For the past few years I have tried to read one spookyish classic in the month of October; last year was Dracula (read on Spotify), which was delightful. Mina is my geek girl hero. And it was fun to see how much more recent productions draw on it (Buffy the Vampire Slayer is, I would estimate, 85-90% consistent with the Dracula universe.) I've also done The Turn of the Screw and Frankenstein in the past (though I don't think I quite finished Frankenstein, so I need to revisit it sometime.)
This year I decided it was time to do *The Picture of Dorian Gray*. I've never read much Wilde besides the fairy tales. The book as a whole was hard to put down, once I got into it, and at the same time rather jarring. It reads like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde written by P. G. Wodehouse.
I would concur with the writer of the preface (which I make a practice of never reading until after I've read the book) that Lord Henry is a more well-rounded and real character than Dorian Gray. But that did not make me like him any more. If he started expounding to me on the value of following every impulse and indulging in sensory delights, I would probably start with the delightful sensation of whacking him upside the head. He said many things that were memorable and some that might be clever, but there were too many and most of them rang false. It was as if he aspired only to be a quotation book.
The book as a whole, whatever may have been titillating about its form in 1890, struck me as moralizing to outdo the Puritans. There is no redemption for Gray, not even a possibility of repentance, nor any moral ambiguity as to the plot itself. Gray chooses wrong, he does wrong, and he is punished. That is all.
I did find it ironic that the quote of Wilde's that always gets bandied around for Banned Book week, "The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame," is in fact uttered by Lord Henry after Gray has tried, unsuccessfully, to confess to him and told him that the book Lord Henry loaned Gray when he was young had destroyed him. In context, it is a false statement by a man who cares more about whether he sounds clever than whether any real harm comes to anyone. Perhaps it could be retired along with that one people always quote out of context of Jane Austen's, “I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading! How much sooner one tires of anything than of a book!” which is uttered by the odious Miss Bingley solely in an attempt to get Mr. Darcy's attention away from his book.
After I read The Picture of Dorian Gray I wanted to revisit *Heretics* by G. K. Chesterton and contrary to my recollection, Wilde did not get his own chapter. But then, Wilde was not truly a heretic. He says many heretical things, but mostly for effect. Chesterton did write about him, just not in that book: "[I]t was the very multitude of his falsities that prevented him from being entirely false. Like a many-coloured humming top, he was at once a bewilderment and a balance. He was so fond of being many-sided that among his sides he even admitted the right side. He loved so much to multiply his souls that he had among them one soul at least that was saved. He desired all beautiful things – even God."
Some other books I have also read somewhat recently:
Nature Obscura by Kelly Brenner: Backyard naturalist is one of my favorite genres, and having one written so close to my actual backyard was a bonus. Now I must plan an exhibition to the massive crow rookeries near Seattle.
The Innkeeper series by Ilona Andrews: This was pure fluff (Vampires and werewolves! In space!) but I wanted pure fluff and it was well-composed, fun to read fluff and the romantic subplots were not icky. I found the titles, all of which are a terrible pun on sweep, to be a little misleading as, though Innkeepers have a broom as their magic wand/badge of office, no actual sweeping seems to be done. Inns are magically self-maintaining, and I could really use a house like that.
On Basilisk Station by David Weber: I have never tried the Honor Harrington books but as I love the War God series and enjoyed the first few of the Off Armageddon Reef series, I thought I should at least give it a try. It's more the kind of sci fi that I don't really enjoy, hardware and tactics heavy, like the things that finally put me off the rest of the Armageddon Reef series, but I did like the main character and the overall plot, I just zipped through a lot of the technical bits.
The Soul of an Octopus by Sy Montgomery: This went back to the library before I finished it but I thought it went nicely after our book club did Incredibly Bright Creatures and I enjoyed the visits with octopuses and speculations on their understanding.
I'm completely out of sync with my book club, I either read the book and can't make the meeting or make the meeting but didn't read the book.
I've started but not finished yet Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky, which is exactly the kind of sci fi I most enjoy--speculation on different forms intelligent life might take and how those might interact.
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