The Picture of Dorian Gray was photoshopped

Ah, summer. A lovely time for running in the sunshine, playing in the pool, and A STREP INFECTION! Picture the Courage Wolf meme saying that and it will be much funnier. No wait, I'll do it for you:

For some reason, Courage Wolf makes everything about ten times funnier. No matter, I'm completely un-contagious, and will be fully cured once I finish my KILLER ANTIBIOTICS! 

Yeah.

On the bright side, my extended time on the couch gave me a new insight into the tragedies of American life, such as those that befall the real housewives of New Jersey. What a shame that Ashley pulled out Danielle's hair extensions! They're quite right to hem and haw about it for five episodes while the lower class goes about their everyday lives. On a more intellectual note, I've developed a liking for House M.D., mostly because everything that comes out of Hugh Laurie's mouth is exactly what I was thinking five seconds earlier.

Once I got better, though, I jumped back into action. Still haven't defeated the Barzinis in The Godfather (you can't pick off the damn goons; they just keep popping up behind you with air rifles), but I did finish The Picture of Dorian Gray; you'll see it in red on my list. 

What did I think? Surprisingly, a great ending for a too-wordy book. Getting through the first half was tedious and took me the better part of two months, but once you hit Dorian's later life, the plot really picked up and zipped by. The ending was perfect, but that can't make me forget the beginning. It really seems like Oscar Wilde wrote the first 10 chapters to show how witty he was, writing in Lord Henry as himself.

"Yes, thank you, I am an artistic martyr whose tedious novels will be considered 'great literature' in 200 years."










Fortunately, Brandon wrote his senior term paper on The Importance of Being Earnest, so I considered him a kind-of-sort-of amateur expert on Wilde. When asked, he said that that was an easy read and that Dorian Gray is considered a departure from Wilde's typical work. 

Thank heavens for that. Let us hold up Wilde as a true example of the philosophy of Zola, since I haven't talked about that in awhile. Actually, I don't know how he helped the world, if he did at all. But he did leave a lasting work, which I will probably never read again.

I did start thinking that it could be made into a modern young-adult novel, much like they did with The Great Gatsby, but I wonder if the invention of Photoshop would create a plot hole.