The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde is one of the best classics I have ever read. I’ve read quite a few classics and all of them except this one which I read because of TikTok being obsessed with it (if you search up the hashtag “book annotations”, a lot of the videos have this book annotated).

I am not a fan of classics - this isn’t a surprise because I constantly stress this and constantly talk about the books I was forced to read for English and that I didn’t like (I am looking at you Wuthering Heights). This book was really a jump in the dark - I only knew tidbits but I didn’t know anything beyond the synopsis. Certainly, no one warned me of Dorian’s “material girl” chapter (which I found hilarious and relatable because I too would try to learn about so many things if I was seemingly immortal and young).

Nevertheless, I bought the book and decided to also annotate it as I had seen many people do on TikTok. I bought vintagey coloured sticky tabs, grabbed a nice black pen and also found some grid paper sticky notes because I knew that if I had lots of thoughts, I doubted the margins of the book would provide enough space for all my thoughts (spoiler: I did have thoughts. Also spoiler: the margins provided little to no space and the sticky notes came in good use)

I think that this book was fundamental in the question of mortality and ethics especially. He did a good job of making sure no one liked Lord Henry because honestly, I wanted to throw my book across the room every time that man opened his mouth spewing the most misogynistic things about women.

I really liked the characterization of Dorian Gray - he went from being a seemingly innocent, beautiful, young man to someone who was truly ugly and shrivelled on the inside but nobody would know because no one had ever seen the portrait after he’d committed his first sin - his actions and words caused Sybil Vane to commit suicide. While it was not a direct murder like what he did to Basil (who deserved better! Poor Basil), it shows that even the slightest negative actions have consequences.

What made me really raise an eyebrow and also laugh is the one chapter that is just full of Dorian learning things and sort of hyperfixating on specific topics. There’s gemstones and books and then there’s the book that Lord Henry gifts him that he becomes absolutely obsessed with and hunts for different editions and has them bound in different covers depending on his mood (rich people problems, huh) but frankly, the book thing didn’t surprise me too much because I know so many people in the book community do go out of their way to get different editions (special editions from book boxes especially) of their favourite books (I mean, I do have 3 copies of Babel so far. I am giving one of the finished copies away to my best friend though).

I also thought the ending was quite interesting - I read a couple of theories on it and can’t really come to a conclusion of my own because honestly the couple I have heard so far work either way. I wonder what you think! Do let me know in the comments or lemme know on Instagram!

And that is it for now! Really enjoyed this one!

Rating: 4.5/5 stars

Love,

Mila

An annotated copy of The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde