The truth about Dorian Gray
A blind date with Katie Clapham and a classic.
The first chapter of a book is perhaps the most important one – even more than the final one. It’s the lure, the hook, the come-hither, aiming to make quitting impossible. So you should be able to tell whether you’re onto a good thing just from that first chapter, right? A bit like a first date, no?
For the first Fictional Attraction, I teamed up with Katie Clapham, a children’s author, bookseller, and custodian of hugely popular and very funny newsletter Receipt from the Bookshop, which has been adapted into a book called Receipts from the Bookshop – subtle change! – and will be published in hardback on 4 June, by Phoenix Books.
Between us, we decided to tackle the first chapter of a book we had never read before, something quite famous, and by an author who is now dead (or too famous to care) so we won’t get dragged into psychodramas with fellow writers. We selected The Picture of Dorian Gray by up-and-coming scribbler Oscar Wilde, and filled in a questionnaire that might look slightly familiar to anyone who reads Impeccable Table Manners, my reviews of the Guardian’s infamous Blind Date column.
Originally published in 1890, and thanks to its… lavender leanings causing many a fainting fit no smelling salts could rouse you from, a new version of The Picture of Dorian Gray was reissued in 1891, with a biting preface from Wilde, and fewer controversial ‘passages’. Katie and I both read the 1891 preface, and chapter one from the original, uncensored version.
And this is how our date went:
What were you hoping for from chapter one?
Katie:
Something that was instantly filled with intrigue! I think when a book comes with a lot of hype (and in some way, all ‘classics’ do, because, otherwise, why have they been granted that status?) it really needs a killer opening. That said, a lot of prestige recommendations come with the advice to ignore/endure the opening while it finds its feet, though it always feels like quite a lame caveat to have to make. If it’s truly great, it should be great from the get-go! So, I’m afraid my expectations were pretty high.
Justin:
I was hoping for a load of Victorian queens hosing coke up their bums and slapping one another with their mauve, silken hankies. Failing that, some of Wilde’s most chewable one-liners.
What did you already know about the story?
Katie:
Okay, so I know there is a painting of Dorian that is locked away somewhere (Is it an attic? It’s probably an attic.) and perhaps the painting ages while the IRL Dorian does not. I feel like that could actually be the big reveal of the novel, so I’m disappointed that I already know that, but I’m hopeful that I’ve got it wrong, and even if that is the case, I have no idea how that situation came to be. It doesn’t sound like a curse, to be eternally beautiful, if the only thing you have to cope with is a bad picture lurking upstairs. We’ve all got those anyway. I’m excited to find out how it all goes down because at the moment, it seems like Dorian’s got it made?!
Justin:
I knew it was Oscar Wilde’s only novel, and is about a bounder who never ages, living a life of debauchery that would make (deeper) crows’ feet appear on my face just reading about them, his excesses showing only on a portrait he keeps hidden… is it in the attic? I can’t remember.
First impressions – hooked straightaway or skimming the pages?
Katie:
I did read the preface before the first chapter, which is actually a bit infuriating and a little bit hilarious. Wilde is making all sorts of mad statements and I can’t tell if he’s priming us for the story (‘Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming. This is a fault.’), making excuses (‘There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.’) or just being mischievous (‘All art is quite useless.’) Is this what rage-bait looked like in 1891? So ahead of his time.
Justin:
My first impression was: who the hell are these two randoms talking absolute shite? The chapter opens with friends Basil Hallward and Lord Henry Wotton chatting about a portrait Basil has painted – guess the subject? That’s right, Big Bird from Sesame Street. Oh no, sorry, it’s Dorian Gray.
Katie:
I found it quite exciting because the portrait is right there on page one! I thought we’d have to wait to see it. I thought the story would be about the making of it (and how it was imbued with the power to steal… old age?!) so to see it straight away was quite a thrill. Plus, we have this tantalising line about the artist, Basil Hallward, who suddenly disappeared a few years ago causing ‘public excitement and [giving] rise to so many strange conjectures.’ I bet it did!!
