:: book bound

"You always want to know what one has been doing. I always want to forget what I have been doing." (p. 258)

Time comes and goes rapidly, and lately, I feel like it's going more than it's coming. I'm also forgetting a lot of what has been going on lately, illustrated on Saturday by my inability to recall for one friend why another had been with me on the subway previously (he hates the city and the subway system and I could not, for the longest moment, remember why he had agreed to join me).

Time ticks by, but on the plus side, I am nearing the end of Dorian Gray. So far, a journey that has ruined my mind on many levels. Sure, my brain has been ravaged by work and the fact that there is too much metaphoric food on my metaphoric plate of things to do (eat), but the ideas read are only perpetuating the things I already have tucked away.

"Dorian Gray had been poisoned by a book. There were moments when he looked on evil simply as a mode through which he could realize his conception of the beautiful." (p. 209)

One thing I have always failed to mention is just how pleasant Oscar Wilde describes the gentleman in Dorian Gray. Certainly, this only happens in the beginning of the novel, but I was quite pleased at how beautiful these men were made out to be - personally and physically. Of course, there are all those rumours about Wilde that would justify his phrasing, but we'll ignore that for the sake of simply appreciating the portrayal.

I must say though, Wilde falls victim to the same shared characteristic of all classic writers. I found my eyes crossing in frustration when he began to over describe parts of the book that I felt to be unnecessarily spoken about for so long. This wordiness drives me nuts, and while I understand why the material has been published as such, it still drives me bonkers.

I think this fact means I fail at literary life, all around.