[review from Amazon.com]

A lush, cautionary tale of a life of vileness and deception or a loving portrait of the aesthetic impulse run rampant? Why not both? After Basil Hallward paints a beautiful, young man's portrait, his subject's frivolous wish that the picture change and he remain the same comes true. Dorian Gray's picture grows aged and corrupt while he continues to appear fresh and innocent. After he kills a young woman, as surely as if I had cut her little throat with a knife, Dorian Gray is surprised to find no difference in his vision or surroundings. The roses are not less lovely for all that. The birds sing just as happily in my garden. As Hallward tries to make sense of his creation, his epigram-happy friend Lord Henry Wotton encourages Dorian in his sensual quest with any number of Wildean paradoxes, including the delightful When we are happy we are always good, but when we are good we are not always happy. But despite its many languorous pleasures, The Picture of Dorian Gray is an imperfect work. Compared to the two (voyeuristic) older men, Dorian is a bore, and his search for ever new sensations far less fun than the novel's drawing-room discussions. Even more oddly, the moral message of the novel contradicts many of Wilde's supposed aims, not least no artist has ethical sympathies. An ethical sympathy in an artist is an unpardonable mannerism of style. Nonetheless, the glamour boy gets his just deserts. And Wilde, defending Dorian Gray, had it both ways: All excess, as well as all renunciation, brings its own punishment.

[LE 19.10.2017 - kindle edition]

Finally clearing off that one from my to-read list. This was an interesting literary experiment, although for me it felt out of touch a lot more than other works of its age. Often designed to shock social constraints, some of the randy bits felt paradoxically more prude than if they would have been missing altogether. All the Chekhov guns are there, and I easily guessed some of the major plot points just paying attention to the details. All in all, it was a good ride.

Thanks MINKULA for the surprise wishlist book you sent me a few days ago, and since I happened to have Dorian Gray gathering dust on my bookshelf I'd love to return the favour :)

This release also counts for katrinat's 1001 Release Challenge, as The Picture of Dorian Gray is featured on all three editions of the 1001 BYMRBYD so far (and most probably in the 2012 one, too).

Thanks, lamelemon! :) Right now we have a language challenge in Finnish forum, so maybe I should read this for it.

Finally I read the book. Maybe the language was a bit too difficult to me. Discussions were mainly easy to follow, but the text between them was often very hard to understand. The most difficult part was chapter 11. I understood hardly anything of it and had to borrow a Finnish version of the book from a library. After reading the chapter once again in Finnish I however realized that the story was more exiting in English than in Finnish. So I continued to finish the book in English.

I read the book for The Wishlist Challenge, because it was on my wishlist, and for The Alphabet Challenge. I'm also going to send it to someone, who has in on his/her wishlist.

As a surprise to the next reader... :)

What a surprise, MINKULA! Thank you for sending this wishlist book to me :-) It arrived safely today.
I look forward to reading it very much!

ETA that I like the interesting postcard that came with it too. That one will 'disappear' into my collection.