Justin:
That’s a mountain-sized spoiler to chucked away within the first couple of pages, no? A ‘sudden disappearance’ that causes ‘public excitement’ – as in Basil going missing, not working as a magician’s assistant, I assume? Oscar was leaving zero to chance. He wanted those pages flicking faster than a tiddlywinks competition!
Most awkward moment?
Katie:
Well, that preface had a few – what the hell does ‘The highest as the lowest form of criticism is a mode of autobiography’ mean? The highest as the lowest?? What?!
Justin:
That preface is a masterclass in sour grapes. Not so much a defence of the material than a series of acerbic aphorisms, spat out like Miranda Priestly chiding Andy and Emily for screwing up her Starbucks order. Wilde predicting the invention of fridge magnets one day and workshopping a few ‘live laugh love’s. But obviously, it’s brilliant as well as terrible.
Katie:
In the chapter, though, it was a bit awks when Hallward first let DG’s name slip and then was like ‘I didn’t intend to tell you’ because ‘when I like people immensely, I never tell their names to anyone.’ Come on Basil, grow up.
Justin:
My Kindle is borked so I read this on the Kindle app on my phone and there’s a bit where Basil waffles nonstop for a number of scrolls, totally uninterrupted by narration or Lord Henry and I really wanted him to stop talking or at least change the subject (Dorian, quelle surprise). Basil Hallward? Basil Exposition, more like.
Good table manners – sorry, I mean, how’s the writing?
Justin:
Impeccable? Look, it’s Oscar Wilde, renowned literary genius. But I’d also say: it’s on the purple side. Or should that be lilac? It’s likely so hued for a reason: there is mischief hiding among the endless descriptions of flowers and reams of exposition.
Katie:
I often find with classics that in the beginning the wordiness of them irritates me, the characters spend so long saying the smallest things, and no one can remark anything without some following it up, but then there’s real delight to be found with a character like Henry. I enjoyed everything he had to say – pompous and contrary and very funny. That’ll be that famous Oscar Wilde wit I’ve heard so much about!
Justin:
It doesn’t take much reading between the lines to get what this pair of old fruits are really talking about. And there are some killer one-liners here. Including that very famous one: ‘There is only thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about’.
Best thing about it? (And worst?)
Katie:
This is niche, but this chapter has one thing in literature that I really like. I don’t know if there’s a Japanese word for this but it’s a description in literature of being scared, where the words literally just explaining the feeling of being scared. Here’s Oscar’s ‘A curious sensation of terror came over me.’ Love it. I actually find this really effective. I sound like I’m being sarcastic here but I’m not. Du Maurier does this in Rebecca and Susan Hill does it in The Woman in Black and I find it actually does put a chill down my neck.
Justin:
Lord Henry reminding Basil that he’s ugly, and his description of his (I assume) lavender marriage are both brilliantly blunt, and the pair of them are incredibly rude about a hostess of a ‘crush’ (olde worlde word for a party) where Basil meets Dorian for the first time. Mean old gays – tale as old as time.
Katie:
As for worst, well, it’s unfair of me really, but all the talk of glorious Dorian has made him quite an annoying character before he’s even turned up. How great can this guy really be!? I’m sure he won’t be half as funny as Henry.
Justin:
No editor will ever again be able to demand I ‘show not tell’ – Wilde’s characters talk like stage directions; every plot point dropped on you like an anvil. Among many clunkers: Henry’s line, ‘Your mysterious young friend, whose name you have never told me, but whose picture really fascinates me…’ I mean, I roared.
Katie:
By the way, thank god my copy doesn’t have a picture on the front, I really do think it’d be an error to see a badly rendered Dorian on the cover before reading this impassioned speech about how magnificent he is to look at…
Justin:
My copy *does* have a picture on the front, but it looks like a cross between zhuzhed-up Habsburg and the bigoted former husband of a much beloved popstar/Doctor Who actress – either it’s not Dorian or the bar for hotness was snake-belly low in the 1890s.
Would you introduce it to your friends?
