The picture of Dorian Gray (0)

The picture of Dorian Gray
The novel „The picture of Dorian Gray“ was written by an Irish writer Oscar Wilde . It was first publised in a newspaper in 1890. At first, the book gained a lot of criticism and the author decided to change some parts of the book. The new verison was publised a year later after the former verison was released .
The novel narratates a story of a wealthy, handsome , young man named Dorian Gray. When a very talented artist called Basil Hallward meets Dorian Gray, he is absolutely amazed by Gray’s flawless looks. Basil decides to paint a picture of Gray, to honour his beauty . But Basil has one problem, he doesn’t want that decent Gray and his friend lord Henry would ever meet. But that happens and when lord Henry tells Dorian about his view of world, Dorian gets infulenced and wishes to never age. He wishes to always maintain the same looks as he has on the picture that Basil painted of him. By lord Henry’s influences , Dorian starts to change his way of life little by little.
One day Dorian fells in love with a girl named Sibyl . He immediately becomes enchained by her talent of acting. Rushed, he proposes Sibyl to marrie him. Sibyl’s family is not happy about the plans and Sibyl’s brother promises to kill Dorian when her sister gets hurt . One night when Dorian invites Basil and lord Henry to theathre to show his extraordinary fiancee to them , he realises that her love has lost her talent. He immediately leaves Sibyl and the poor girl commits suicide. Later that night Dorian discovers that with every sin he makes , the picture of him gets older, but he remains to his gorgeous looks.
Dorian lives the next eightteen years gaining knowledge and spending time on useless things. He becomes more and more terrified when he has to spend some time away from the painting. There were already rumours about Dorian, when Basil, the painter , decides to go and ask Dorian if any of them were true. When Basil reaches Dorian’s house, Dorian shows Basil the picture and tells that all this is his fault . He stabs Basil to death and gets rid of the body . Meanwhile, the picture gets older and older. Dorian starts going to shady places and one night he meets Sibyl’s brother, who recognises Dorian. He promises to kill him, but Dorian claimes not to be the same person. How could he? There is no way that a man could maintain a certain look for almost 20 years and not get older.
After that, Dorian decides to get his life back on track , but the picture still gets older day by day. He gets frustrated and stabs a knife into the picture. That way Dorian Gray dies – an awfully old man laying on the floor , a knife stabbed to his heart . But the man on the picture is young again .
I think the book is good – an excellent way of extending our vocabulary by reading . Two educational things combined. But it’s also bad- it is a bad book choice for a first-time English reader. It is full with descriptions in such details , so many complexed word and expressions . Those made reading very complicated. Most of the time it wasn’t reading, it was translating the words or googelling for the meanings of the fictional expressions. Adjectives are good, but when there are so many of them combined and in a foreign language..it made it painful. Also, the book was in older English, which made it even more difficult. I would recommend this book for a more experienced reader.