Interesting. When I first read the Picture of Dorian Gray, I had no idea of its social context -- I didn't know Oscar Wilde was gay, I didn't know the book was considered controversial. I just picked it up on a whim and thought it was a well-written book full of fantastically clever dialogue and over-the-top cynicism. But I was, ironically, left with an impression that the Victorian era was more comfortable with male intimacy, and appreciation for male beauty, than our own. That turned out not to be quite true, of course, as demonstrated by what they did to Wilde himself.
> But I was, ironically, left with an impression that the Victorian era was more comfortable with male intimacy, and appreciation for male beauty, than our own.
This might not be an entirely faulty perception. Wilde was, I think, aiming for plausible deniability. To hide the homoeroticism amidst the pretense of merely intense platonic love. Because in that time such expressions were often permissible.
I've seen the theory phrased a few ways but here's one take. In sufficiently homophobic societies, the possibility that a man doing something we would perceive as homoerotic, is himself gay, is close to zero. Because no one would ever risk exposure. And so expression of non-sexual intimacies we would see as gay are not perceived as gay in those societies.
We see this shift in the recent literary tendency to "queer" platonic male relationships in historical literature. To use a slightly absurd example: are Sam and Frodo in the Lord of the Rings gay? It has been argued by some. (Put "Are Sam and Frodo" into Google and see what pops up on autocomplete to finish that question!)
I think it is the romantic (in the 19th century Wagnerian sense) and conservative worldview of Tolkien in action: the nature of the relationship is that of comrades-in-arms. And in that context certain intimacies that would be intolerable are otherwise not. That is why Sam says that he loves Frodo.
Another example the modern audience often just can't get over, is men who used to sleep together. In the most literal sense of the word. Platonic bed mates. Some guys did this even when other beds were available. Maybe they were cold. But maybe they were just lonely? if some women put on pajamas and have a movie-watching slumber party they probably won't get called lesbians. But men must tread carefully today at least in America for that kind of thing. There is just some mental block in our society with that kind of intimacy between two men. But perhaps not back then. (Or maybe Abraham Lincoln really was gay. But I kind of doubt it.)
Wilde is right on the transition point when it started to be conceivable that a man is actually a self-identifying homosexual and that male intimacy might therefore be coded as homosexual. He played with that ambiguity. And in his case, got burned.
I think the other thing that's not immediately obvious to modern readers is that men sleeping together _could_ be seen as something childish. Boys at boarding school had "attachments" that they were expected to grow out of and marry a nice young woman.
Its probably better to see it like cocaine use. In posh circles everyone does it, and so long as you don't show it to the unwashed public, you're probably fine. However if you are caught by the police, or someone wants to take revenge, then letting slip that you're on coke is enough to get you ostracised.
Moreover, if poor people do it, then its a moral failing (see crack addict)
Why is your example absurd?
I read LoTR and definitely had the sense that Sam & Frodo were gay. I actually thought the hollywood version sanitized this away entirely and assumed it was because it'd be 'too controversial' at the time the films were made.
Kind of proves the point. They show absolutely nothing that would make them gay, it's just, as the OP said, our society has rejected any male-male physical interaction which isn't a fistbump, a high-five and maybe a short hug.
Look at older military photos from 1800s-1900s and you see comrades holding hands for instance.
Sam is loyal and devoted to Frodo, but there is zero romance between them. I don’t see how one could read that in the book. Sam even marries Rosy and has umpteen children.
Is Gollum gay for Frodo because he caressed his knees while on the path of Cirith Ungol?
I can't help but agree having read the books umpteenth times... even in retrospect I find it more likely that Tolkien added Rosy into the narrative simply to make it clear that Sam was a heterosexual and that Frodo was merely an asexual eccentric like Bilbo.
