Look a Book: Oscar Wilde’s Picture – Gray Inside Out

The Picture of Dorian Gray
By Oscar Wilde

Oscar Wilde's 'Dorian Gray' was released in film format this year. It's not the first time. The 1945 version won an Oscar. An Academy Award that is, not another man named Oscar. I do like the idea of an Oscar factory, where helpful and passive men are produced as prizes. I can see an employee incentive scheme in the making. What would you do with your Oscar?

I haven't seen 'Dorian Gray' at the cinema, but I did read the book earlier this year.

Its full title is 'The Picture of Dorian Gray'. Five sequential words: three too many for Hollywood.

'The Picture of Dorian Gray' is no complex tale. The main themes - vanity and debauchery - run throughout. Irritating characters, blessed with wealth, boredom and the stifling civility of the upper classes, fill page after page.

There is little depth to the debauchery, or to any of the characters. It's shallow to its core.

A rich gentleman, a little past his sell-by date, craves depravity. He talks the talk (he talks and talks), but can't walk the walk. Instead, he entices another - younger man - to do his bidding. That's Dorian. Quite predictably, it all comes to a sticky end.

It's all rather tedious. Dorian the Debauched is a big bore. Virtually all of the debauchery is implied. I, for one, find it hard to believe that Dorian ever 'cuts loose'. Perhaps the only reason he ever does anything, is to distract himself from his own dull idiocy.

"That was anal sex was it? Hmm. I'll tick that one off then. No interesting thoughts forthcoming. Oh well. The search goes on for my brain."

For several pages of the book, Dorian tries to find some depth of character in fanciful objects. Dorian's search for sensation is as tiresome as the chapters in American Psycho, where Bret Easton Ellis goes into one about 'Genesis', 'Whitney Houston' and 'Huey Lewis and the News'. Kill me now Patrick Bateman.

I wonder if Wilde was sharing a wish list of dull artefacts, hoping for post-publication gifts. Or, perhaps he was showing his feathers. "Hey everyone, I know about gemstones. Do you want to hear my story about the pistachio-coloured peridot?"

I thought I might like this book in the first few pages. I guess I was wrong.

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Onto more positive things. Hoorah! Noah and the Whale's new album 'The First Days of Spring' is brilliant. It's so carefully pieced together, that it's impossible to imagine haste in any part of its production. How's that for a second album, released just one year after the debut?

'The First Days of Spring' journey's through the loss and emptiness that festers in the wake of a relationship breakdown. While a far from novel concept for a pop record or album, it is brilliantly delivered. It encapsulates the confusion intrinsic to a parting of ways. There is freedom and there is hope. As with most breakdowns, it's impossible to separate either from the love that once was. There is the continual question that this might not be it. This might not be the end. Perhaps it will come back.

Here is what seems to be a truly personal account, delicately delivered with the polish of professionalism. It's strength lies in a candid vulnerability and a mantra of hope.

"But like a cut down tree, I will rise again
And I’ll be bigger and stronger than ever before."

This album is perfectly pitched. Even though it drifts into classical orchestration mid-album, it never sounds too big for its boots.

Download MP3: Noah and the Whale – Stranger (courtesy of tsururadio.com)