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    The Picture of Dorian Gray
    The Picture of Dorian Gray
    The Picture of Dorian Gray
    Audiobook (abridged)1 hour

    The Picture of Dorian Gray

    Written by Oscar Wilde

    Narrated by Iman

    4/5

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    About this audiobook

    This audio classic novel has been carefully abridged and adapted into 10 short easy to understand chapters. This format enables listeners of all ages and English language abilities to understand and enjoy the story. Composition includes original custom back ground music.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherEDCON Publishing
    Release dateJul 1, 2011
    ISBN9780848113391
    Author

    Oscar Wilde

    Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was born on the 16th October 1854 and died on the 30th November 1900. He was an Irish playwright, poet, and author of numerous short stories and one novel. Known for his biting wit, he became one of the most successful playwrights of the late Victorian era in London, and one of the greatest celebrities of his day. Several of his plays continue to be widely performed, especially The Importance of Being Earnest.

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    Reviews for The Picture of Dorian Gray

    4/5

    314 ratings275 reviews

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    • 3/5
      I have to say that I liked "The Importance of Being Earnest" much more than I did this book. There were areas that I enjoyed but for the most part I just got tired of the flowery language and the over abundance of description. At some point there was a whole chapter's worth of description that I just would have cut completely. It was basically a list of stuff that Dorian Gray likes. I had to skip through most of the chapter; and that's saying a lot since I tend to bask in pretty words.The idea that people, when given the chance to live wickedly without showing the outward signs of their deeds was an interesting one. Also, the fact that those who had not been directly affected by Dorian's actions could not think ill of him because he looked so young and beautiful. It makes me think about how sometimes, even today, we assume that beauty is a manifestation of the beauty inside a person, when in reality, it's sometimes the most beautiful people that can be the most hideous.Overall, I felt that this book had some interesting notions that is was exploring, but the writing put me off. I can see why he only wrote the one novel. He tends to go a little crazy on the descriptions, which is distracting and sometimes annoying. I did enjoy the dialogue however. The dialogue is where the majority of the ideas come through, so naturally I found that more interesting than the actual narrative. Because of this, I actually thought that this would work better as a play than a novel.Notable Quotes:"Nowadays most people die of a sort of creeping common sense, and discover when it is too late that the only things one never regrets are one's mistakes.""Those who are faithful know only the trivial side of love: it is the faithless who know love's tragedies.""I don't want to see him alone. He says things that annoy me. He gives me good advice.""The reason we all like to think so well of others is that we are all afraid for ourselves. The basis of optimism is sheer terror."
    • 4/5
      I was kind of underwhelmed by this one. Some interesting ideas were brought up, but the story itself wasn't as riveting as I thought it would be.
    • 3/5
      It would be easy to dismiss this book. The writer and his characters, I think, lack the moral compass. That said, Oscar Wilde had something to say about what sin does to a person and how it can even affect one's countenance. There is no cure for a hard heart or a life lived only to watch out for one's self. Only tragedy follows such a path, as the lead character in this book learns. Dorian Grey once yelled out a heartfelt plea to remain for the rest of his life as beautiful as he was at that moment. His wish was granted and he never aged from that point. The painting that he had just sat for, however, did change...with each and every selfish act he committed. Dorian's actions were not always even meant to cause the amount of pain that they did, but they did nonetheless. His gilted, innocent lover even killed herself over her remorse at having lost his attention and respect over something so temporal and silly. From that moment, for Dorian, each hard and selfish act only lead to more of the same. Disaster continued to follow. Eventually he decided to change and live a life that was pure. After one selfless act of love he expected the portrait to have changed back to one of beauty and when it did not he chose to end his life. Originally I would have rated this book as 1 *. It took me about 80 pages, and a big devotion to go that far, in order to sort of get hooked by the book and its tale. Overall I like what the book says about a life lived not only IN sin but a life that even reveres sinfulness. For that I can finally say I am glad I read it and can understand its long-standing as a classic of literature.
    • 3/5
      I have definitely read this before, but my most vivid memory is of the 1945 film - that colour reveal of the portrait! (Also, why is the title 'The Picture of' and not 'Portrait of', which I always want to write?) Clever in parts, especially Sir Henry who talks in soundbites (I liked his summary of his brothers best - the eldest won't die, and the younger ones do nothing but), yet also very wordy for such a short novel - I will admit to skimming passages not pertinent to the plot. Dorian is a foul character from the get-go. I don't hold with blaming SIr Henry or Basil for - ahem - leading him astray. His 'me me me' attitude pissed me off more than the despicable things he does. In the immortal words of Shania Twain, 'So you're Brad Pitt! That don't impress me much'. Characters and social commentary aside, Wilde has crafted a truly atmospheric gothic horror story, which - I'm going to say again - the film captures more succinctly.