I don't think there is any problem or harm in reading them as bi or gay, but I'd love to read a better case for Tolkien having written them with that intention. Am I forgetting any character(s) from The Silmarillion or Unfinished Tales that were more obviously coded as gay or any other statements by Tolkien that would point to this as even a remote possibility?
Sam does not look gay to me. He is awkward around girls, but seems to be attracted to them.
Both Bilbo and Frodo are a bit gay-ish indeed, or possibly asexual (neither ever marries or even has any romantic interest, both seem to be artsy), but Tolkien was born in pre-war England where lifetime bachelors who weren't gay were a part of the usual society.
> but Tolkien was born in pre-war England where lifetime bachelors who weren't gay were a part of the usual society
Suure those bachelors were all straight, there certainly weren't any gay ones who didn't dare to come out. Nothing to see here ;)
IMO Sam & Frodo are at the very least intensely good friends, though I do have the strong impression that Sam is way more sacrificial than Frodo. Afair it's always Frodo who needs Sam to progress or save him - but Frodo's story doesn't have him do big efforts to accommodate/help Sam. It always felt a bit like a count to peasant relationship to me in this regard (as probably Tolkien would have idolized it). Definitely not one on equal footing.
Another dimension/reading I find exciting is that Sam & Frodo are a split up character, where Sam represents the physical part of existence and Frodo represents the mental/psychological part.
Even above the regular "hobbits obsessed with food", Sam brings the seasoning packet to make roast chicken to Mordor which cracks Frodo up, does the cooking along the way. Frodo's journey on the other hand is marked by "suffering from inside" - the witch kings spiritual wound and the pull of the ring. Frodo's intellect affords him shrewdness and planning, but in the end Sam has to carry him to the forge, because Frodo is too weighed down by his inner life. Does make for a nice metaphor I guess.
Looking at the relative burdens and tasks of Frodo and Sam, we might be underestimating the toll of the Ring-bearer, which, for 99 per cent of the time, is Frodo.
The Ring is slowly poisoning him and invading his mind, more so that Sauron has risen again and his strength in the world is waxing. Plus, the terrible wound from the Morgul knife in his shoulder. Bilbo never faced anything quite like that, and Sam only for a short time.
I don't think Frodo is in any condition to help others much. He has enough problems rising up every morning and walking again.
I think at its worst, it might be something like a combination of cancer and schizophrenia (or withdrawal symptoms). Weakness, unability to rest, intensely intruding mad thoughts, despair.
I read it for the first time in my early 20s, and reason I read it was because when I was about 11 years old I saw an old black and white movie of it, and I had nightmares for quite some time (over the ending/fire).
It wasn't the only film to give me nightmares as a child, but it was definitely the first!
For me it is one of those books I re-read every few years, along with LotR, Amber chronicles, the Dune series, etc.
You should read the Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde as a follow up.
The original inspiration for it was Stevenson hearing about respectable pillar of Edinburgh society, William Brodie, being caught as a burglar, stealing to repay his gambling debts. Your social capital in Victorian Britain was based around your outward appearance of respectability and had to be defended to the utmost. If you were outed as a criminal, or as a homosexual, you'd lose every shred of privilege and position.
With that in mind, you can imagine the duality of Dr Jekyll trying to maintain his good standing while licentious Mr Hyde wants to engage in hijinks?
> society was much less religious overall and there was less reason to keep homosexuality illegal.
I'm not actually sure it was an entirely religious thing. It seems like it was an amendment tacked onto a bill that would protect girls from sexual exploitation by this guy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Labouch%C3%A8re
I am not really well-versed in British legal history. I was under the impression that the original Buggery Act was motivated religiously, and that Wilde was prosecuted under that Act (maybe amended).
There’s a line in the book I quite liked: “All the interesting people disappear to San Francisco.” Was incredible to me that even back then, SF was known for its homosexual culture. Lord Henry was remarking on where Basil likely had disappeared, so the insinuation was that Basil felt more at home in SF.
