I finished The Picture of Dorian Gray a few days ago. I was astonished by how much I enjoyed this book. 

Astonished because I’ve grown weary of the Canon.  

Dusty, stodgy, and arcane feeling books written so long ago. Don’t read this as millennial angst. 

Mine isn’t the youth’s lament that traditionally bemoans its elder’s tastes. Every year I enjoy one or two contemporary novels, but for the most part I find 21st century fiction underwhelming. I like old stuff.

But what is contemporary? It dawns anew every morning. Most of my favorite novels are 20th century creations. 

The better lament against the literary canon is the Old White Men lament. We are given Western Civilization’s highest literary accomplishments by none other than Western Civilization’s preeminent old white men.

I don’t trust these old white men.  Are these books from the 18th and 19th centuries good, or was the form and the medium so new that we elevated the output? 

I don’t enjoy the sportsification of art. But, allow me this. In the same way that the pioneers of baseball or basketball were the best athletes of their day, but could in no way compete with professional athletes today—can the same be said of authors? I don’t know. 

How many of these alleged great works of art actually maintain their luster in the year 2023? The idea of accepted and decreed Great Literature has been percolating in my mind for a while. The slow drip of suspicion, the result. 

My approach to the canon will be simple. Is it good?

I know I read Dorian Gray when I was younger, probably in highschool. I read many of these canonized books when I was too young. The immaculate prose of Oscar Wilde was lost on highschool me. 

Reading literature in highschool was work for me. I’m not ashamed to say my love of reading was germinated by Dan Brown, and Stephen King.

Here’s a line from Dorian Gray–

“The mutilation of the savage has its tragic survivor in the self-denial that mars our life.”

Self-denial had not marred my life in highschool. Regret doesn’t torture me twenty years later either, but 20 years of living in between readings makes a difference.

This quote doesn’t need explaining, and explanation as we know often ruins any and all sentiment. 

But a couple pages later he gives us this—

“We degenerate into hideous puppets, haunted by the memory of the passions of which we were too afraid, and the exquisite temptations that we had not the courage to yield to.”

If the first one didn’t do it, that one probably did. 

I’ve started keeping my notes app handy when I read, and whenever I read a line or passage that I want to remember I jot down the page number. On average I end up with four to six notes per book.

I had eighteen with Dorian Gray. I won’t give you all eighteen.

This isn’t a perfect book. 

One of my go to book critics levied the following– 

It seems like Wilde made a list of epithets that he wanted to use and created a character (Lord Henry) that mostly exists just to say them. 

I don’t disagree. This story often reads like one of Wilde’s passing fancies. Much of the details and execution of the story seem secondary to Wilde. His witticisms, and his quips are the primary thing here. 

But he writes beautiful sentences, and I refuse to let anything get in the way of that.

There is nothing dusty or stodgy or arcane about this book. Wilde writes pristinely, and his words retain all of their beauty¹. 130 years later. 

Mark this one as a point for the Canon, and Old White Men.

1. And perhaps more importantly this book still feels modern. The Picture of Dorian Gray could come out today with no changes.