"The Picture of Dorian Gray" by Oscar Wilde
Today, let's talk about Oscar Wilde novel "The Picture of Dorian Gray". This, of course, is a classic and this novel will never cease to be relevant not at all because it tells a mystical or fantastic story, which is so fascinating, the plot of fascination there for a penny.
A person "just" changed his soul with a portrait, there is a positive hero, there is a negative hero. There is Lord Henry, who is demonized in this novel, knocks Dorian out of the way of the true. There is Basil Hallward - the referent on the side of good, and all the characters in chorus say that he is boring and this is really so, his moralizing, somehow was not close to the author himself, who even though he put all the right words into it, but we are to this hero Do not really believe.
The portrait, as we recall, changed and the expression passed more and more horrible moral appearance of the living Dorian, and he remained a handsome young man. The most important thing in this arrangement is that something always changes. And even if we have shaken all the positive fruits of our success: a successful career on the heads of other people, the immense wealth achieved by ways known from biblical times, a quiet life to the detriment of a conscience driven to the far corner of the corner, a successful life with no help to relatives and friends. If we live like this, then we certainly, necessarily, somewhere already hung on the wall of his consciousness portrait and this portrait will change.
This is some kind of axiom, everything works against it, brilliant Lord Henry works against it ... When I read this novel, I was at a loss how he was tempted? Well, what's this, Catholicism wanted to go, some incense, some pictures, luxurious life ... And it's not about luxury physical, it's not so difficult to buy, but you can not buy the most important one, the most important thing is that a sense of superiority, a great sense of narcissism and it is familiar to absolutely everyone who has ever appeared in public. When people look at you with delight, when they rejoice at your performance, there are no words in the language to describe this feeling, it is necessary to describe long and hard. Therefore, the great artists and artists devoted to so many books in which the problems of the artist and art are examined from different sides, because it is not so easy to describe. And this is very far from the banal selfishness, the banal admiration of one's own person, this is a much more complicated feeling. By the way, therefore, until now the live performance and the theater are strong, attracting hypnotically, despite the fact that media capabilities are now simply incomparable with the same 19th century.
And yet this book has a very clear purpose, with which I want to appeal to young readers. Keep in mind, after reading Dorian Gray with a pencil in hand, you write out some brilliant aphorisms, one of which I really love myself "Life imitates art," it seems pure fantasy, but it really is. And if you do not disassemble each of these aphorisms and insert it into the conversation in time, for example with a girl, then you will make an extraordinary impression, not just a smart man, but a man of refinement, a man dangerous with his powerful intellect and knowledge of life. If you want to impress, read "Portrait of Dorian Gray" - this is a novel, one of the few in the world literature, which has among utilitarian, concrete everyday uses - that is, that is, it helps to seem like a person to many who knew. Something so refined is in this text and even through the translation it is transmitted absolutely and not at all obsolete in the past 100 years.
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