This is one of those books where every second line, I wanted to print our the words in beautiful font and tape them onto my bedroom wall. Such beautiful language, such thought provoking lines, such a deep inquest into the dark nature of humanitie's vanity and corruption.
Dorian Grey is youthful, beautiful and innocent. He is a model for Basil's portraits and inspires something new and wonderful for Basil's artwork. There is a super love triangle going on between the three main male characters in the first half of the book. Harry and Basil talk about how they are drawn to Dorian, how he becomes a neccessity for them, how they need to see him every day, how beautiful he is. It surprised me for something written in the late nineteenth century. Anyways, Dorian is bringing out something new and wonderful in Basil. Then Basil's friend Harry meets him and begins to corrupt him with new ideas that make his (and my) head spin. Basil has already been fueling Dorian's ego by constantly telling him how perfect he is. Now Harry enters the picture and says how wonderful it is to be young, and how woderful it is to seek pleasure.
Basil is working on a portrait of Dorian. It is his greatest work, but he doesn't want people to see it because he knows that he has poured too much of his soul and his love into the painting. He gives it to Dorian, who grows envious of it. The painting will be eternally young and beautiful, but Dorian- whose head is filled with Harry's notions of youth and pleasure- will grow old and will lose the glory that he has now. He makes a wish, that all of his age and vice will show itself on the portrait, rather than on himself. Of course, he never expects his wish to be granted.
As Dorian spends more time with Harry his innocence is further corrupted and Dorian notices something strange. The portrait is changing. The expression has become cruel and mocking, arrogant. The beauty is marred. With every action that Dorian makes, the portrait reflects the wicked nature of his soul, but his outer body is still the innocent, glowing and beautiful youth that we met at the beginning of the book.
There are some gorgeous scenes, some places where I wanted to punch Dorian and/or Harry for being an asshole, and as I mentioned, so many phrases and lines that danced in my head as I read them. As Dorian becomes more and more corrupted and spreads his wicked influence to other people, I couldn't help but think, was this vile nature in him all along, or was it Basil's praise and Harry's transgressive ideas that turned him into the monster that he became?