The Picture of Dorian Gray

I have been reading like a mad woman lately. I usually go in spurts like this. I'll get in "movie watching move" or "book reading mode." I received several books from my family, some of which I would have picked out myself, some not so much, however, I feel like it owe it to them to read them all. So on Saturday and part of Sunday I read a book by Kim Edwards called The Memory Keepers Daughter. It was about a doctor who delivers his wife's twin babies one snowy night only to find that one of them has a deformity. He immediately send the child off with the nurse to be sent to an institution without his wife knowing. The nurse can't bring herself to leave the child so she runs away and takes the baby with her. I realize this all sounds pretty hokey and I was leery at first. The most interesting part of it is how keeping this secret is also driving an irreplaceable wedge in his marriage and with his relationship with his son. It is definitely worth a Saturday afternoon sit down.

Sunday and part of yesterday I read Lucy by Jamaica Kincaid. This is a story of an Au pair who moves in with a family of six to watch the kids. Throughout the book, Lucy is able to compare, dismiss, and draw her own conclusive ideals based on the premise that the family she's working for are not perfect as originally thought. Kincaid has an addictive style about her. I read this book out loud because it flowed so beautifully. There were moments where I was able to step outside of myself and hear the words as if it were someone else speaking them. *Some sexuality so beware* My favorite part from this book are when Lucy sees the Mother Maria do something particular for example, not eat her dinner because she doesn't like the taste or to throw a shirt out because she doesn't like the look anymore. Lucy, being from an impoverished society, would always say, "how does one become like that?" Well said!

Finally, I began The Picture of Dorian Gray last night and must say, I am most excited about this book. Evidently it is the only book Oscar Wilde ever wrote, will go down in history as the "last work of classic Gothic horror fiction" This is very strong language but basically, a very beautiful man sells his soul to the devil in a way to control his own physical beauty. It is a reminder of how each act thereafter affects his soul. Here is an expert,

"I know he likes me. Of course I flatter him dreadfully. I find a strange pleasure in saying things to him that I know I shall be sorry for having said. As a rule, he is charming to me, and we sit in the studio and talk of a thousand thing. Now and then, however, he is horribly thoughtless, and seems to take a real delight in giving me pain. Then I feel, that I have given away my soul to someone who treats it as if it were a flower to put in his coat, a bit of decoration to charm his vanity, an ornament for a summer's day."

And another...

"I have grown to love secrecy. It seems to be the one thing that can make modern life mysterious or marvellous to us. The commonest thing is delightful if one only hides it. When I leave town now I never tell my people where I am going. If I did, I would lose all my pleasure. It is a silly habit, I daresay, but somehow it seems to bring a great deal of romance into one's life."

What can I say, I find it profound and beautiful.