Foreign Exchange.

I've never read this, but I feel like I ought to as it's such a classic.

Blurb:
Eternal youth, infinite passion, pleasures subltle & secret, wild joys and wilder sins - he was to have all these things. The portrait was to bear the burden of his shame; that was all.

Although I enjoyed this book, I was rather disappointed in it, as I found it difficult to become absorbed in. I found the references to Dorian's bad behaviour rather cryptic, and given that Oscar Wilde was imprisoned for homosexual acts, I think that I probably read too much into some of the comments. Somebody on GoodReads pointed out that it is not a novel about homosexuality as such, but about hedonism and hypocrisy.

Compared to other classic novels, I did not particularly enjoy the style of writing, but there were plenty of 'bon mots' and aphorisms, particularly in the first part of the book; the conclusion was darker and altogether more depressing. Having said that, I loved this description: "Gradually the events of the previous night crept with silent blood-stained feet into his brain", and even though I didn't understand every word of the French poem, I enjoyed reading it out loud to myself; I think poetry sounds amazing in French! I also chose this quotation for its beauty:
"Time seemed to him to be crawling with feet of lead, while he by monstrous winds was being swept towards the jagged edge of some black cleft or precipice."

Here are a few of my favourite quotations:
"To get back one's youth, one has merely to repeat one's follies."
I liked Lord Henry's approach to punctuality: "He was always late on principle, his principle being that punctuality is the thief of time." Oh, how I agree with that!
Written before the turn of the 20th century, it is amazing to realise how appropriate some of the comments are to modern celebrity culture and political scandals: "Society, civilized society at least, is never very ready to believe anything to the detriment of those who are both rich and fascinating. It feels instinctively that manners are of more importance than morals, and, in its opinion, the highest respectability is of much less value than the possession of a good chef. And, after all, it is a very poor consolation to be told that the man who has given one a bad dinner, or poor wine, is irreproachable in his private life." Hence, despite wanting to hear all the salacious details of scandal, disgraced politicians and celebrities are often reinstated in the public's affections.

I also found myself often laughing at the clever things which were said, or comments made on society:
"It is pure unadulterated country life. They get up early, because they have so much to do, and go to bed early because they have so little to think about."
It is fascinating to realise that it is less than a hundred years ago that the upper classes were still living a life that would have been recognised by Jane Austen, with house parties, tea parties and weekends in the country. There were still many who did little more than socialise, or spend time quietly reading, writing letters or making music; no radio and television to amuse and anaesthetise people.

For the time being, I will put this in the ForeignExchange boxes. If nobody is interested in it, I will probably take it to OBCZ Lux in Nijmegen.

Taken to a BookCrossing meeting in Bruges / Brugge, which was originally organised because an Indian BookCrosser was visiting. Unfortunately she couldn't make it in the end, but we had a great meeting nevertheless with people travelling from far and wide.

This book has been released as part of the following BookCrossing challenges:
- The Ultimate Challenge - read and release books, with extra points for a monthly theme
- Reduce Mount TBR (To Be Read) - read and release books on the TBR list since before June 2010. My reading goal is 75 books.
- 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die Challenge