Burnaby North Library

A book review by Erick Chae

The Picture of Dorian Gray is one of the classics, set in early Victorian England. This novella follows the story of a man named Dorian Gray. He is a fine young man who is from an aristocratic background, but is always positioned with the lower classes. One day, Dorian receives a gift from one of his talented friends: Basil, who gives him a portrait of Dorian himself. Dorian takes pride in his portrait and gratefully receives the gift not knowing how the portrait is capable of changing his life.

This book deep dives into identity, youth, and insanity with various philosophical questions laid out. This novel has a gothic atmosphere with the environment of fear and dark supernatural forces. Throughout the story, Dorian transcends into madness, horror, and finally death which came from his actions. From sweet summer mornings to dark and grisly nightmares, I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys reading about a character who deteriorates as the story goes further. This novella teaches us about the consequences of our own actions and how actually horrifying and influential they are to our health. This novella also teaches us about the dangers of having bad influential friends. We may convince ourselves that they are good, however, to other’s views, they might be awful. This novella is very short with only 288 pages and I would recommend this to people who enjoy short stories that have many meaningful concepts. 

I love how even though this novella was published over 130 years ago, we still learn from this outdated book. Oscar Wilde wrote in a letter that Dorian Gray is a character who he wants to become.

A fun fact about this author is that he knew Arthur Conan Doyle who was the author of the Sherlock Holmes stories.

Conan Doyle wrote of his first impressions of Wilde, noting “His conversation left an indelible impression upon my mind. He towered above us all, and yet had the art of seeming to be interested in all that we could say. He had a delicacy of feeling and tact, for the monologue man, however clever, can never be a gentleman at heart. He took as well as gave, but what he gave was unique.” (via Crime Reads)  He also defended Wilde’s writing against his critics.