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2016-05-31 2016-05-31Formats: Audiobook, MP3 Audio, UnabridgedOriginal language:EnglishPDF # 1 6.75 x .50 x 5.25l, Running time: 9 HoursBinding: MP3 CD | File size: 55.Mb

Will Self : Dorian before purchasing it in order to gage whether or not it would be worth my time, and all praised Dorian:

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful. A New Perspective on Dorian GrayBy PETER FREUNDJudging by its title, I at first thought that Will Self had in mind the ambitious goal of writing a viable version of "The Picture of Dorian Gray" set in the age of AIDS and drugs, while at the same time daring the reader to compare his novel to the original. To set himself up for this inevitable comparison with a master like Wilde, he pulls the reader in from the very beginning with his spectacular stylistic prowess. Though quite faithful to the original, he soon transcends it and uses the Dorian Gray story as an instrument in an exploration of the uneven flow of time, and of the interplay between physical time, historical time and biological time.Youth, venerated almost religiously in our days, is of course defined in terms of biological time, and when the flow of biological time comes to a standstill in Dorian, some form of time keeps flowing on in the artistic rendering of Dorian, the painting in Wilde, the video installation in Self. This artistic rendering is the one that provides a picture of our age for future generations, and thus the time that flows in it is historical time.By contrast the lifestyle of the Wottons and their friends gives the appearance of historical time at a standstill, while biological time is flowing inexorably, driving many of these people to early deaths by disease (mainly AIDS) originating in this very lifestyle.Maybe Mr. Self's most original creation is Henry Wotton's neighbor, the "jiggling man" who metes out the seconds of physical time for Wotton's existence.Whether reading Wilde or Self, the picture/installation is an extremely clever, but also an extremely contrived device. Will Self deals with this problem by attaching a both shocking and very ingenious epilogue in which everything that has gone before is revealed to have been fiction written by Henry Wotton. This fiction in turn has an immense impact on Dorian Gray's "real" life and in the last ten pages or so the interplay between fiction and reality --- or more precisely between a fiction within a fiction and a reality within a fiction --- becomes the main focus. This is a very interesting and major issue in its own right, and this epilogue does not do it justice, nor could it. With all his ingenuity Will Self has overloaded the book. The same can be said also about his clever but excessive use of Wilde type epigrams. As an example, he has Wotton commenting on Baz' death with the following paraphrase of Lady Bracknell ("The The Importance of Being Earnest") "For Baz to have died once would have been unfortunate; for him to die twice looks like carelessness." I found this funny but also over the top.These problems aside, "Dorian" is a thought-provoking and extremely well-written novel well deserving the reader's attention.0 of 0 people found the following review helpful. Good buyBy Anna HiteBought this on recommendation of a friend and very glad I did. It's an interesting, more modern take on the great Oscar Wilde's lone novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray. I'd definitely recommend it...as long as a little vulgarity doesn't scare you. :P1 of 2 people found the following review helpful. I didn't like this as much as I wanted to.By Shannon BarberWhen I ordered this book I was really looking forward to it. I have enjoyed quite a few of Will Self's other books but, I was disappointed. Self's writing is still clever, his characterizations of bitter old is fabulous, the setting was very good. His placement of the story at the dawn of the AIDS era was very smart, however the book itself falls flat. There are bright spots here and there, but the story as a whole seems lackluster.I feel the ending was a bit of overkill and entirely unecessary. All in all despite Will Self's wit, I don't really recommend this particular book.

Henry Wotton, gay, drug addicted, and husband of Batface, the irrefutably aristocratic daughter of the Duke of This or That, is at the center of a clique dedicated to dissolution. His friend Baz Hallward, an artist, has discovered a young man who is the very epitome of male beautymdash;Dorian Gray. His installation Cathode Narcissus captures all of Dorian's allure, and, perhaps, something else. Certainly, after a night of debauchery that climaxes in a veritable conga line of buggery, Wotton and Hallward are caught in the hideous web of a retrovirus that becomes synonymous with the decade. Sixteen years later the Royal Broodmare, as Wotton has dubbed her, lies dying in a Parisian underpass. But what of Wotton and Hallward? How have they fared as stocks soar and T-cell counts plummet? And what of Dorian? How is it that he remains so youthful while all around him shrivel and die? Set against the AIDS epidemic of the '80s and '90s, Will Self's Dorian is a shameless reworking of our most significant myth of shamelessness, brilliantly evoking the decade in which it was fine to stare into the abyss, so long as you were wearing two pairs of Ray-Bans.