Apparently there are several, significantly different versions of "The picture of Dorian Gray". I'm not sure which one I've read, or which one I should read. Any suggestions?
They're all great, but the 2012 "The Uncensored Picture of Dorian Gray" is the closest to the original script before the editor cut out things that he deemed... checks notes... "too gay".
It restores parts that were cut, and essentially bans chapter 3 and some other digressions on art history that Wilde added as a literary Beard to the footnotes - still there to read, but set in context)
It's not a huge different honestly, but I believe Oscar Wilde would want you to read that version.
I'd place it 5th in my overall favorite books list. It is certainly one which has influenced me deeply and continues to do so, ever since I first read it 13 years ago.
I tried reading it when I was younger, and I couldn't get past the first two pages. Hes a wordy motherfuck that Wilde bloke.
However, I did get an audio book version of it, which meant I could actually enjoy and finish it.
THe thing that struck me is that yes the painting is a large part of the book, but so is food. The sheer amount of self hate that was expressed through clothing and food towards the end of the book was surprising to me.
https://archive.ph/pdEL2
Interesting. When I first read the Picture of Dorian Gray, I had no idea of its social context -- I didn't know Oscar Wilde was gay, I didn't know the book was considered controversial. I just picked it up on a whim and thought it was a well-written book full of fantastically clever dialogue and over-the-top cynicism. But I was, ironically, left with an impression that the Victorian era was more comfortable with male intimacy, and appreciation for male beauty, than our own. That turned out not to be quite true, of course, as demonstrated by what they did to Wilde himself.
But it's still a fantastic novel.
> But I was, ironically, left with an impression that the Victorian era was more comfortable with male intimacy, and appreciation for male beauty, than our own.
This might not be an entirely faulty perception. Wilde was, I think, aiming for plausible deniability. To hide the homoeroticism amidst the pretense of merely intense platonic love. Because in that time such expressions were often permissible.
I've seen the theory phrased a few ways but here's one take. In sufficiently homophobic societies, the possibility that a man doing something we would perceive as homoerotic, is himself gay, is close to zero. Because no one would ever risk exposure. And so expression of non-sexual intimacies we would see as gay are not perceived as gay in those societies.
We see this shift in the recent literary tendency to "queer" platonic male relationships in historical literature. To use a slightly absurd example: are Sam and Frodo in the Lord of the Rings gay? It has been argued by some. (Put "Are Sam and Frodo" into Google and see what pops up on autocomplete to finish that question!)
I think it is the romantic (in the 19th century Wagnerian sense) and conservative worldview of Tolkien in action: the nature of the relationship is that of comrades-in-arms. And in that context certain intimacies that would be intolerable are otherwise not. That is why Sam says that he loves Frodo.
Another example the modern audience often just can't get over, is men who used to sleep together. In the most literal sense of the word. Platonic bed mates. Some guys did this even when other beds were available. Maybe they were cold. But maybe they were just lonely? if some women put on pajamas and have a movie-watching slumber party they probably won't get called lesbians. But men must tread carefully today at least in America for that kind of thing. There is just some mental block in our society with that kind of intimacy between two men. But perhaps not back then. (Or maybe Abraham Lincoln really was gay. But I kind of doubt it.)
Wilde is right on the transition point when it started to be conceivable that a man is actually a self-identifying homosexual and that male intimacy might therefore be coded as homosexual. He played with that ambiguity. And in his case, got burned.
I think the other thing that's not immediately obvious to modern readers is that men sleeping together _could_ be seen as something childish. Boys at boarding school had "attachments" that they were expected to grow out of and marry a nice young woman.
Its probably better to see it like cocaine use. In posh circles everyone does it, and so long as you don't show it to the unwashed public, you're probably fine. However if you are caught by the police, or someone wants to take revenge, then letting slip that you're on coke is enough to get you ostracised.
