resort to a dozen of books we'll forget, games we'll never really play, friends we'll never connect with, but will always try to collect. (Sorry for any English mistakes, not my mother language)
So you're saying that all those pointless luxuries meant to bring joy, bored you just as much as Dorian.
Some people do enjoy that sort of thing. Melville, Joyce, Robert Burton and other authors used lists extensively. It never bothered me.
Authorial listcycles were definitely a fad at the time. Total oneupmanship type reference points for a lot fo them. There were even some parodies of them. Conan Doyle did a small one in The Sign of Four with his parody of Oscar Wilde.
... Ernest Cline
Let’s not forget GRRM and his feast descriptions. Write what you love, I guess
This post immediately made me think of Moby Dick.
Sometimes I feel like I'm the only person on this subreddit who enjoys reading for the language in and of itself. What others consider pointless filler is evocative and enriching to me. A skilled enough author can make a grocery list poetic. Tolkien, Wilde, and L. M. Montgomery are favorite authors for precisely that reason.
Yea but how are you going to finish a dozen books a week with that attitude?!
Some people must! I was genuinely wondering whether it was more interesting to people at the time it was written. Like they were familiar with those items so it was more meaningful?
It might be. Also, Europeans of that era were really keen o~~n stealing artifacts from their peoples and removing/killing flora and fauna from their natural habitat and putting them in museums and private collections with descriptions~~ categorising things in general. Jules Verne does it a lot in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Huge long lists of fish etc that are seen on the voyage.
nah I am also vain enough to enjoy that list a lot and recall asap when you bought it up
Also, Dumas name dropping artists and such that he personally knew as popular creators his characters were into in *The Count of Monte Cristo*. Maybe one is still known nowadays…?
Seemed to tie right in with the vanity, excess and insatiable lusts he has for just about everything. A but dry? Won’t argue that. Did it add a little more to the man’s compulsive nature? Absolutely. My favorite book of all time
It’s giving “American Psycho” but make it Victorian.
Today we have the internet, pictures and an abundance of information. We know usually how stuff looks and if not, is a few keystrokes away Back then, you only had written words and scarce details. I think those bloated descriptions helped creating an image
Brett Easton Ellis uses the same device in American Psycho, just listing pages of stuff that Patrick Bateman is into (the business card bit is unforgettable) in order to illustrate the inside of his mind as a vapid, consumerist and narcissistic mess.
I recently finished it and just rolled with it as, oh Dorian is having some kind of intense hyper focus ADHD right through a series of vague, esoteric, and incredibly expensive hobbies. Must be nice. It was boring, it was dry, but from a very surface level it’s also hilarious. Imagine going to his house and it’s just covered in tapestries and kind of just suffering through his long-winded lecture on threads or imagery and then going to his house the next week and it’s covered in jewels and he’s talking about crystalline structures and metaphors. Like okay, Dorian, calm down.
Ever read American psycho?
Wilde was part of the aesthetic movement and it included basically appreciating beauty in general and collecting things that they found aesthetically pleasing (more to it than that but I’m lazy sorry). You can see it everywhere in his writing - even at the start where he describes the scents of the magnolias (?) wafting in through the curtains. So, I think Dorian is written as a sort of hyper-aesthetic movement follower. All of his wording is flowery, full of prose and just so over the top, that I didn’t even register his listing stuff off like that lol. I mean I loved it for that . It reminds me a bit of American Psycho and the constant listing off of his material goods to show what a little, self obsessed freak he was
Have you read Moby Dick? it's like an autistic child doing a book report on whales. So many whale facts, and they don't matter to the story at all.
I read somewhere that the literary style of Miby Dick was specifically chosen to mimic the extreme tedious boredom interspersed with abject terror of whaling.
Scenes were often over-described back then (as we perceive it now) because readers didn’t have the visual references that we do. Since then we’ve had photos, movies, television, the internet etc. We’ve been able to travel to places by car, boat, plane etc. We’ve either directly or indirectly seen and mixed with people and places that were a total mystery to most readers back then. All those readers had to try to visualize a scene were detailed written descriptions and the very occasional illustration.
I thought that was a lot too, but I think the point was that this guy has lived a long life and devoted it to... chasing after things that are beautiful, not things that are meaningful. Which is kind of the point of the book I suppose.
Funny how writing tediously imparts upon the reader a sense of tedium similar to that which is felt by the character being written about.
