"To become the spectator of one's own life, as Harry says, is to escape the suffering of life." 
 4.5 stars. 
 This book is basically the definition of "doing it for the aesthetic". 
 It's clever, funny, darker than I expected, and overall a quick and interesting read. 
 The Picture of Dorian Gray tells the story of a beautiful young man named--obviously--Dorian Gray, who at the start of the novel is innocent, pure, and utterly ignorant of his power over others. Thanks to the influence of a manipulative new friend, Dorian realizes the advantages of his youth and beauty and takes the first step on a long path towards corruption. 
 This book is a fascinating examination of the dangerous allure of beauty, and its potential to lead even the best of people astray. Lord Henry--and Dorian, under his influence--see life as a kind of performance art. They pay no mind to any sense of morals: they appreciate only what they can find beauty in. They aim to distance themselves from emotions, examining their situations and what happens to themselves and others as if they were actors in a play. 
 I found all of the main characters fascinating. Lord Henry's pretentious cynicism, Basil's earnest kindness, and Dorian's gradual transformation from a polite and generous boy into a callous, violent, and amoral man are all compelling and unique in their own way. 
 Wilde's writing is fantastic. The descriptions are vivid and powerful, and unlike many of the classics I've read the plot is pretty dramatic and engaging. Even the banter between characters is really entertaining to read. There were a few points in the middle that dragged a bit and felt unnecessary, but it's a short book so I was able to get past those pretty quickly. 
 Also, this was Very Gay for a book written in the 1800s and I was into it. Like, there weren't actually any gay relationships but there was SO MUCH sexual tension between Basil and Dorian and Henry (and it was definitely intentional on the author's part, even though Basil is the only one who is pretty much confirmed as gay). I don't think I've ever really shipped people from a classic novel like this before, I usually like some characters but still feel a kind of distance from them, I'm not as strongly invested in their relationships. anyway I lowkey wanna go look for fanfiction about them now 
 If you like classics, if you don't usually like classics, if examinations of the relationship between life and art or discussions of the worth of beauty interest you, I highly recommend this. 
 Favorite quotes: 
 "To influence a person is to give him one's own soul. He does not think his natural thoughts, or burn with his natural passions. His virtues are not real to him. His sins, if there are such things as sins, are borrowed. He becomes an echo of someone else's music, an actor of a part that has not been written for him." 
 Words! Mere words! How terrible they were! How clear, and vivid, and cruel! One could not escape from them. And yet what a subtle magic there was in them! They seemed to be able to give a plastic form to formless things, and to have a music of their own a sweet as that of viol or of lute. 
 He played with the idea, and grew willful; tossed it into the air and transformed it; let it escape and recaptured it; made it iridescent with fancy, and winged it with paradox. 
 The girl laughed again. The joy of a caged bird was in her voice. 
 "If this girl can give a soul to those who have lived without one, if she can create the sense of beauty in people whose lives have been sordid and ugly, if she can strip them of their selfishness and lend them tears for sorrows that are not their own, she is worthy of all your adoration, worthy of the adoration of the world." 
 There is a luxury in self-reproach. When we blame ourselves we feel that no one else has a right to blame us. 
 The thing was still seated in the chair, straining over the table with bowed head, and humped back, and long fantastic arms. Had it not been for the red jagged tear in the neck, and the clotted black pool that was slowly widening on the table, one would have said that the man was simply asleep. 
 Gradually white fingers creep through the curtains, and they appear to tremble. In black fantastic shapes, dumb shadows crawl in the corners of the room, and crouch there. Outside, there is the stirring of birds among the leaves, or the sound of men going forth to their work, or the sigh and sob of the wind coming down from the hills, and wandering round the silent house, as though it feared to wake the sleepers, and yet must needs call forth sleep from her purple cave. Veil after veil of thin dusky gauze is lifted, and by degrees the forms and colors of things are restored to them, and we watch the dawn remaking the world in its antique pattern. 
 "The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame."