I like listening to audiobooks on long drives. I had hard time reading classics so I tend to listen to them instead. Especially late 1800 classics like Moby Dick or Dracula. The language is just different enough that if I read it, I’d get bogged down in the words but if I listen to it, I may not understand a particular word but I get a better idea when there is a whole flow of language around it. The sentence structure and rhythm is different from current writing so it’s almost like another language.
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde was a great choice for an auditory experience. Published in 1890, it was quite scandalous. I admit cluelessness on some counts. At the end of the first chapter, without real knowledge, I guessed that Oscar Wilde was gay. I then had to look it up to confirm it. Neither here nor there.
The basic story is that as Dorian gazes upon a new portrait of himself, wishes that he remain unblemished while the portrait bears the weight of age and corruption. As Dorian leads a life of deviant behavior, the portrait becomes hideous, as an outward sign of his soul’s bankruptcy.
As I was listening, it sounded like this could be a current Stephen King novel. The horror of something unimaginable, so terrible was right up King’s alley. King often has inner dialog of his characters analyzing what is happening in the transformation of real to surreal. This was a nice, familiar story technique.
I was reading John le Carré’s Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy at the same time (that will be the next book entry) and coincidentally that story references The Picture of Dorian Gray. Cool tie-in. I’m glad I consumed this classic cautionary tale.
