Just Not My Bag of Worms

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I love Oscar Wilde plays, and he's an amazing writer, but I didn't like this book. Almost gave it a 2. All those people loving it must have some gene I'm lacking, cuz I don't get it.

Some of the language here is fantastic (which is why I bumped it to a 3). You can pick a page at random and find some pithy saying or memorable epigram and probably some witty dialogue, and if you don't find that then there's probably some fantastic description or useful insight. He can surely put the words together.

But I pretty much hated the story. And the characters. And the sh*t they talked about. And their collective attitude toward the world and everything in it. I hoped there would be something wonderful in the novel, but I just found it depressing, and I gotta say, I really don't care for depressing. Life's hard enough.

The action leads to some interesting discussions about life and art and morality (and the worthlessness of the moneyed class), and some of the language was funny and poetic and surprising, so I feel like it was worth reading. I got something of value out of the exercise.

But now I wanna go read something a lot more fun.

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