The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde

Title: The Importance of Being Earnest

Author: Oscar Wilde

Genre: Classic play (1895 play / 2002 movie)

Pages: 92

Rating: 5/5 stars

Reading Challenges: Classics -- Play; Mount TBR; Books2Movie

How I Got It: Own it

Play:

I absolutely adore this play.  The back and forth between Algy and Jack keeps me going.  I love their battles of wits.  And the mistaken identity aspect adds way too much fun.  Plus, Wilde is the best at turning a phrase.  This play is full of great lines and comebacks.

Some choice quotes:

"When one is in town one amuses oneself. When one is in the country one amuses other people." - Act 1

"All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That's his." - Act 1

"The truth is rarely pure and never simple. Modern life would be very tedious if it were either, and modern literature a complete impossibility!" - Act 1

"Relations are simply a tedious pack of people, who haven’t got the remotest knowledge of how to live, nor the smallest instinct about when to die." - Act 1

"I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read in the train." - Act 2

"I could deny it if I liked. I could deny anything if I liked." - Act 2

"Oh! I killed Bunbury this afternoon. I mean poor Bunbury died this afternoon." - Act 3

"The chin a little higher, dear. Style largely depends on the way the chin is worn. They are worn very high, just at present." - Act 3

"Gwendolen, it is a terrible thing for a man to find out suddenly that all his life he has been speaking nothing but the truth. Can you forgive me?" - Act 3

"I've now realised for the first time in my life the vital Importance of Being Earnest." - Act 3

2002 Movie:

The movie adds things here and there, but overall keeps the spirit of the play.  I love all the actors.  Rupert Everett plays he best scheming Algy.  Colin Firth is divine as Jack/Ernest.  Dame Judi Dench always plays the stiff Brit.  And Reese Witherspoon plays the perfect innocent,  but not really innocent, Cecily.  The addition of Cecily's governess/tutor.  Does anyone else think that Archer's manservant is modeled after Algy's manservant Lane?  I think so.

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

Title: The Picture of Dorian Gray

Author: Oscar Wilde

Genre: Classic Horror

Pages: 248

Rating: 5 / 5 stars

Reading Challenges: Classics - Horror; Movies; Mount TBR

Oscar Wilde brings his enormous gifts for astute social observation and sparkling prose to The Picture of Dorian Gray, his dreamlike story of a young man who sells his soul for eternal youth and beauty. This dandy, who remains forever unchanged—petulant, hedonistic, vain, and amoral—while a painting of him ages and grows increasingly hideous with the years, has been horrifying, enchanting, obsessing, even corrupting readers for more than a hundred years.

Dorian Gray... so full of promise, so wasted in the end.  I have forgotten how truly terrifying this novel is.  To watch a man degrade himself to be nothing more than a hideous reflection of his former self is true horror.  Wilde shows the psychological horror well.  In the novel, we are served a cautionary tale.  And yet I wonder if Wilde saw himself as Gray or Lord Henry.  Was he the tempter or the tempted?  These questions intrigue me more after reading about Wilde's own life and subsequent court cases.  I am leaning toward the idea that Wilde is Gray who finally had to face his own portrait in the end.

On the writing of the book, I have one big issue...  Chapter 11 just kills me.  The first half of the book follows Gray's introduction to Lord Henry and the pleasures of the world.  We view his tragic relationship with Sibyl Vane.  We note his continual detachment from morality.  The second half of the book chronicles his downfall.  Yet in the middle we are "treated" to one ridiculously long list of the things he collected in the in between years.  If I had to read one more paragraph about embroidery, I was going to throw the book down in disgust.  The transition just isn't there.  And it blemishes an otherwise amazing horror novel.

Movie Version -- 2009 Starring Ben Barnes and Colin Firth

I watched this movie a few months back and my initial reaction was: that was really bad.  I wanted to try and rewatch it to pinpoint exactly why I felt it was horrid.  So I attempted a rewatch.

I think my main problem with this movie is that it tries to sensationalize the story.    It turns a psychological thriller in the view of Poe into a supernatural thriller complete with romance.  I just don't agree.  The story itself is a much more interesting psychological descent into corruption and madness.  I could have done without all the sex scenes.  I'm no prude, but those just seemed so out of place.  And the romance with Harry's daughter just felt forced.  Overall, I just couldn't connect with the movie at all.

Side Note: I love Alan Moore's version of Dorian Gray in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.  I feel that if Dorian hadn't of faced his portrait when he did but continue to live, he would have become the Dorian of Moore's universe.  And the movie version: just bad.  Anyone who has read LXG would agree that the movie could have been great, but it should have been rated R.  Only way for it be good.

Side Side Note: I did love Stuart Townsend as Dorian Gray in the movie.  Delicious!