You and your Wilde words...

I love Oscar Wilde. The way he writes, the way he thinks, pretty much the way he is transmitted through the words he put down on paper and is perceived by my mind. I love.

During my trip to Ireland, what did I discover but that Wilde is an IRISH man and not the great Great Britain that for some reason seems to be a common idea in many peoples' minds.

I finished his one and only published novel "The Picture of Dorian Gray" and boy did that become a kind of horror story really fast! Knock another one off the Ultimate Reading List finally!

The first time I even had notion of Dorian Gray as a story/book/literary work was in 2003 when the name of Sean Connery drew me to the movie "The League of Extraordinary Gentleman." Remember that one?



The first time I realized it's "extra-ordinary" which actually completely makes sense. *facepalm*

And watch this film I did- twice. Cuz there's always something about superhero movies that draws you back despite it being extracheezy or extraunbelievable or extracampy or extraridiculous... i guess that "extra" rule doesn't quite work in all situations eh?



BUT LOOK AT THIS FACE!! "hummuna hummuna hummuna guffaw guffaw guffaw"

Oh and... wait, what was I saying? Right, so you'll see that Dorian Gray is one of the League though he is not actually part of the original extraplain group. Observe:



see? nowhere to be found. like the invisible man... har har

The remake saw fit to add new characters and make the league a SUPER league!! Because..... well.... Amerka!!!!!~~



Though captions are not my own, I felt them highly relevant. Dorian Gray would be second from the left.



close up! see how handsome he is?? and will be.. FOREVER.......

Anyway sometime during the movie the quirk of Wilde's novel is discussed as Gray very obviously travels where he goes with constant concern over the safety of his portrait. This was completely new to my 14 year old mind and I was fascinated with the idea that Gray's youth and energy comes from the safe keeping of his picture and that wound to the picture is wound to his body... is that not an AMAZING thought!? Ok, if I'm being honest it still dazzles my mind.

Of course being the spritely eager youngster (that I am sadly no longer) I googled the shit out of this man called Dorian Gray after watching the movie. Maybe during the movie, I don't remember. I needed to know: Who thought of this idea? Which comic mogul featured him: DC? Marvel? fuck, I dunno- Nickelodeon?? What does the cartoon version of him look like? How old is this story that I've heard of Jekyll and Hyde but not Dorian Gray? The physical embodiment of Beauty as Dorian Gray was new to me in every sense of the meaning.

But to those less ignorant than I am, the name of another beautiful and immortal man would come to mind immediately at the mention of Dorian Gray... and that is of course the name of Oscar Wilde. I fell in love with him for his name, fell out of love with him for his not very manly looks (i was much more shallow a year ago back then), and then back in love with him through the college study of "The Importance of Being Earnest." Now, I'm a little bit frightened and ever more in awe of him after my reading of Dorian Gray.

On a literary forum that I was perusing, I saw a thread started by the question "Oscar Wilde: overrated?" and immediately I thought to myself and very pointedly at the post- I HATE YOU, YOU'RE AN IDIOT FOR ASKING SOMETHING LIKE THAT!! and then obviously I clicked on the link to see what everyone from the cyberweb had replied. Fortunately, there was only one idiot (OP) and all of the responses were the same as my initial reaction in varying degrees of politeness and filtering. Having been justified by complete agreement from the rest of the literate universe, I saved the severe tongue-lashing I had loaded in my fingers and let OP live another day.

Wilde stopped writing far too soon and selfishly deprived the world of some serious thoughts on aesthetics and human nature. If anything he is completely UNDERrated and it is the loss of thinking minds that he is so.

During one of my five million connecting flights on the way to Ireland, I had cause (aka shoddy ass access to international wifi after being cut off from the world) to download a collection of Wilde's children's stories called "The Happy Prince." I started crying on the plane and sniffling quietly like I was watching a sequel of The Notebook. I grew up around peers who seemed to have none of the moral values or conscientiousness that were forced on me by immigrant parents who had lived most of life in a much more disciplined country than America. So imagine my surprise when the same kind of cynical eye-rolling thoughts I have had on numerous occasions throughout my short-lived life were subtly and craftily expressed in these seemingly innocuous stories. It's clear what Wilde thought of his generation and how that would affect the one coming right behind. For his judgment and his attempt to address the issue while the buds are only yet forming, I respect Wilde in a way I find it difficult to do for those who just sit and write "letters to the editor" expecting things to be fixed and all better now that they've said their piece.

But of course those people are not Oscar Wilde. In any age it is difficult to find a mind that is able to think such pure thoughts and still account for all of the sinning that revolve ever around them.

Bread and Butter

Boy that Irish bread and butter is good.