Moreover, if poor people do it, then its a moral failing (see crack addict)
Why is your example absurd? I read LoTR and definitely had the sense that Sam & Frodo were gay. I actually thought the hollywood version sanitized this away entirely and assumed it was because it'd be 'too controversial' at the time the films were made.
Kind of proves the point. They show absolutely nothing that would make them gay, it's just, as the OP said, our society has rejected any male-male physical interaction which isn't a fistbump, a high-five and maybe a short hug.
Look at older military photos from 1800s-1900s and you see comrades holding hands for instance.
Sam is loyal and devoted to Frodo, but there is zero romance between them. I don’t see how one could read that in the book. Sam even marries Rosy and has umpteen children.
Is Gollum gay for Frodo because he caressed his knees while on the path of Cirith Ungol?
I can't help but agree having read the books umpteenth times... even in retrospect I find it more likely that Tolkien added Rosy into the narrative simply to make it clear that Sam was a heterosexual and that Frodo was merely an asexual eccentric like Bilbo.
I don't think there is any problem or harm in reading them as bi or gay, but I'd love to read a better case for Tolkien having written them with that intention. Am I forgetting any character(s) from The Silmarillion or Unfinished Tales that were more obviously coded as gay or any other statements by Tolkien that would point to this as even a remote possibility?
Sam does not look gay to me. He is awkward around girls, but seems to be attracted to them.
Both Bilbo and Frodo are a bit gay-ish indeed, or possibly asexual (neither ever marries or even has any romantic interest, both seem to be artsy), but Tolkien was born in pre-war England where lifetime bachelors who weren't gay were a part of the usual society.
> but Tolkien was born in pre-war England where lifetime bachelors who weren't gay were a part of the usual society
Suure those bachelors were all straight, there certainly weren't any gay ones who didn't dare to come out. Nothing to see here ;)
IMO Sam & Frodo are at the very least intensely good friends, though I do have the strong impression that Sam is way more sacrificial than Frodo. Afair it's always Frodo who needs Sam to progress or save him - but Frodo's story doesn't have him do big efforts to accommodate/help Sam. It always felt a bit like a count to peasant relationship to me in this regard (as probably Tolkien would have idolized it). Definitely not one on equal footing.
Another dimension/reading I find exciting is that Sam & Frodo are a split up character, where Sam represents the physical part of existence and Frodo represents the mental/psychological part. Even above the regular "hobbits obsessed with food", Sam brings the seasoning packet to make roast chicken to Mordor which cracks Frodo up, does the cooking along the way. Frodo's journey on the other hand is marked by "suffering from inside" - the witch kings spiritual wound and the pull of the ring. Frodo's intellect affords him shrewdness and planning, but in the end Sam has to carry him to the forge, because Frodo is too weighed down by his inner life. Does make for a nice metaphor I guess.
Anyway that was some thoughts of mine
> where Sam represents the physical part of existence and Frodo represents the mental/psychological part.
English classism in a nutshell.
I did mean to point to that, but in the other paragraph xD
Looking at the relative burdens and tasks of Frodo and Sam, we might be underestimating the toll of the Ring-bearer, which, for 99 per cent of the time, is Frodo.
The Ring is slowly poisoning him and invading his mind, more so that Sauron has risen again and his strength in the world is waxing. Plus, the terrible wound from the Morgul knife in his shoulder. Bilbo never faced anything quite like that, and Sam only for a short time.
I don't think Frodo is in any condition to help others much. He has enough problems rising up every morning and walking again.
BTW I just love nerding out on HN.
Same, that’s what HN is for! Glad my question sparked an interesting discussion about LoTR haha.
ah nice to see a fellow appreciator, hi!
Sooo what do you think then is the burden of the ring?
I think at its worst, it might be something like a combination of cancer and schizophrenia (or withdrawal symptoms). Weakness, unability to rest, intensely intruding mad thoughts, despair.
It is a good read, even now.
I read it for the first time in my early 20s, and reason I read it was because when I was about 11 years old I saw an old black and white movie of it, and I had nightmares for quite some time (over the ending/fire).
