Had a blast tonight reading Oscar Wilde’s Gothic masterpiece The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891), his only novel (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Picture_of_Dorian_Gray). We’re all familiar with the Faustian premise of the aging picture and non-aging youth, but it’s in the witticism-spiked telling of it that we engage our pleasure. Wilde serves up highly refined, partially hoity-toity nectar in his writing (at times too sweet for my taste) but redeems himself by lacing it with prussic acid. Questions of morals, character, destiny and perception stud the narrative; sin and the possibility of redemption play a central role; and rich literary allusions, at times so rich that they risk sinking the narrative instead of helping to navigate it, provide ample space for a tingling aesthetic. Descriptive attention astounds, specially for me in the sections concerning Dorian’s infatuation with musical instruments, jewels, embroideries and other sumptuous objects. There are, without a doubt, delightful passages in this book; but I’ll resist my habit of quoting material, because in this instance I feel like it would be showing the novel’s skin without giving the potential reader the chance to first undress it.
Now, after reading this book my brain is somewhat aphorism-congested, and I can’t resist the temptation of playing Wilde Card Stud (groan!) for a few minutes and sharing with you some of my very own witticisms, all Zinos originals penned tonight:
"To speak in aphorisms is to lose oneself in the petal’s dew, while leaving the garden un-watered."
"If you wish to behold beauty, simply be blind to ugliness."
"We are never quite so interested in learning something knew as when we are bored with forgetting something old."
"In the application of little talent lies the destruction of most intention."
"If it is only through vigorous youth that we can hope to achieve life, it is only through vigorous living that we can hope to achieve youth."
"Romanticism and love are as desire and fulfillment; one is never so rich as when the other destitute."
"To sacrifice reason for fancy is to fancy oneself beyond reason."
1 comment:
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