- A Picture Of Dorian Grey - Oscar Wilde. Just finished this. I've wanted to read it since my teens but the picture on the cover invariably puts me off...!
Dorian is a rich young man, who has his portrait painted and, while sitting for this, is persuaded of his own beauty by a new friend. When the picture is finished he is struck, apparently for the first time, by his own looks, and makes an idle wish that he could stay that way, and that the painting would age.
Dorian becomes infatuated with a woman then callously casts her aside. It is only now that he realises what the painting truly means. Initially he is horrified, but as he is led more astray by his friend, he comes to revel in his perpetually youthful looks, and to mock the painting which he has by now locked away. A kind of macabre Narcissus, he has been taught to admire his image, but it ends up destroying him.
I did enjoy this book. A vividly depicted account of Dorian's descent from relative innocence, through disappointment, hedonism, leading to opium dens, murder, and involvement in the disgrace and/or death of a number of bystanders along the way. Not a book to read if you fancy something light or need cheering up!