this book is a true example of what vanity will bring you in the long run-nothing but grief and bitter disappointment at the expense of many, many others

I've read a lot of books, but never have I read a novel with writing anything close to Oscar Wilde's level.

I think that all people should read this book. It’s a brilliant classic that rings true with how beauty is honored above smarts. The characters were all very realistic in what they did and said. To me it was a very wise book that showed the truth about how are morals are to this very day. I highly recommend it to anyone looking to read a good book. Portions of it were surprising to me, which was interesting since I usually don’t get surprised when reading a classic book, but very true. The ending was amazing and I’m glad it ended as it did.

Loved it. Oscar Wilde is a beast!

This book is excellently written and interesting overall. I found it kind of haunting & mildly disturbing, but riveting at the same time. A very good book indeed.

One of my all time favorite books. The writing is very witty and not overly difficult. I was so impressed with every little detail that I could not put it down. Vanity is the overlaying theme of the story. I really enjoyed Lord Henry's explanations for his philosophy on life which is twisted and backwards but showed Wilde's smart wit. Wonderful read!

wow...guess dorian couldn't live with himself and got what he wanted, yet he didn't want it after all. I found the relationships between Basil, Harry and Dorian interesting, but also so sad as they were all so shallow in one way or another. I wouldn't be hang out with any of these characters. But the story unfolded intriguingly.

mcchan said on Feb 25, 2010: I could have seen myself having to had read this for high school and taking it apart. The_Bill said on May 18, 2010: Whoa there, how would you have taken it apart? The book is, as Wilde himself said, absolutely perfect. The_Bill, I think you may be mis-understanding what mcchan is saying by "taking it apart". I think mcchan is saying that he or she would be looking for all the elements of the story by "taking it apart" instead of saying "tearing it apart", which would mean pointing out all the errors, as you seem to have thought mcchan meant.

Although adding much to my understanding of the period, I found the illustrations and side bars distracting in this (Whole Story) edition.

Whoa there, how would you have taken it apart? The book is, as Wilde himself said, absolutely perfect. The one flaw he complained of was that the moral was "too apparent," and we all probably would agree with that. But it's not just a preachy fable; Wilde was a profoundly relativistic thinker who was much more interested in the effect that a tortured conscience has on the personality than the moral wrongness of a crime. So it's not really about how what Dorian does is 'wrong,' it's about how he is flawed by his willingness to commit crimes in the first place. Compassion, for Wilde, is an aesthetic component of identity, rather than an ethical duty. One really interesting thing about the novel is that it's readable from different viewpoints. "Only shallow people do not judge by appearances," (I hope I'm quoting that correctly,) so don't think of the novel as containing one deep truth, but rather a conflicting play of surfaces, each of which is beautiful when it catches the light. If you read the novel with Lord Henry as the protagonist, for example, his early scenes become subtly tragic, his later ones invested with a surprisingly rich pathos.