It wasn't the only film to give me nightmares as a child, but it was definitely the first!
For me it is one of those books I re-read every few years, along with LotR, Amber chronicles, the Dune series, etc.
You should read the Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde as a follow up.
The original inspiration for it was Stevenson hearing about respectable pillar of Edinburgh society, William Brodie, being caught as a burglar, stealing to repay his gambling debts. Your social capital in Victorian Britain was based around your outward appearance of respectability and had to be defended to the utmost. If you were outed as a criminal, or as a homosexual, you'd lose every shred of privilege and position.
With that in mind, you can imagine the duality of Dr Jekyll trying to maintain his good standing while licentious Mr Hyde wants to engage in hijinks?
One such reading of the novella: https://sci-hub.st/10.1525/lal.2012.24.1.21
I always wondered what trait was left on the picture when Dorian Gray considered converting to Catholicism
The fates of Wilde and Turing are two big black stains on the history of the UK (not the only ones, of course).
Turing even more, as by 1950, the society was much less religious overall and there was less reason to keep homosexuality illegal.
> society was much less religious overall and there was less reason to keep homosexuality illegal.
I'm not actually sure it was an entirely religious thing. It seems like it was an amendment tacked onto a bill that would protect girls from sexual exploitation by this guy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Labouch%C3%A8re
specifically https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labouch%C3%A8re_Amendment
The conflation of sex and religion I think its probably a mistake in this instance.
I am not really well-versed in British legal history. I was under the impression that the original Buggery Act was motivated religiously, and that Wilde was prosecuted under that Act (maybe amended).
I think you meant to say their treatment was two big black stains. A bit awkwardly worded implying the men themselves were the stains.
Thanks. I fixed that. I am not a native speaker and I sometimes fall into such traps, but this I could have seen.
There’s a line in the book I quite liked: “All the interesting people disappear to San Francisco.” Was incredible to me that even back then, SF was known for its homosexual culture. Lord Henry was remarking on where Basil likely had disappeared, so the insinuation was that Basil felt more at home in SF.
Dorian Gray jokes never get old...
Except for that one written on the last page of the notebook that definitely did not age well.
A wonderful play. The production of this with Sarah Snook from Succession was absolutely amazing.
A bit flawed, but a technical marvel and shows how superhumanly virtuosic Snook is.
Apparently there are several, significantly different versions of "The picture of Dorian Gray". I'm not sure which one I've read, or which one I should read. Any suggestions?
They're all great, but the 2012 "The Uncensored Picture of Dorian Gray" is the closest to the original script before the editor cut out things that he deemed... checks notes... "too gay".
It restores parts that were cut, and essentially bans chapter 3 and some other digressions on art history that Wilde added as a literary Beard to the footnotes - still there to read, but set in context)
It's not a huge different honestly, but I believe Oscar Wilde would want you to read that version.
It
That’s enough of an excuse for me to reread it. Along with Room With A View, two books I laughed on every page.
I'd place it 5th in my overall favorite books list. It is certainly one which has influenced me deeply and continues to do so, ever since I first read it 13 years ago.
Now everyone including me wants to know your top 4!
yes! I’m interested as well!
I concur. Give us your list, GP :-)
I tried reading it when I was younger, and I couldn't get past the first two pages. Hes a wordy motherfuck that Wilde bloke.
However, I did get an audio book version of it, which meant I could actually enjoy and finish it.
THe thing that struck me is that yes the painting is a large part of the book, but so is food. The sheer amount of self hate that was expressed through clothing and food towards the end of the book was surprising to me.
The longest lasting impact of the novel (personally for me) was how it introduced me to the concept of Opium Dens
I just recently listened to this from Audible. I was a grand novel. The dialogue was amazing.
Which version did you listen to?
Uhm, actually, the PICTURE of Dorian Gray ages.