From Publishers WeeklyIn this retelling of Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray, most of the original's characters are cleverly transmuted into their late-20th-century counterparts: dissolute Henry Wotton, now openly homosexual with a nasty habit; his protege, eager young video artist "Baz" Hallward; and the title character, the quintessential amoral narcissist and a "seducer par excellence" (of men and, occasionally, women). In the summer of 1981, Hallward captures Gray's youth and beauty in a video installation that he titles "Cathode Narcissus." He and Wotton take Gray under their wing and school him in the ways of profligate living, early '80s-style. By 1997, all three are HIV-positive, though Dorian, of course, shows no sign of illness. Self uses Wilde's plot to examine post- Stonewall gay life, from its drug-fueled hedonistic excesses to the reckoning of the AIDS epidemic. The novel skewers every layer of British society-street hustlers, members of Parliament and the idle rich. Real-life figures also appear, most notably the "princess of bulimia," Diana Spencer. The prose is laced with epigrammatic, lightly amusing pseudo-Wildean wit ("I want my sins to be like sushi-fresh, small and entirely raw," says Wotton), but its wordplay and evocation of debauchery also owe something to Evelyn Waugh and (channeling Hunter Thompson and Irvine Welsh). Self's mannered prose can grow tedious, and there's hardly a sympathetic character to be found, but the writer has undertaken-and largely succeeded in pulling off-a daring act of literary homage. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.From Library JournalTo reimagine a classic work-especially when its author is the flamboyant and witty Oscar Wilde-is a daunting task, but Self () rises to the challenge. Upon its publication in 1891, The Picture of Dorian Gray shocked Victorian sensibilities. That Self's work will have a similar impact seems doubtful; as a society familiar with the works of Bret Easton Ellis, Thomas Harris, and Clive Barker, we have come too far, or, some may think, sunk too low. This is not to say, however, that Self has not done a masterly job of resetting the story in the era of AIDS, where Dorian's self-indulgent behavior proves to have a particularly devastating effect. The aristocratic Henry Wotton remains Dorian's decadent mentor and master of the bon mot. Baz Hallward remains hopelessly enamored of the Adonis-like young man, whom he talks into becoming the centerpiece for a video installation but for whom he remains an object of contempt. Alan Campbell and Lady Narborough are among the others reprised. Modern additions include Princess Di and the drug-dealing Ginger. Dorian's is a tale that allows Self to indulge his own penchant for word play, black humor, and uncomfortable imagery while continuing to explore the themes of sexual identity and social decadence. It is graphic and violent and definitely not everyone's cup of tea, but as an adaptive exercise it hits the mark. A story well suited to our times, this is recommended for larger public and most academic libraries.David W. Henderson, Eckerd Coll. Lib., St. Petersburg, FL Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.From The New YorkerSubtitled "An Imitation," this reworking of "The Picture of Dorian Gray" transposes the story to a nineteen-eighties London of artists, aristos, junkies, and feverish promiscuity. The portrait is now a video installation, "Cathode Narcissus," and its original, Dorian, a beautiful, blank, omnisexual monster who remains immune to the AIDS epidemic, which claims most of the other characters. Mapping Wilde's era onto Thatcher's makes Self's grungy style incongruously mannered ("Oh jolly good, such a bore, smack"), as if Nancy Mitford and Johnny Rotten had decided to collaborate. The novel's sub-Wildean epigrams ("A witticism is merely the half-life of an emotion"), the ceaseless talk, and the preordained plot preclude any satisfying development. Self's bad- boy career, like his hero's, now spans slightly more than a decade. Perhaps in an attic somewhere he keeps a novel that displays the depth and maturity that are absent here. Copyright copy; 2005 The New Yorker

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