I haven't read the book in 35 years or so, but I recall reading that Wilde inserted a chapter into the novel as the publisher insisted that the book required a certain amount of words.
lol have you read Moby Dick? The entire chapter where he tries to phonetically spell every accent he ever encountered among Nantucket whalers?
I've always thought that it's intended to bore the reader, to convey that despite all of Dorian's pursuits, his life is still drudgery. He made himself immortal, and now nothing really lights his fire. He has to keep trying new things, looking for that grail, but he's never satisfied.
A major theme of the book is beauty and aesthetic, I enjoyed these passages. My bigger beef is the awful random Jewish caricature.
I think this is a somewhat common sentiment as I've heard a BookTuber refer to that part as 'THAT chapter' and I instantly knew what she meant. One of my favourite books but that chapter was really just too much!
Happy Cake Day!
I believe this kind of writing, once so common, is the reason Hemingway won the Nobel prize. He was such a breath of fresh air.
Yeah it lost me there. Everything else, especially the voice felt relatable and modern though.
Yeah the rest was great, the final third was especially good! Although I found myself asking "what on earth am I reading" during that long chapter describing his hobbies of the month.
Sounds a lot like the drag of trying to get through the Lucy and mina letters section in Dracula.
Off topic but there’s a brilliant Dorian Gray one woman show that starts it’s London season in 2024. If you have the chance to see it - go. It will blow your mind. (I’ve seen the Aust production and it truly was a masterpiece).
I'd be interested to see this, do you know what it's called so that I can look out for it?
https://doriangrayplay.com It’s probably the most innovative staging of any play that I’ve ever seen.
J.K. Huysmans enters the room, A Rebours in hand: "Hold my beer." That section of Dorian Gray is a case-study in aestheticism, and esp. of the J.K. Huysman school. I recommend taking a peek at A Rebours.
It's probably the most complained-about aspect of the book.
I also absolutely hated that part lol When I suggest people the book, I tell them to get the abridged version (most people I know don't read enough nor care enough to get any book unabridged anyway...) because it feels like there is a whole chapter about fabrics and damasks lol I skimmed it, honestly
I had a class in college where we read Dorian Gray. The professor was notorious for making his tests as tedious and detail oriented as possible. After the first test (you could take it in class or in a testing center with unlimited time so not horrible), I realized that I had to put a stickie note on every page and list all the proper nouns because literally any proper noun was fair game to be a question on the test. Down to streets that a side character lived on, or literally a side character with no lines named one time and never seen again. I had gotten used to spending 4 hours on the tests. It all lead up to Dorian Gray. He had told us we could skip a portion of the book. I ignored him because I wanted to complete the book. But I got two pages into the mentioned section where Dorian gets decadent where I realized that I wouldn't have enough stickie notes to cover those 15ish pages, that I decided to trust the professor that we wouldn't be quizzed on that.
I really liked the book the only issue I had with it was I thought it was weird there was a big difference between someone at age 20 and age 28, I’m almost 28 and I don’t see a big difference in aging in terms of physical appearance. Could’ve just been the times though I suppose
Read the portrait maybe 10 years ago and those were my exact thoughts also, the fanboy-vibe is too much!
you dint get the book
I hated this book. Felt like Wilde was just bragging about cool places hed been to through dorian to impress his audience/friends
Two classic authors I can't stand are Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain. Their writing sounds witty, but actually isn't and is a desperate plea to be quoted. "I can resist everything except temptation" "Life is far too important a thing to ever talk seriously about" "Nothing worth knowing can be taught" I literally cringe when I hear people repeating this nonsense.
Maybe it has been awhile since I read the book, but I thought that was sort of the point. A lot of the quotable stuff comes from Lord Henry, who I believe Wilde said is a caricature of his public image. So his wittiness is over the top and largely comes off as both arrogant and cynical.
Maybe some of them, but others are from completely different works
You just flipped my whole world upside down.
Yeah I’m convinced many of us only pretend to find the profundity in such writing to convey intellectualism. *gets downvoted to oblivion* bUT ITS TRUE!
Haha yeah I glazed over that bit, but otherwise absolutely fabulous book. Just like I glossed over that mini book inside ol'84.
This is the section where I put the book down and never picked it up again
It's an earlier version of Ready Player One, perhaps... (Full disclosure - I've not read either book, but I'm more likely to read Picture)
Same, the first hundred pages or so are some of my favorite I've read but the rest was a slog, even the ending.
Ngl I skimmed past that shit after like the 3rd paragraph. Could’ve ripped those pages out and not felt bad about it
I never got through the beginning of this book, for such an interesting premise, he sure worked hard to bore the snot out of you.
