Rating: 
Summary: Entertaining yet unimpressive
Review: Over the years I had heard a number of witty quotes that various people had pinched from Ocar Wilde, so it seemed logical that this book would be at least somewhat original and funny. Unfortunately, it was so predictable that one could submit submit its title as an adequate summary. The only saving grace was the witty rambling of Lord Henry, who I can only describe as a precursor to Newsradio's Jimmy James. Although the book was good for a laugh, I cannot really recommend it to anyone, unless he or she does not care about plot.
Rating:
Summary: Nice book and really nothing more
Review: When I first began reading this book I was intrigued. The first few pages are incredibly interesting. They are written extremely well and are filled with facinating ideas. That doesn't last long, though. After the forthy-somthing page the reader begins to understand that Oscar Wilde uses a lot of words to say nothing. And he does say something, you won't notice it because it's strangled to death with a lot of useless information. However, I do think the book does make a good read. You can't really blame Wilde for writing the way he does, since he, himself, says on the second page of this book: "The only excuse for making a useless thing is that one adimers it intensely", and Wilde does admires his work intensely and for that we "owe' it to him to read "The Picture of Dorian Gray".
Rating:
Summary: Fatal portrait
Review: A comely, vain, innocent young man named Dorian Gray gets his portrait painted and hides it away in an unused room in his house. After a love affair with an actress goes terribly wrong, he notices that his portrait has altered itself in a curious way. He proceeds to live his life by indulging himself in episodes of increasing debauchery and immorality, wrecking other people's lives and committing blackmail and even murder, and all the while his portrait bears the physical signs of his aging while his own body remains young and fresh. The novel offers some weighty questions: Would we choose to be immoral if we knew we were immortal? Is an artist's work the manifestation of his own latent immorality? Are the world's imperfections, sins, and shames represented better through art than through reality? As much as I admire Oscar Wilde's great play "The Importance of Being Ernest," I must admit that I found some faults with this short novel of his. Despite its florid prose and dialogue containing wickedly caustic wit and punchy aphorisms that evoke a time when conversation was an art, the novel has a strangely artificial, stiff tone. With dialogue that sounds like it would have to be rehearsed before spoken and many scene descriptions that seem like stage directions, it often reads like a play that's been converted into a novel. Interior furnishings are described in the meticulous detail of a Sotheby's catalog; a nice touch, but what's the point? This is an intriguing novel that combines elements of gothic horror and social satire, but it is marred by too many moments of unintentional goofiness.
Rating: 
Summary: Essential reading
Review: Hell can be fun! A book choc-full of bon mots and little phrases to use in everyday life. Wilde was genius personified. Carry this with you always.
Rating:
Summary: Discover your own soul with Oscar Wilde
Review: The tricky plot, the accurate psychological analysis, the theme of the double, of pleasure and sin make this novel still an up-to-date one and I was really fascinated by the scheming protagonist who, in a way or in another, can be told to represent the human being in all his aspects. Compelled by my teacher to read it, I didn't think this book could give me so many hints. Thanks to Oscar Wilde I had my first approach to the Aesthetic ideolgy, absolutely one of the most involving and interesting: let's do "Art just for Art's Sake"! Dorian Gray embodies the new intellectual who thinks life should be lived as a work of art, so that it is possible to stop the destructive power of time. He also stated the only reality is that of impressions and sensations, and everything in life should be done in order to experience every kind of sensations, no matter how to do and what society could think. Well, I'm just a teenager and maybe for this reason I share some of Wilde-Dorian's instances: like me, the protagonist tries to reconcile wills of rebellion, linked to his soul's corruption, with desires of worldiness. In conclusion I think this is one of the best book I've ever read - and I have read al lot. I would suggest it to everybody who's willing to descover the most intimate and deepest aspects of his own soul!
Rating: 
Summary: Was it really his fault?
Review: Dorian Gray was definately an excellent book, although the wording was somewhat outdated. It is an excellent piece of work, but I just had one question about it. Do you really think it was all Dorian's fault that everything happened? I believe Dorian's horrid fate would never have existed if Lord Henry had not been introduced to him. Lord Henry put outrageous ideas into an innocent litte head, and should be noticed as the fault of all of Gray's actions. It just killed me that no one realized what was really happening! But besides that question of fault, it was a grade A book, that I would read again, but not without a dictionary by my side. I recommend it to anyone who likes intelectual reading, and who is willing to sit through outdated talk. Just go for it, it's worth your time, and better yet... it's a short novel!