Justin:
Yes, at a crush filled with men with powdered faces who smell of Fleurs de Bulgarie and a wife who’s away for the weekend (having a lesbian affair, probably).
Katie:
I need to spend a bit more time with it first. (It’s giving, ‘When I like someone immensely, I never tell its name to any one!’)
Describe chapter one in three words…
Katie:
Surprising. I will get over the fact that the picture is on the first chapter, but not yet!
Gay. Which isn’t surprising at all.
Promising. Cracking cliffhanger on the end of chapter one! Dorian’s at the door!
Justin:
Flowery, like Basil’s gay-coded garden.
Tantalising, like the promise of a night out with Lord Henry round the opium dens.
Repressed, like these two marvellous Marys truly aren’t – a glass eye could clock their gay vibes.
Any spice?
Justin:
Aside from the pair of whoopsies eye-f•cking that portrait, no, nothing explicit. It’s 1890.
Katie:
Sounds like the moment Henry leaves the room, Basil’s going to start smooching that canvas. He’s completely obsessed with Dorian, and he doesn’t want to even show this tremendous painting, his best work, because he knows that his feelings would be revealed. But Henry didn’t know of them until Basil blabbed, so is he overreacting here? Does he just want to keep the painting to admire/put in an attic. When does it get to the attic bit? It could get spicy in the attic!
Any of the characters look promising?
Katie:
Savage Henry, who is throwing out one-liners like Joan Rivers – ‘she is a peacock in everything but beauty’ and ‘I don’t care for brothers. My elder brother won’t die, and my younger brothers never seem to do anything else.’
Justin:
Agreed. Henry has all the makings of a soap bitch worthy of sharing Alexis Carrington’s beluga.
Best line?
Justin:
‘Being natural is simply a pose, and the most irritating pose I know.’ The closeted experience in one sentence.
Katie:
‘The moment one sits down to think, one becomes all nose, or all forehead, or something horrid.’ Oh no, it’s me.
If you could change one thing?
Katie:
I’d have liked a better physical description of Dorian – I’m imagining Hudson Williams face with Connor Storrie’s body because I think it is canon in my made-up version of this book that Dorian has dark hair. I’m hoping we’ll get all the deets when he turns up in chapter two. I’ll be disappointed if he’s blond.
Justin:
Maybe switch Basil to decaf tea so he’d babble less. I’d rather his feelings were discovered, not announced.
Biggest surprise?
Justin:
The first chapter is so talky! And that Dorian Gray is blond, not dark-haired as he’s usually portrayed in screen adaptations.
Katie:
Omg does it actually say he is blond?! My eyes simply chose not to see it!!!
Justin:
I read back and it DOESN’T – Henry describing the portrait subject as ‘this young Adonis, who looks as if he was made out of ivory and rose-leaves’ led me to believe it.
[Further reading of chapter two revealed that Dorian has ‘frank blue eyes’ and ‘crisp gold hair’ and there are further mentions of his golden barnet – he’s a blond bombshell!]
Katie:
My biggest surprise is still that the painting is already done! Sorry!! I thought it had to be painted with a cursed brush or something!
Biggest disappointment?
Justin:
When I realised we weren’t going to meet Dorian Gray himself in this chapter.
Katie:
That the painting won’t be painted with a cursed brush or something!
Will it be HEA or DNF? Did you make it to chapter two?
Katie:
I didn’t, yet, because I wanted to make sure I was answering only about the first chapter, but now that I have finished writing this – I will. DORIAN’S AT THE DOOR! I am all expectation, Oscar.
Justin:
I love how Henry rushes to take a look at Dorian, as Basil pleads for him not to – mirroring many a friends’ falling out over the last twink on the dance floor at Popstarz. I turned that page faster than Elton John added ‘fruit and flowers’ to his rider in the 1970s. Life has got in the way of my reading at the moment, but once I’m back on track, Baz, Dor, and Lady Henry will be top of my TBR. See you at the crush, gals!
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This is such a good idea for a series!
Loved this, more please!