Commentary on the Picture of Dorian Gray - Part 1

[gothrockrulz]

This will be the first in a long series of posts, basically detailing thoughts and impressions from the books I am and will be reading. I'm thinking about using these posts as an exercise in writing and in analyzing, because, guess what? You notice so much more while reading if you read like you've got an essay to write. It's freaky, but it makes

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[rhoda_rants]

Oh wow, I forgot you were doing this!

Allow me to geek out on Wilde's use of language with you:

I can't remember if I ever mentioned this in the many "fabulous opening lines/paragraphs" blogs and forum topics I've participated in over the years, but I always thought that first line was absolute perfection: "The studio was filled with the rich odor of roses." It's so simple, but sets the scene, and with a sense that writers seem to forget about when doing descriptions: smell. The fact that it's roses is highly symbolic--love and beauty, but let's not forget the thorns, and also the opulence of it, which isn't quite a theme in the novel yet but is going to be--that excess. And then you have the richness of the odor, which is so heavy it's almost cloying. And I do love that idea, that maybe the sweetness is so heavy because it's masking something sinister.

I might be reading more into it than is actually there, but I can't help it. I've reread this novel so many times I automatically find new things to love every time I hit it again.

Henry Wotton is high-larious. If you ever see the most recent movie, you will love Colin Firth in that role. Although I must confess I pictured Johnny Depp as Wotton when I first read it.

As for Basil, and this observation: I wonder if that's a common feeling among writers? I think Basil's situation is more obsessive, this idea he has that he's found his perfect muse and this person is therefore going to take over his life because art is life and Dorian is art and beauty perfected in human form. What I relate to more is what he says elsewhere in that same chapter:

"Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not the sitter. The sitter is merely the accident, the occasion. It is not he who is revealed by the painter; it is rather the painter who, on the colored canvas, reveals himself. The reason I will not exhibit this picture is that I am afraid that I have shown in it the secret of my own soul."

The same goes for writers--all our characters are caricatures of ourselves, even and sometimes especially the dark, twisted or strange ones. I have one story that I keep giving up on because it takes me too far down those paths, and I'm not ready to show that part of myself to the world yet. It's scary, and puts me in a bad headspace. I love how deftly Wilde brings that idea out--it's subtle, but completely works for me, and other artists as well I think.

[gothrockrulz]

Oh wow, I forgot you were doing this!

For a while, I forgot, too. XD I had so much I wanted to talk about, I wasn't sure how to go about it.

Your analysis of the opening scene is AWESOME. As gals on tumblr say, head-canon accepted.

I watched two different film adaptions straight after finishing the book, one a really old one with Shere Khan George Sanders, the other the Colin Firth version you mentioned. (It was so disorienting watching the man immortalized as Darcy in such a different role.) I liked him as Wotton a lot, and also was pretty surprised that Ben Barnes gave a decent performance as Dorian himself. Ideally, I think Dorian should have been blonde, like the book (my not-so-inner purist is showing), and should have been a little less . . . serene, maybe? More bite and edge. Or that could just be me.

Johnny Depp as Henry Wotton? We need this. NOW.

The same goes for writers--all our characters are caricatures of ourselves, even and sometimes especially the dark, twisted or strange ones.

I hear you! The way I easily identify with my villains scares me sometimes. And I, too, have a story or two I'm afraid to write out the way it wants to be written. So weird how we writers buy into the illusion that we're in complete control, and get a rude awakening when we realize that our stories have wills of their own.

"Deftly"--that's the perfect way to describe Wilde's abilities to utter deep truths in plain yet elegant English. If I wasn't so inspired, I'd be depressed.