    • 3/5
      Audacious book for its era. The melodramatic delivery starts to ruffle.
    • 5/5
      Dorian Gray is a beautiful young man in Victorian England. His beauty and youth have taken him places and afforded him many luxuries. During a sitting with a painter he rashly wishes he could remain young and beautiful all his life. This wish is granted but subsequently his personality sours and his morality rots away. With each passing cruel remark and act, the portrait grows older and uglier while Dorian's human exterior remains handsome and pure. Soon, Dorian cannot separate himself from the image that he sees on the canvas. The more hideous the portrait, the more violent his actions against humanity. It's a downward spiral with tragic results.Wilde has a lot to say about Victorian society norms, but his tongue-in-cheek humor and wit thread through the evil demise of Dorian Gray with delightful frequency.
    • 5/5
      Excellent illustration of the human psyche and the effects of status, money and arrogance.
    • 4/5
      Loved it. Consistently interesting, though a few of the speeches dragged on as did a few of Wilde's "detailing paragraphs." Though I may not have agreed with everything that was said, overall it was very good, and Wilde is a beautiful writer.
    • 4/5
      I had a bit of a sinking feeling after the first few chapters of this book. The style at the start is light and witty with lots of drawing-room banter, but so much so that it becomes aphoristic to a fault. "Being natural is simply a pose"; "I can believe anything, provided that it is quite incredible"; "those who are faithful know only the trivial side of love; it is the faithless who know love's tragedies"...and so on and so on. The first one or two strike you as being interesting. After twenty or thirty of them in the space of a few pages, you begin to wonder if there is actually anything behind the clever-clever wordplay. (Ah, but "It is only shallow people who do not judge by appearances"— OH SHUT UP!)But. But. As the book goes on it begins to get thematically darker, and the writing starts to thicken up. One of the reviews here says irritably that The Picture of Dorian Gray is really a play in disguise, but that's completely untrue for the second half of the novel, when the dialogue slows down and we have whole chapters of elaborate, decadent prose describing Dorian's investigations into sensual pleasures – jewels, fabrics, scents, drugs, French poetry, young men. Having just read Huysmans's À Rebours it was pretty obvious where Wilde cribbed most of this from, and indeed À Rebours plays an important role in this story, disguised as the unnamed "yellow book".It is interesting to see exactly how this very French, very Catholic aesthetic gets transplanted into a Protestant English setting. Perhaps it's no wonder that the author is Irish – and Dorian himself, tellingly, finds his religio-cultural parameters shifting:It was rumoured of him once that he was about to join the Roman Catholic communion; and certainly the Roman ritual had always a great attraction for him.I started enjoying the book a lot more at this point. Strange words like orphrey and aspilates start getting chucked around, and Wilde takes us far away from his comfort zone of country houses and card tables, and into some surprisngly well-drawn and nasty dockside taverns and opium dens. The bons-mots here are more spaced out, and struck me in context as being more thoughtful and interesting.‘Besides, each time that one loves is the only time one has ever loved. Difference of object does not alter singleness of passion. It merely intensifies it. We can have in life but one great experience at best, and the secret of life is to reproduce that experience as often as possible.’...which sounds, as so much of Lord Henry's advice does, like something pathological; this quote would have made a nice epigraph for Lolita. Occasionally I even agreed with him:‘Names are everything. I never quarrel with actions. My one quarrel is with words. That is the reason I hate vulgar realism in literature. The man who could call a spade a spade should be compelled to use one. It is the only thing he is fit for.’And then, just when I was starting to really enjoy the Gothic atmosphere and the looming sense of disaster – the book ended. Job done: a nice Victorian moral parable, with plenty of mood and plenty of wit. "The only thing worse than a book that outstays its welcome..." Lord Henry would no doubt begin – well you get the idea. You'll be thinking in Wildean epigrams for a while afterwards, but that is hardly a down-side.
    • 4/5
      Dorian Gray has always been one of my favorite classics. The lesson is that karma is real and vanity is a pitfall.
    • 4/5
      The Picture of Dorian Gray is filled with wonderful vocabulary and delightful turn-of-phrase. The characters are entertaining, especially Lord Henry's views on life and society. A bleak feeling arises as the plot develops and as Dorian slips further into madness, a perfect effect of excellent writing. This is not a book to bring light and warmth into a cold afternoon.
    • 5/5
      Great story about some despicable and jaded people.
    • 4/5
