An excellent tale exploring conscience and the soul. Dorian Gray belongs to that genre of imaginative fiction that uses the fantastic as a medium but denies explanation, skirting around either fantasy or science fiction proper. Dorian symbolizes something like the beauty and irresposibility of youth, separated forever from the process of aging to heighten its contrast. His friend, Lord Henry, voices Wilde's own epigrams, deliciously compact observations of the world. Together they achieve that rare balance of focussing on the aesthetic and transforming rather than neglecting the process of story telling.

-Mitchell N.

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