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29.10.25

Book review: The picture of Dorian Gray

 Bonjour Babes

So this will be my first review on my blog. I have written a few on my goodreads, but I only write one when the book was bad. So now by trying to review all books my reviewing skills will improve hopefully.

disclaimer: the phrasing and understanding required of this book is higher than average for me. This is not the first time I have read litrature, but it is the first time of a book written in English and published over 100 years ago. So I will not always be possible to give an in depth review.

spoilers will be at the very end if I care to include spoilers

Well this book is so beautiful. I find that when I finish a more 'difficult' book, I regret not enjoying the reading process more. That's why I will DEFINETLY read this book again. The beauty doesn't only lie in the plot and story but also in the word and how well written this was. 

You get overflown with these sharp remarks of Lord Henry and the conversations between him and his collocutor(s) (apparently a fancy word for a conversational partner said google translate), which I absolutely love. You shall not read this book in haste! It does slow the book down at some points which may not be for everyone, but I personally love. 

Despite the fact that we I don't feel like I see Dorian change while reading (there was a big time jump and overall apart from the key events I don't feel like there was something gradual going on. EDIT: now I feel like I did see him change more. It's just his behaviour towards Lord Henry I didn't feel like changed to much), you do very much get an insight in what changed. It was hard to make that jump (EDIT: there was like this one where he jumped 20 years in time or so, I cannot recall this very good because I read it in chops. So that also affected my experience reading) in time but as I read the book over a long period of time it felt like I was living it with him. And that Sybil Vane was like an old covered memory. I just very much liked that. Dorian's frustrations came through me a lot when Sybil was acting bad infront of his friends, and it did make me feel bad for him too. I think this is because in this part he was still a very young innocent boy. The events that happened after this felt more detatched at times. Ofcourse the key events feel very intense and add this element of his moral being to the book. does that make sense?

I really grew fond of Dorian too. He is frustrated at the end that Harry won't see him as more then a stupid boy, and somewhere I thought Dorian might reveal the secret to Harry but that ended different ofcourse. That is something I really like about this. Because in ways he is still not very smart in the way Lord henry is, but because Dorian has bigger secrets/ amoralities, these overshadow that. Maybe this isn't very accurate but this is just how I feel about it a little. 

I feel there are many metafors in this book I haven't yet uncoverd. Which makes me want to read it again. This might be the first book that I will reread. This is also just a pretentious way of saying that I didn't always pay attention. I think there is one chapter where Dorian has all these hobby's which get a paragraph each of dry discription with beautiful words nonetheless and I think I skimmed trough it at some part. About that I might take back that he doesn't gradually decent into ammorality, I think this showcases a kind of decent of madness caused by this ammorality.

well I hope this made any sense at all. I feel like Lord Henry would call me stupid. He in some ways is something I kind of admire. Very cynical, I think it's called. 

Thank you for bearing with me. I probably made a thousand grammar mistakes and mistypes, and understood it not even a little bit. But I will revisit this book surely even if it's the last thing I do.

Bye Bye little ones

I hope you have a wonderful day or night

xoxo 

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