Reading this was a bit of a wake-up call to how vapid and soulless(hehe) vampire movies and books are today.
Dorian Gray, in a fit of youthful exuberance, trades his soul for endless youth, and gets more than he expected.
Not only does time not affect him in any noticeable way on the exterior, nothing seems to affect him in any way on the inside either. At the start, he frets that the death of his love, Sybil, is not affecting him as much as it should. Later, all his possessions and pleasures do nothing to make him feel complete. The vampires and immortal beings of modern storytelling have no drawbacks (sun doesn’t even hurt them!) making them boring and un intriguing.
This is a great story about how we obsess over youth and beauty at all costs, and an interesting look at the costs of a life without feeling or soul. What is it that causes aging, anyway, besides the scars of our experiences? If none of our experiences affected us, life would be an empty, perfect, shell…
Enjoyable and thoughtful read.
Jonas David 