Rating:
Summary: The price of eternal youth
Review: To be honest, I had two reasons for choosing this book. One was for a class assignment. Having a list to choose from lead to the second reason I picked this- a friend told me she had greatly enjoyed it. Therefore, I began reading with the expectation of having a "nice" read. Other than that, I didn't expect much from the novel. This is one of the times I am glad to say that I was wrong. <i>The Picture of Dorian Gray</i> providea, first and foremost a good storyline. A young man, worried that once his youth and beauty departs he will lose everything, wishes that a portrait painted of him bear all reprecussions of time. After a period of time, this young man, Dorian Gray, discovers he has gotten his wish. However, an old maxim proves true once more in this novel: be careful what you wish for, as Gray learns he will, in fact, get what he deserves as a result of a life of debauchery. Yet an interesting (and certainly unsettling, at least at the time it was written) story line is not all the book has going for it. Wilde provides the reader with three main characters who are well-developed enough to make them convincing. We are given a tempramental artist (another good reason to read this book: anyone with any sort of artistic temprament will greatly appreciate some of the commentary made within the dialogue of the story), who is given to jealousy, a jaded, rather intellectual man who always has an opinon and never hastens to inform those in the vicinity of it, and, finally, a young man who begins the story as a very naive person and changes throughout the book in a seemingly natural manner. A wide variety of smaller characters also help to enhance the plot. In short, this book was one of the most interesting I have ever read. At times, I found myself getting the attention of someone nearby, to point out a line found in one of the passages that I felt they might enjoy or somehow relate to. In one way or another, it is my opinion one would be hard-pressed to find someone who did not relate to something the book. Overall, it was an excellent read.
Rating:
Summary: Forever young
Review: This sophisticated but crude novel is the story of man's eternal desire for perennial youth, of our vanity and frivolity, of the dangers of messing with the laws of life. Just like "Faust" and "The immortal" by Borges. Dorian Gray is beautiful and irresistible. He is a socialité with a high ego and superficial thinking. When his friend Basil Hallward paints his portrait, Gray expresses his wish that he could stay forever as young and charming as the portrait. The wish comes true. Allured by his depraved friend Henry Wotton, perhaps the best character of the book, Gray jumps into a life of utter pervertion and sin. But, every time he sins, the portrait gets older, while Gray stays young and healthy. His life turns into a maelstrom of sex, lies, murder and crime. Some day he will want to cancel the deal and be normal again. But Fate has other plans. Wilde, a man of the world who vaguely resembles Gray, wrote this masterpiece with a great but dark sense of humor, saying every thing he has to say. It is an ironic view of vanity, of superflous desires. Gray is a man destroyed by his very beauty, to whom an unknown magical power gave the chance to contemplate in his own portrait all the vices that his looks and the world put in his hands. Love becomes carnal lust; passion becomes crime. The characters and the scenes are perfect. Wilde's wit and sarcasm come in full splendor to tell us that the world is dangerous for the soul, when its rules are not followed. But, and it's a big but, it is not a moralizing story. Wilde was not the man to do that. It is a fierce and unrepressed exposition of all the ugly side of us humans, when unchecked by nature. To be rich, beautiful and eternally young is a sure way to hell. And the writing makes it a classical novel. Come go with Wotton and Wilde to the theater, and then to an orgy. You'll wish you age peacefully.
Rating:
Summary: A novel worth a thousand acclaims...
Review: A tale of beuty, love, innocence and cruelty. Wilde did a wonderful job of telling the story of young Dorian Gray, a timeless beuty that never shows his age and whose face never displays his sins. He betrays close friends, is fuel for many a suicide, is down right cruel and unfeeling to any of his numerous loves, is selfish and self immersed; yet his young, beutiful face never shows a trace of ill being. Being in a room with him, drowns anyone with pleasure, peacefulness and charm- it is impossible to look at his face and believe that someone so sweet and innocent in looks would commit any of the evil he is rumored to have done. Instead of himself being affected, a portait of him as a young man endures the strain of his uncouth behavior. This timeless tale, set in England at the turn of the century, would be an excellent story line for any modern novel and would make a wonderful movie. Wilde's writting style is proliferic, poignant and delightful. It captures the language of the time period, yet was easy to read and easy to relate to. Wilde conveys the evil of the aestetic world and how it can drive one to stop at nothing for fear of losing it. And though he hints at such controversial topics such as drugs and homosexuality; it is neither detailed nor graphic; and is only slightly touched on. Throughout the novel, Wilde creates an image and lets the reader fully develop it for himself. I absolutley adored this book and highly reccomend it to anyone. Not for a moment did I think it dull, or too wordy. It is a very easy read (which is difficult to say of such a classic), and incredibly enjoyable.
Rating:
Summary: A story that is as relevant today as when it was written
Review: The idea of never growing old and having a painting take on all your admoralities is appealing.Dorian reacts as anyone would. He lives life with full adbandonment pays the price.I believe the moral of the story is this. In the end we all pay for our actions.Wilde does a great job building characters and leading the reader into the world of the Englis upper-crust.
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