"The Picture of Dorian Gray" by Oscar Wilde--Fiction Review

For today’s review, I thought we would go old school and talk about a classic supernatural horror story by Oscar Wilde, “The Picture of Dorian Gray,” and despite the rumors, I don’t have my own portrait moldering away in some locked room. It’s in my parlor. I like to look at that shit. 

***The Non-Spoiler part of this review***

What I love about this book:

“The Picture of Dorian Gray” has that Victorian-era gothic aura about it that you can also get a taste of in Charles Dickens, Henry James, and Emily Brontë’s work. It’s a quality that is probably my favorite thing about writers of this period—their predilection for evoking the supernatural. Unlike the famous works of those writers, the narrative of this story doesn’t involve ghosts but rather revolves around a Faustian bargain the protagonist makes regarding a portrait of him. 

Wilde makes some deep meditative points regarding Victorian society’s philosophy on the world in this novel. And if ever there was a group of people who didn’t take to criticism well, it was the Victorians—so I admire the bravery of that since they were also his primary audience.

Plus, on a far baser level, there is just something fun about the idea of you can do anything, and none of the consequences of your actions will touch you. They’ll just jack up some portrait of you. 

What I don’t love about this book:

For a guy who might be immortal—or at least doesn’t suffer consequences—not a lot happens on stage in this book. There are a lot of conversations about Dorian Gray’s wild behavior and a lot of allusions to what he gets up to as a functional immortal, but precious little action. This is really just true of the era stylistically. Novels and stories of his time tend to be sedate even when they involve supernatural monsters.

Dorian Gray is really one of those archetypical characters who, when granted eternal youth, nearly immediately goes full dickhead. Why does nobody who gets one of these bargains ever just live a life of quiet, industrious virtue? Probably the devil—well, I guess I answered my own question there.

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***The Spoiler part of this review***

***Ye be warned to turn back now***

The quick and dirty synopsis:

At the beginning of the story, Dorian Gray is modeling for Basil Hallward, a painter painting Dorian’s portrait. Through this painter, Dorian becomes acquainted with Lord Henry Wotton, the consummate hedonist, and in many ways, the antithesis of the moralizing Hallward. Somewhere amidst the conversation between the three, Dorian expresses a wish that the painting should suffer the effects of time in his stead, and he should remain forever youthful.

"Wuthering Heights," by Emily Bronte--Fiction Review

Let’s be romantic this Friday, my beloved obscure readers, with Emily Bronte’s “Wuthering Heights,” a book about love, hate, and occasionally ghosts—for some reason. 

***The Non-Spoiler part of this review***

What I love about this book:

I love a good ghost story, and even though that aspect of the story isn’t the main focus of the tale, it’s still a major component. This book begins and ends on this note, though, which speaks to my love of horror. The supernatural element is one of the reasons I like this era of novelists from time to time—for example, and more famously, Charles Dickens was known to throw in ghosts into his stories, and he lived at the same time as Emily Bronte. It was often treated as mental furniture in the background, like today we’re talking about interwoven love stories, set amongst a generational family drama—and oh yeah, ghosts are totally real and about, but don’t focus on that.    

Unlike many romances set in Victorian or Victorianesque times and places, where the protagonists usually fall in and out of love because of simple misunderstandings but in the end are typically good people at heart—“Wuthering Heights” doesn’t do that. They’re certainly complex characters, and I found myself even sympathizing with all of them at various points. Most of them share one defining character trait, though—they’re all miserable bastards. It’s hard to say why I love this about them, but there’s just some morbid, ephemeral quality about Bronte’s characters that I like. They’re like passionate shooting stars, and that passion could be love, or more often than not, bitter hate.   

What I don’t love about this book:

Emily Bronte died young, and this is her only novel, which is upsetting because, as far as first novels go, “Wuthering Heights” promises a grand career for Bronte, which sadly never came to pass. It isn’t that it’s set up for a sequel or anything. Her writing is just so compelling that I would have wanted to see what she would have done next in novel-length. 

On to the weakest character of this novel, Lockwood, who is the principal protagonist we’re viewing events through at the beginning of the book and the end of the novel, isn’t really a character. He’s a story device—specifically, his function is to be told the story of the various inhabitants of Wuthering Heights. This makes him feel vestigial at best. We learn a few things about his character in the beginning, but ultimately since he isn’t in most of the narrative, it’s easy to forget he exists.

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as an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

***The Spoiler part of this review***

***Ye be warned to turn back now***