The Ramblings of Elyse

It has certainly been awhile since I have done a quality post... Ok, I've never done one of those, but a post about books!

My latest book?
The Picture of Dorian Gray. Another Penguin classic. How awesome are Penguin classics? $10!

Love it!

So, I started reading this. The Preface is awesome, brilliant, it is one of the greatest things I've ever read.
I had high expectations of this book, plus, you know, it's a classic, I was afraid that I knew the "twist" that it would ruin the book.

Yeah, not really an issue, that whole reveal is on the back cover.
Good work Elyse!

I was mainly left cold by the book, and then one day I had lunch with a friend of mine. A friend who in her spare time doubles as an English Teacher, who told me it was brilliant and suck it up and keep reading it. There was more discussion about Oscar Wilde and all that.

But man, the ending?
Brilliant!

I was reading on the bus yesterday and when it was my stop, I had the last two pages to go and it was just damn, so one I got my lift, I stopped to read those last two pages and man, excellent.

Probably, why it's the classic.

Plus, the thing that I didn't get is that because Dorian was a pretty, pretty man (ok, they use the word beautiful, but I prefer the word pretty. It's a West Side Story thing) it meant that he had a pretty, pretty soul.
The entire concept is that sin becomes written on the outside, so thus external beauty is indicative of the purity and what not of the soul.
Thus, all the sin ends up on the face of the portrait. But he does end up unscathed.

All the rumours and what not still existed around him, so even though he's looks went unscathed, nothing else did.

In the end, no matter how much Oscar Wilde makes the claim in the preface that there is art for only art's sake, but in the end, Dorian is a pretty evil dude. The basis of his thinking seems to be upon finding out about the portrait bearing the wear of his actions is to go and be all evil.
And in the end, he meets his end. He breaks, breaks down and then more or less kills himself.

So dude does no good and dies in the end with no one caring about his demise.
That is a moral tale. That is not art for art's sake.

Good book.

Next on the list:
Catcher in the Rye.

I've been told I may be past the prime to get the most out of it, but we'll see.

Also on my book pile:
Catch 22
Lolita
Junky


Anyone with some recommendations for me?