Sim and I have recently been watching the television show Penny Dreadful, which is basically a pastiche of every Gothic horror trope. I was picking up on all the Dracula references, and was prepared for any Frankenstein ones – but then Dorian Gray appeared as a supporting character, and I realised I had never read this novel. Who knew what subtleties I was missing out on?*
I mean, I knew the premise, and was aware of the historical events surrounding the publication, but I wasn’t familiar with the details of the plot. My first reaction on reaching the end was: “where’s all the obscenity supposed to be?” There really wasn’t much of anything. I mean, there were a couple of occasions where some homoeroticism could be implied, but they could just as easily have been hinting at something else entirely. Wikipedia, as is so often the case, provided the answer: after the Victorian version of a twitterstorm generated by the serialised publication, Wilde edited the manuscript prior to its publication as a novel, including removing the more overt homosexual winks and nods.
I did, I have to say, find it very difficult to know what the author’s attitude to the events of the novel might have been. I mean, the tenor of the book is disapproving of Dorian’s hedonism, but Wilde himself obviously didn’t comply with the sexual standards of his era, so logically he must occupy the middle ground somewhere. The character of Lord Henry I read as a kind of self-satire on Wilde’s part: he speaks almost entirely in the kinds of shallow witticisms for which Wilde has become the touchstone, yet is plainly held responsible by the novel for the corruption and moral degradation of the main character – which corruption is just as clearly viewed as reprehensible.
I don’t know that I would say I particularly enjoyed this novel; it feels too weighty and allegorical, and even the constant banter in the scenes with Lord Henry become wearying eventually, like the clown in a particularly overwrought production of a Shakespeare tragedy. Still, it’s such a significant cultural icon that I’m glad I finally got around to it.
*Note: this is a show that features full-frontal nudity, graphic sex scenes of both a hetero- and homo- flavour, and one memorable occasion on which Eva Green bonks an invisible demon. So the answer to the question of whether there were subtleties I was failing to pick up on is: Probably Not.