tales of Suchita

As always, my not reviews can get spoilery. You have been warned.

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This book got added to my TBR because of Ben Barnes. Who is he? Well, according to a meme I saw, he is like the boyfriend of the 90s kid because of his role as Prince Caspian. I mean, the meme is not wrong. The way he took over our fantasies from Peter Pevensie was just…sigh.

I don’t know where he vanished to after Prince Caspian but he was resurrected last year as the Darkling in the Netflix show, Shadow and Bone. Let’s just say, that crush of the fifteen year old was back in full force!

But this post is not about Ben Barnes [I know, the blasphemy] but about Dorian Gray [which is also played by Ben Barnes by the way]. 

The beginning of this book is exquisite as it talks about a painter finding his perfect muse in the beauty of Dorian Gray. Once the painting is complete, the painter refuses to exhibit it because he feels it reveals too much of his own desires than the subject. And as a writer who is constantly worried about this too, I could completely understand where Basil, the painter, was coming from.

Basil, Lord Henry and Dorian Gray are the three main characters this book revolves around. I was not expecting this book to make me laugh, or make me furious at how willfully ignorant the three characters act. The most surprising bit was how I could understand yet hate the three men in equal measure.

Basil is a painter but he is so enamoured with perfection and Dorian that he loses his art. Lord Henry is full of clever epigrams – I mean I have never highlighted so many passages in a book before – and on the face of it, perfectly understands the human condition. But he is a spectator, a voyeur, who only speaks, but rarely participates. This viewpoint of his is particularly well captured in the 2009 movie by Colin Firth.

And then there is Dorian himself. He is vain, but then what twenty year old is not? He wants to experience life but then what human does not want to do that? He makes a deal with the devil so he can experience every vice and virtue without it marring his beautiful visage. And in doing so, not only seals his fate, but also becomes a vessel of experience for both Henry and Basil. Strangely enough, they become his conscience keepers too, not that that does anyone any good.

When I started this book, I couldn’t help but compare it to Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin but as soon as it began, I saw the error of that comparison. While Baldwin wrote his book with the aim of making a statement and his words are never obscure, Oscar Wilde’s exploration of homoeroticism leans more towards hedonism and how selfishness always has a cost. We know Dorian Gray indulges in debauchery but it is never explicitly mentioned what form this debauchery takes. In a way, it’s not necessary for us to know.

The paradox that is Dorian was startling to me. He explores art like its meant to be explored – total immersion. He is surrounded by people and experiences and yet much like the debauchery does not mar his face, the art leaves no dent in his perceptions. Till the end, he remains a selfish man who loses friends as quickly as one may lose followers in today’s age.

One of my favourite epigrams of Henry captures this paradox quite well:

It is better to be beautiful than to be good.
It is better to be good than to be ugly.

After reading the book, I saw the movie too because of the aforementioned love for Ben Barnes. Though the movie deviates quite a bit from the book, there is one scene I think which summarizes the story quite aptly. Henry, as an old, balding man, who is not at all the debonair man who had first met Dorian Gray though Dorian looks exactly the same, asks Dorian, what have you become. And Dorian says to him, I have become the man you made me. 

There are hints of “impropriety” between Dorian and Basil but there are no such hints between Henry and Dorian. They remain friends, despite how wildly their lives deviate from each other. Even when Dorian stops needing a mentor. Right until the bitter end.

But it makes me wonder if Henry and Dorian could have saved themselves some heartbreak if they had just come together instead of trying to be the other man’s version of perfection.

Have you read Dorian Gray? What were your thoughts?

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Connecting this post to #BlogchatterA2Z. To read other posts, check Theme Reveal 2022: Without Prearrangement.

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PS: If you like how I write and would like to read more, I have 2 ebooks on Kindle – both free if you’re on Kindle Unlimited. You can read more about the ebooks here.