      There's something in nineteenth-century British literature that I am drawn to—there is a certain musicality or lyricism to it that I love, despite its inspirations often being delusional, fantastical and at times even fetishistic. So it is of little surprise that I found The Picture of Dorian Gray a sweeping read, and one that I had little dissatisfactions with, stylistically.When painter Basil Hallward first sets his eyes upon Dorian Gray, he is a young, captivating soul of speechless beauty. Combined with his social standing, his allure sets his name aflame across countless of social spheres within England. The story begins when Basil makes Dorian his muse, and asks him to sit for a portrait that, little do they both know, will become much more than the painter's magnum opus. Lord Henry, a wealthy friend of Basil, quickly enters the scene, instilling in the Adonis a roaring, dizzying passion for life: “the few words that Basil’s friend had said to him…had touched some secret chord that had never been touched before, but that he felt now was vibrating and throbbing to curious pulses” (21). It is the whimsical, at times paradoxical musings of Lord Henry that transform Dorian Gray, whose adoration for his own portrait become the root of the story’s unfoldment.This was my first proper exposure to Wilde’s work, and it surely was a pleasant experience. I do not know the reason as to why this was his only novel, but it certainly encapsulates his interest in the Aesthetic Movement (“Art for Art’s Sake”). Filled with a rather spiritualistic love for art, humor, and thrill it makes for a lovely (and easy) read, though it lacks the depth, the grittiness, that I was looking for. But this may very well be as a consequence of its loyalty to the values of Wilde’s movement, where art existed free of social, moral and even logical obligations. This novel lacks substance or a core, but ultimately our own conclusions, our own thoughts emerge out of it to appease our own sense of what good literature should be.
    • 2/5
      I've always enjoyed the movie and the underlying story, but to actually read ths was a chore. Long-winded, slowly dragging, there was severe "damage" to the painting after only four years. And then, Dorian's crimes were still not enumerated to give the reader sufficient cause to believe his soul could be so scarred. We see a young man living to excess, but that more a crime to himself than to society. Closer to the end, the reader gets a closer look at Dorian's debauchery and darker nature. This book was too much a commentary on idle English society that droned on and less of the interesting concept that spawned movies. Given the choice, I'd recommend the movie over the book.
    • 5/5
      I was pleasantly surprised at how compelling I found this narrative, despite its age.
    • 5/5
      A Picture of Dorian Grey is easily my favorite book. Being one partial to romanticized period novels, I was easily taken by the Dorian Grey's dark mysterious character and the beautiful setting of the book.The use of dark imagery in the novel was very well done. In the beginning of the novel, before Dorian's painting is done, most of the book takes place during the day. Beyond that point, most of the novel occurs at night, including the most sinister parts of the novel.I would recommend this novel to anyone who is a fan of vampire novels, like Anne Rice's novels. The seductive quality of Dorian Grey is very similar to that of say Lestat or Armand. Grey slinks about in dark clubs and dresses in fine clothes. A dark-haired dandy always comes to my mind.This novel also teaches us a lot about human nature and the human desire to live forever. Dorian wants to live on forever but when he final receives his wish, it turns out to be his curse. "Be careful what you wish for" is a prominent theme in the novel.
    • 4/5
      "When one is in love, one always begins by deceiving one's self, and one always ends by deceiving others. That is what the world calls a romance.” This book has become a classic of gothic fiction, though it might not be the first or even the tenth novel to come to mind when thinking of the gothic style. Still, it fits, and I am surprised that it has taken me so long to get to it. It's good, and the story itself, I would even argue, is great - it suffers in the delivery. It's too long. Wilde really takes his time winding up the story and setting into place the plot device, which we know is going to be the portrait - I mean, it's right there in the title. Too much conversation that is not needed to move the story forward - the angst, the ennui, the rumination...WE GET IT. I would have set this one aside had I not really wanted to know the entire story. And I would have missed something great - once we get to the picture of Dorian Gray actually becoming relevant, the story takes off. That is, it takes off until chapter eleven where we come to a dead halt while we learn about how Dorian becomes obsessed with collecting one thing after another. Right. Obsession. Greed. Narcissism. Just say that, already. Almost twenty pages later, we are released from the eye-roll worthy cataloging of hobbies and interests. And again the story takes off and does not disappoint all the way to the end. So, this could be truly fabulous if only it had been edited to be tighter, more concise. And this is where I mention that I noticed that Audible has an abridged audiobook of this narrated by Stephen Fry. I never do abridged, and I always wonder why they would make an abridged version of anything - either read it or don't, but let's not desecrate it. However, now I get it. SO, if you do audio, I would recommend going that route because Stephen Fry and less book. If you opt to read the print version, just know that it is a slow starter and that chapter eleven runs away with itself, but the story is worth hanging in there through all of that. And my copy was the Penguin Deluxe Edition, which has deckled edge pages, so there was that.
    • 2/5
      I listen to audio books on my commute to work, and this may not have been the best choice. I found it difficult to develop much empathy for Dorian Gray, and although I found the issues the novel tackles interesting (the relationship between art and life, the lure of youth, the power books have over the lives of readers, the influence of mentors and friends, and the impossibility of ever really knowing oneself, let alone another), I ultimately felt detached from the characters and let down by the ending. Interesting, but not compelling. And the endless quips from Sir Henry! I would have probably loved this if I'd read it in high school.
    • 5/5
      ~~~


      No review, just a comment and some quotes:

      Not simply about undying youth and beauty, but more accurately about sin and temptation and the opportunity to explore those temptations thoroughly. To the point of ruin.

      ”There is no such thing as a good influence, Mr. Gray. All influence is immoral…” - Lord Henry

      ”And Beauty is a form of Genius,--is higher, indeed, than Genius, as it needs no explanation.” - Lord Henry

      ”I am jealous of everything whose beauty does not die. I am jealous of the portrait you have painted of me. Why should it keep what I must lose?” - Dorian Gray

      Why should he watch the hideous corruption of his soul? - Dorian Gray

      ”It is quite true I have worshipped you with far more romance of feeling than a man should ever give to a friend. Somehow I have never loved a woman.” – Basil Hallward

      “You will always be fond of me. I represent to you all the sins you never had the courage to commit.” - Lord Henry


    • 5/5
      The Picture of Dorian Gray is one of the most elegant novels in the Gothic canon; that it is also one of the most sinister is hardly surprising given Oscar Wilde’s curious aptitude for tempering the macabre with the sensuous and the frivolous with the fatalistic. A considerable scandal upon its publication in the early 1890s, the novel still reads as slightly homoerotic, even if only in the most clandestine and aphotic of ways. Woven through its themes of beauty, decadence, age, and the nature of art is a thread of shimmering doom that becomes more poignant the longer one spends with Dorian Gray and the more one considers its relationship with its author. It is a peacock’s fan of luminous wit and glimmering color, dripping with venom and smelling of strange perfumes. We are all familiar with the general flavor of things: an innocent and exceptionally beautiful youth has his portrait painted one fateful afternoon; upon viewing the piece, he is paralyzed by the sudden revelation that one day he will be old and hideous while the painting will retain its beauty and life. In a devil’s bargain, he wishes that it would be the other way around. And then, under the influence of a particularly deleterious gentleman, Dorian Gray begins to change: his innocence gives way to corruption and his beauty seems apt to languish under the spell of opium, cruelty, and languor. One day Dorian notices that the painting has begun to transform, while he himself retains all the beauty of an innocent despite the ever-swelling ocean of his sins…Few works of literature are as effervescent as Dorian Gray and just as few are as utterly pessimistic; that it is capable of fusing remarkably disparate parts into a whole that is absolutely cohesive is a superior example of its author’s gifts. Like Wilde’s Salome, Dorian Gray is as colorful as it is bleak, and even its weaknesses, in context, seem like strengths. Seldom is an artist’s most famous work also his most erudite and brilliant: this is one of those works. I have approached it perhaps six or seven times in the last five years, and each reading has left me more enraptured than the last—which is high praise for a novel that relies a great deal on suspense and aesthetic splendour. I consider it one of the finest things I have ever read—daring, sultry, venomous, eloquent, and radiant in its own decay.
    • 4/5
      Far and away the best thing about this book is Oscar Wilde's wit, which is in fine form throughout. Though the premise is supernatural, and The Portrait of Dorian Gray is often included with books like Dracula, Frankenstein, and Turn of the Screw as a classic early horror novel, it's really more of a melodrama and probably more comfortable alongside something like House of Mirth as a tragedy of high society. Well worth the read, if only for Oscar Wilde's self-portrait, quite obviously the charming cynic and corrupter, Lord Henry...
    • 3/5