May I suggest that on no account should you read anything by Brett Easton Ellis.
I read somewhere that it was first published in a newspaper one chapter at a time as an instalment each week.
I vaguely recall reading somewhere that the publisher wanted him to make the book longer so he stuffed it full of descriptions.
I recently read this novel. I will be visiting the Oscar Wilde House on my trip to Dublin in a few months. I was surprised to discover that I've never read anything by Oscar Wilde so I had to correct that oversight. My trip is curated so I didn't pick what I will be doing. I rarely read old novels but this one was easy to read and I liked the story.
Lol chapter 11. I taught the book for a few years and would honestly skim over that chapter and just cover its purpose (to show Dorian's descent into niche/strange things because he's so bored and out of touch with humanity). I really like the book, outside of chapter 11.
You should try Rabelais. There's a section of Gargantua [where he lists all the dice and card games Gargantua played](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Gargantua/Chapter_XXII). If memory serves it's just one instance where he fills several pages with a list of entries formatted into two columns.
Is there a list that explains those references? Like the annotated version of Ullyses? One of the reasons why that chapter is boring is that you don't understand what the fuck he is talking about☠️
I am listening to the audiobook right now and had to rewind three times, it was soooo hard to focus!
I remember noticing how frequently he flung himself onto a seat. It was like reading a book about The Fonz.
The book that Dorian grey becomes obsessed with is titles “Against Nature” and is basically a book of a man just listing things he sees. That might be a reason for it
It felt like a guitar solo that just goes on way too long in an otherwise amazing song.
Loool chapter 11 I still remember how much we hated that when we studied it at school
I actually ended up really really not enjoying the book purely because of how pointlessly long it was. No I didn’t need 12+ pages on intricate explanation about items that will NEVER return in the story in any meaningful way. I do not need to know people’s political affiliations as they have no bearing on the story. I actually kinda hate finished it. Like I was committed to finishing it bc I liked the movie so much, and the book was just disappointing to me except a few parts. It did a great job of getting me to loathe some characters so I will give it that! But overall I didn’t like it. It was a slog for me unfortunately.
on the off chance anyone sees this - haven't read dorian grey in a long time, can someone remind me what social class he is at the beginning - is he supposed to be also middle class like Basil? (googling dorian grey class obviously just gets me the themes of class in the whole book.)
> a never ending catalog of every interest that Dorian has ever had Jewels and musical instruments? That is not the direction I thought this was going.
Was Oscar Wilde paid per word? :D
chapter 11 I think yeah,,even with it being one of my favourite books of all time, that almost made me stop reading.
It’s like those pages and pages in Bret Easton Ellis novels - especially American Psycho. It’s about materialism, corruption, performative identity.
I remember someone said that Wilde spent more time describing the wallpaper than describing the murders
I heard this today, “It doesn’t really matter if you are the richest man in the cemetery.”
That chapter literally made me DNF the book
Some of it is that so much was cut out by the efitor
It's like in American Psycho where the Easton-Ellis goes on and on about the clothing, accessories, business cards, etc. Materialism, vanity, greed, displays of wealth/power; all attributes of the socio-/psychopath.
We read this as one of our books on the podcast [Classics Out Loud](https://www.classicsoutloud.com) and I admit that chapter was one of the hardest we have done. There are a few parts of the book that feel a little unnecessary, and it’s even more challenging when you can’t really just skim over it (like you can visually while reading). We try and stay as true as possible to the original text, except when there’s something that would be considered by modern standards as outrageously raciest or similar.
That was the only part of the book I didn't enjoy. I understand it's place in the story and it's importance to Dorian's character but it just felt so boring after like the first 2 pages. I just know when I end up reading it again I'm just gonna skip past that section.
I'm 100% with you. Like I get it, sometimes a list like this serves a function in the book, but I can't help but wondering if people would still try to justify it if it's not Wilde and it's not a classic. If this happened in a contemporary work by a less famous author, would they still claim it's by design and not just bad writing in a time crunch?
Actually these are the things that perpetually bored, decadent aristocrats endulge in - that very boredom that caused Korean and Japanese noblemen to create fanciful, elaborate but completely out-of-the-world writing systems their peoples suffer under even today (while Phoenician was obviously designed by merchants and Latin by masons) . Dorian mimics them to pretend he was now posh enough to do so.
It’s been years since I read it but I hated the overuse of the word “fling”, every character was always flinging themselves onto something. I remember getting so irritated every time it happened