This is book six book of my  classic novel reading challenge  (where I try and read 100 classic books in three years).  It is a book I’d heard of but didn’t have a very good idea of the plot. It’s by Oscar Wilde and I think is probably my first time reading Oscar Wilde. I found the book overall easy to read (I actually finished it a couple of weeks ago), but like a lot of the other books I’ve read so far, there’s a lot of idle living and no one seems to work for a living except the servants and the artist who paints the picture of Dorian Gray. That means most of the story is driven by the dialogue that takes place during visits to friends home’s for dinner, or shooting weekends at country estates.

The basic story is that, Dorian Gray (the central character) is a very beautiful young man (I think he’s about 18 or 20 when the book starts) who has his portrait painted by a local artist called Basil Hallward. The painting is stunning, a combination of Basil’s talent, and his inspiration and secret admiration/obsession for Dorian, and Dorian’s other-worldly good looks.

On viewing the completed portrait, Dorian makes a passing comment that he wished he could stay as young as the painting, with only the painting aging.

About the time the portrait is finished, Basil (the artist) introduces Dorian to Lord Harry Wotton, an aristocrat who believes in living a hedonistic life style, where anything goes despite being a married man. Basil really didn’t want Dorian and Harry to meet, suspecting that Harry will corrupt the young Dorian.

And corrupt him he does.

Dorian discovers that his wish for the portrait to age comes to pass, with Dorian initially being horrified when he first sees the altered and aging painting. This doesn’t stop him though, perhaps even emboldening him somewhat. He certainly becomes increasingly callous and utterly careless with the emotions and affections of those people who are unfortunate to be swept into his orbit.

While the novel is now recognised as having queer themes with a lot of very intense relationships between the male characters, there’s nothing overt, and Dorian even becomes engaged to a young woman at one point in the story.

The story gets a lot darker and for me this is when it really gets interesting.