Well I DO like this book. Still I’m only giving three stars even though it’s a classic and it was written to caricate the nineteenth century english society.

A great plus is Oscar Wilde’s talent in describing one’s emotions fairly well and even nowadays you DO understand what he did try to say (maybe it is even more up to date these days then it was then) BUT there’s two things that really destroy what the book could have been otherwise.

First, Wilde takes his sweet time getting to the point of Dorian discovering the truth about the picture, the real turning point of the story which in the end leads to the corruption of his mind and soul. Of course beforehand Lord Henry took great part of this, too but if Dorian Gray had grown older like anyone else he would never have grown that conceited and would have never been that much of a destructing person.

Secondly from this mentioned turning point to the end it is a relatively short story what I find to be very unnerving.
Wilde skips eighteen years… darn that’s SUCH a long time and so much has happened but you don’t get to know much of it.
And then, there’s the end. It is unceremonial, way too quick and only takes up the smallest part of the storyline.
I do forgive this to some extend because even though it doesn’t fit the character of Dorian to part from life this commonly it is a nice twist to to end the built up drama rather simple. Because in the end death IS simple and unceremonial. Other authors wouldn’t have dared to do this.

Anyhow the story is a nice one but the tension Wilde’s building up just seems to go… puff and it’s gone. That’s not the way I like it.

It’s taking me forever to finish this (for my standards) even though it is fairly well written (I didn’t know Oscar Wilde was that much of a good and insightful writer as well as hobby-psychatrist). On the first evening I read like four chapters at once and since then I’m doing one or at the maximum two chapters per day. It is frustrating.
Besides something that nags away at me is that Mr. Wilde took a REAL long time to get to the most important part, I do see WHY he felt the need to explain how Dorian got to be the person he’s later on always described and seen as but it’s hard for me to understand how Dorian only begins to find out that his wish has been granted after HALF of the book.