The Picture of Dorian Gray (Modern Library Audio Series)

Author - Oscar Wilde ... [Goo?] [Posters]

This Audio Cassette Book item from Random House Publishing Group was reviewed on 3-Nov-2008.

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1) Audio Cassette Book The Picture of Dorian Gray (Modern Library Audio Series) by Random House Publishing Group. This was a rather difficult book to get through. Lots of old English and lots of footnotes describing what the words or phrases meant. I struggled through about 3/4 of the book, but then it picked up and I managed to get it read. In the end, it was worth the time and effort but does take some patience to get through. Not for everyone.¤

2) Audio Cassette Book The Picture of Dorian Gray (Modern Library Audio Series) by Random House Publishing Group. a classic literary staple of the modern world! a must read for any intellectual. every sentence is brimming with stimulating ideas and paradoxes.¤

3) Audio Cassette Book The Picture of Dorian Gray (Modern Library Audio Series) by Random House Publishing Group. Basil Hallward is an artist, who paints a portrait of Dorian Gray, a very good looking and naïve young man. The portrait is a masterpiece that in reality depicts Basil´s feelings for Dorian, as well as, Dorian´s youth and beauty.
Lord Henry Wotton, a seductive emotional predator and selfish pleasure seeker, is a friend of Basil who meets Dorian at Basil´s house and gives him a philosophical speech about the fading nature of youth and beauty. Dorian whose greatest qualities are his youth and beauty pledges his soul to stay young and beautiful. As part of the deal Dorian Gray´s portrait becomes the surrogate for the disgrace and aging of the real Dorian Gray.
Under the growing influence of Lord Henry over Dorian, the later embraces Hedonism and increasingly sinks into a sinful corrupt life and shows no regard for values or morals. A tragic event caused by Dorian´s behaviors starts the projection of Dorian´s ugliness and self -centeredness on the portrait. Dorian creates excuses and excuses himself with lame explanations for the tragedy and hides his portrait so he can´t see the hideous transformation of himself reflected in his picture. As long as his beauty remains, he can ignore the changes in his portrait. It´s interesting how Dorian tries to avoid his inner feeling of ugliness by trying to surround him self by beauty, and other beautiful distractions such as roses and music.

Basil´s love for Dorian, which is likely a real life reflection of Wilde´s love for Lord Alfred Douglas, causes Basil to defend and protect Dorian, even from his self destructive acts, until the last shocking event. I´m tempted to describe the ending event, but I won´t deprive the reader from the pleasure of exploration and discovery.

Given the period when this novel was written, Wilde is artistically candid and courageous beyond belief. Wilde displays his usual wit, sarcastic playful ways and funny style, while he walks us through serious dilemmas like the supremacy of youth and beauty, homosexual feelings, repentance and murder. Wilde grabs the reader through the use of shocking events that not only criticize Victorian morality, but ironically displays a moral lesson about vanity and narcissism.

"The picture of Dorian Gray" is a wonderful piece of literature in which the portrait asserts itself as Dorian´s conscience in a superficial society that places values on looks and wealth while ignoring the real value of humans. Simply, a one of a kind work.

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4) Audio Cassette Book The Picture of Dorian Gray (Modern Library Audio Series) by Random House Publishing Group. As was the case with quite a few other readers, I had been snookered into believing this was a near-universally lauded classic. Hello? The emperor has no clothes and this book has no redeeming qualities. The writing style was absolutely maddening!

The only reason I read the entire thing was because I purchased the book and felt compelled to get my money´s worth (not entirely possible with such a low quality "classic")

After reading it in its entirety, I felt the type of satisfaction one feels after completing a particularly odious chore. Removing my copy from my home will be most satisfying. Bottom line: Boooooooooooooring!¤

5) Audio Cassette Book The Picture of Dorian Gray (Modern Library Audio Series) by Random House Publishing Group. Oscar Wilde´s The Picture of Dorian Gray is a thought-provoking novel that vacillates between ambling, seemingly directionless conversation and a riveting narrative thread that eventually bubbles up to the surface with the intensity of a volcanic eruption. The Picture of Dorian Gray, though not much more than a century old, has already been deemed a "classic" by literature-lovers, and after reading the book, I can understand its status. Wilde´s command of the English language is almost unparalleled in recent literature.

