As Frank mentioned at our meeting, there is, in the
vernacular, a precedent for calling someone who doesn't show signs of aging a
"Dorian Gray." After our discussion of The Picture of Dorian Gray, by Oscar Wilde, I would guess that
calling someone a "Dorian Gray" soon after the book was published in
1890 and in the early part of the 20th century more often occurred behind the person's back than to
their face and maybe carried with it a tinge of jealousy. Nowadays, though I
have never heard the term, I would guess that it might be used, again more
likely behind someone's back than to their face, to refer to someone who has
undergone plastic surgery to hide signs of aging; again in a spirit of
criticism and ill will. Nothing about Dorian Gray seems likely to be far from
the dark side of life.
While reading the novel (my second time and also the second
time for others in our group), I was tempted to read about Oscar Wilde's life,
but I decided to leave it to Patty to give us his history. Patty's rendition
was not disappointing! Wilde did, indeed, lead a life of hidden (and open) homosexuality
(somehow the term "gay" just doesn't fit in a discussion of Oscar
Wilde), flamboyance, debauchery, imprisonment, and exile. Wilde had some
literary success with his plays, but his Picture of Dorian Gray received much criticism and doesn't seem to have been
appreciated until after his death.
Pam found a copy of the original unedited version of Dorian Gray at the Round Rock Public
Library. She shared some of the editing with us. In my humble opinion, the
original writing was hardly inflammatory, with any homosexual insinuations
couched in such terminology as to be not much more obvious than in the edited
version. The implications were obvious in the characters and the story line in
both versions but remained mostly implications in the language used.
As always, our group had some interesting insights: When
discussing Lord Henry's philosophical pontification, Janice said he seemed to
express Wilde's outlook on life. It seemed that each of the main characters
expressed aspects of Wilde, who was a many-faceted person. Dennis saw Picture of Dorian
Gray as an early example of science fiction. Surely, the transference of Gray's
aging and evil ways to the physical painting was a touch of sci-fi! Frank
likened the story to Strange Case of Dr.
Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson, which was published in
1886, four years before the original version of Dorian Gray, and so might have been
an influence. Marla described a theme wherein the painting showing how people see you, Lord Henry representing how you see
things, and Dorian being about how you want to be seen. This seems almost a
universal theme, but, of course, not applicable to anyone who was at our
meeting!
More than 20 of us attended the discussion. I was
disappointed that I forgot to ask, "How many 'liked' the book?" I
always find that interesting. I don't know whether everyone liked the book,
hated it, or just wanted some light shed on it. Thanks to Patty for a bright
and shining presentation! On the subject of light, Netflix lists 7 films that
are direct or indirect renditions of the book.
No comments:
Post a Comment