It’s often very hard for me to pin down a favorite movie. People always ask questions like that when they are trying to get to know someone, and I always say some movie that I really like, but a favorite? That I just don’t know. There are too many to choose from! But when someone asks me for my favorite book, that I do know.
I generally read a lot of dystopian literature now days. I love The Hunger Games by Suzanne Colins and Divergent by Veronica Roth and one called The Maze Runner by James Dashner. And while I loved all of those, they don’t really hold a candle to my favorite book. What’s odd is that my favorite book isn't even in the same genre as the ones I mentioned. It wasn't even written in the same century. No, my favorite book is called The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde. It wouldn't surprise me in the least if the person who asked me about my favorite book hadn't ever heard of this book or its author. This book doesn't have an post-apocalyptic world or anything like that. In fact, it is very much like a character drama.
It’s about this young, impressionable man named Dorian Gray. Privileged and handsome, he travels in the best circles and is exposed to many different ideals. What I like about the book is that it is a very rich study into the concept of influence. Dorian Gray is a rather tragic story and the reader has to wonder if one of the other two main characters, Basil and Lord Henry, have anything to do with the story’s rather dark ending. Can we really influence people to their ruin? Even though we all have our right to choose for ourselves, are those that heavily and willfully influence us also to blame when our lives fall to pieces? The premise of the book is that a portrait of Dorian Gray changes and distorts overtime as the real-life Dorian Gray makes questionable moral choices. It makes the reader wonder how different they might act if their soul could be painted for them.
It’s very much a book to think and ponder over. There’s very little action and quite a lot of talk, but it’s witty, intelligent and I love it.
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