⠀ ⠀ began: 01.06.2026 ⠀ | ⠀ finished: 02.04.2026

GENRE: gothic, decadent/philosophical fiction

NOTES

• noticing the reoccurring appearance and description of flowers
  • rose, lilac, lilies, laburnum, hill-flower, clematis, tyrian convolvulus, orchid, tulip, iris, dahlia, poppies, violets, asphodel, jonquils, carnations, robinsoniana orchid, lilas blanc
• lord henry's personal philosophy on beauty and the meaning of life is interesting and honestly makes for a good introduction of him as a character. explains his personality well.
• i found it really fascinating how even when he tried to make things "right" it was still ego-driven and vain. after a while dorian gray wasnt able to do anything without thinking of himself first.
• ending was dreadful but amazing and honestly ended perfectly.

QUOTES

• "there is a fatality about all physical and intellectual distinction, the sort of fatality that seems to dog through history the faltering steps of kings."
• "i find him in the curves of certain lines, in the loveliness and subtleties of certain colors."
• "There is no such thing as a good influence, Mr. Gray. all influence is immoral... to influence a person is to give him one's own soul...he becomes an echo of someone else's music, a part that has not been written for him."
• "To get back one's youth, one has to merely repeat one's follies."
• "he felt that dorian gray would never again be to him all that he had been in the past. life had come between them..."
• "... after all, it is a very poor consolation to be told that the man who has given one a bad dinner, or poor wine, is irreproachable in his private life."
• "there were moments when he looked on evil simply as a mode through which he could realise his conception of the beautiful."
• "ugliness that had once been hateful to him because it made things real, became dear to him now for that very reason."
• "the loves and sorrows that are great are destroyed by their own plentitude."
• "anything becomes a pleasure one does it too often. "