Warning - Spoilers Follow

Here´s the gist of the book. Dorian Gray is a young man whose physical appearance is handsome and innocent. An aspiring artist paints a beautiful portrait of Dorian. Dorian wishes that he always look like his youthful appearance in the portrait. The wish comes true. Dorian remains the same - youthful and charming, but the portrait begins to transform itself into the image of his soul.

When Dorian embraces a life of hedonism, he uses his good looks and charm to obtain whatever he desires in life. His insensitivity drives a friend to suicide. The evil desires of his heart eventually cause him to murder a friend in cold blood. Over a period of twenty years, Dorian becomes a monster on the inside (reflected by the portrait of his soul) even as he remains youthful and innocent on the outside.

Oscar Wilde´s homosexuality is no secret, and the reader can easily discern certain homosexual overtones in the book (especially at the beginning). Perhaps Wilde´s subtle innuendoes of homosexuality have made his works so appealing to lovers of literature who tend to sympathize and approve of homosexual behavior.

Upon reading Dorian Gray, however, I could not help but notice how the lifestyle of hedonism is so implicitly condemned by the narrative´s outcome. If Dorian´s hedonism includes sexual relationships with men as well as with women (and Wilde does hint at this), then homosexuality comes under the same umbrella as the rest of Dorian´s sinful passions. One can hardly characterize The Picture of Dorian Gray as a pro-homosexual book.

Readers of this blog will find the picture of depravity in Dorian Gray to be intriguing. Throughout the story, Dorian, even in his hedonism, acts in a manner that forces the reader to desire justice and redemption. The book´s end emphasizes the need for punishment and retribution - pointing at death as the wages of sin.

What does the life of unbridled hedonism look like? What does it do to the soul? What happens to the human being who seeks to fulfill his every passion and desire? How does sin affect us physically? Do we age because we sin? These and more are the questions that Oscar Wilde raises in The Picture of Dorian Gray.¤

6) Audio Cassette Book The Picture of Dorian Gray (Modern Library Audio Series) by Random House Publishing Group. This is the original version of Oscar Wilde´s most popular work a haunting novel that shocked late-Victorian England with Its tale of youth, beauty, and moral decay. The Picture of Dorian Gray is a brilliant display of Wilde´s characteristic style, full of stinging epigrams and shrewd observations. The story of a fashionable young man who sells his soul for eternal youth, only to discover the true cost of his bargain as corruption drives him inexorably to a terrible end, holds up a dazzling yet devastating mirror to the fin-de-siecle world, where art meets artifice and decadence wears a seductive mask of wit, privilege, and physical perfection.¤

7) Audio Cassette Book The Picture of Dorian Gray (Modern Library Audio Series) by Random House Publishing Group. A lush, cautionary tale of a life of vileness and deception or a loving portrait of the aesthetic impulse run rampant? Why not both? After Basil Hallward paints a beautiful, young man´s portrait, his subject´s frivolous wish that the picture change and he remain the same comes true. Dorian Gray´s picture grows aged and corrupt while he continues to appear fresh and innocent. After he kills a young woman, "as surely as if I had cut her little throat with a knife," Dorian Gray is surprised to find no difference in his vision or surroundings. "The roses are not less lovely for all that. The birds sing just as happily in my garden."

As Hallward tries to make sense of his creation, his epigram-happy friend Lord Henry Wotton encourages Dorian in his sensual quest with any number of Wildean paradoxes, including the delightful "When we are happy we are always good, but when we are good we are not always happy." But despite its many languorous pleasures, The Picture of Dorian Gray is an imperfect work. Compared to the two (voyeuristic) older men, Dorian is a bore, and his search for ever new sensations far less fun than the novel´s drawing-room discussions. Even more oddly, the moral message of the novel contradicts many of Wilde´s supposed aims, not least "no artist has ethical sympathies. An ethical sympathy in an artist is an unpardonable mannerism of style." Nonetheless, the glamour boy gets his just deserts. And Wilde, defending Dorian Gray, had it both ways: "All excess, as well as all renunciation, brings its own punishment."¤

Page Updated: Robert N. Goolsby, 1-Dec-2008, 06794321089780679432104, 230-340-120-850-050-080-8

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