      3* for meI know it's a classicJust not one of my favoritesShelfari says it best"This dandy, who remains forever unchanged—petulant, hedonistic, vain, and amoral—while a painting of him ages and grows increasingly hideous with the years"
    • 5/5
      This is the only novel that Oscar Wilde ever wrote. Basil Hallward paints a portrait of Dorian Gray who laments that the portrait will never change even though he will age and lose the beauty of youth. In a strange twist, Dorian never ages, but the portrait ages and becomes grotesque with the signs of the guilt of the deranged life that Dorian lives.In addition to the obvious symbolism about the lack of artistic movement, one of the best things about this novel is Wilde's wit. Full of aphorisms, the dialogue in this novel is funny, insightful, and paradoxical. My favorite quote was the bittersweet, "A poet, a really great poet, is the most unpoetical of creatures." This reflects Gray who is really beautiful despite living a grotesque life, and I assume that Wilde would say that it reflects himself as well.
    • 2/5
      Unpopular opinion. I just really couldn't get into this book. It was very slow paced and just didn't spark my interest.
    • 4/5
      Surprisingly good read of a classic that I had known little about. The only thing I knew about the story came from the terrible move "League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" where Dorian Gray is one of the characters. I had higher hopes for the book and I was happy by the time I finished.

      The language used by Wilde in telling this story is beautiful. I enjoyed his writing style and his ability to create characters that expound on life and its virtues and flaws. To see the personal character of Gray go from purely good to evil is a fascinating experience. To read about the influence of both good and evil characters on his development is also fun.

      Like many classics, I found that the story itself moved along at a very slow pace. It was more about the conversations and thoughts of the characters than moving the plot along. However, I enjoyed the read and recommend it to all fans of literature.
    • 4/5
      People get older and lose their looks. Don't whine about it. Moral of the story.
    • 4/5
      A young egotistic man whispers a prayer and gets exactly what he asked for.How does one even begin to review this book? I disagreed vehemently with just about everything it proposed, and yet because of the writing, I continued to listen. Lord Henry. What are we to do with him? I've heard it proposed that he is meant to be Satan tempting Dorian, and there is an element of that, but to me he seemed more of a man who likes to hear himself talk and shock others, but doesn't really believe what he is saying. Dorian is loathsome. Innocent my foot. He latches on to the things Lord Henry says because it is in his nature already. Best described as a sociopath in my opinion. A sociopath who develops into a psychopath as easily as he puts on his gloves, and he wears well fitting gloves.What I would really like to know, is how much of Oscar Wilde's beliefs are in this book. Or, did he write it to show the absurdity of the ideas propounded? The misogyny and cynicism within are breathtaking. Were they his? He had a difficult time of it being who he was in the time he lived; did he develop these views to survive? Now I think I must go read a biography of Oscar Wilde.
    • 5/5
      One of my favorite reads. Buy an expensive hardcover edition, it will be a treasure in your library for the rest of your life.
    • 4/5
      Loved it. Consistently interesting, though a few of the speeches dragged on as did a few of Wilde's "detailing paragraphs." Though I may not have agreed with everything that was said, overall it was very good, and Wilde is a beautiful writer.
    • 4/5
      Such sweet seduction and moral corruption, highlighted by opium infused deliriousness, clearly this would be a book listed in Narcissus' Library Thing profile!