The picture of Dorian Gray

My favorite book is called “the picture of Dorian Gray”, translated to Spanish as “el retrato de Dorian Gray”, its author is the polemic Irish Oscar Wilde.

The story is about a young and rich men, Dorian, who is admired for his inhuman beauty. One day his friend Basil Hallward, obsessing with his beauty, painted him in a portrait. Dorian met Lord Henry by Basil, and this new friend present to him a new world, based in give placer to the senses and live the life, Dorian start to make this world his own, and think that the old age can destroy his life, something happens in those moments, the portrait consume Dorian’s soul, the years pass and Dorian never get old, but the image of Dorian in the portrait, start to get older and older, Dorian is consumed by the vicious and placers of the dark side of the life, he live in perversion and hedonism, leaving his humanity back.

I’m not going to talk about the end; the idea is that you have to read the book to know how this dark story ends.

This book is the representation of humans fears, about how we are afraid to get older, how we are afraid to lose the beauty and vitality, the book presents a very crude reality, this reality full of vicious and placers which can consume your life, but they attract you, you want to do those thing, but you know that's is bad, however you consider. The book presents an idea about how humans think and act, about how we need to show to the world that we are very great persons and make them believe that we have no problems, we are scared to reflect in life what we are passing.

The book inspired a couple of movies, theatrical representations and some songs (as “el tiempo es dinero”, soda stereo) but none of them can reflect the real essence of the book.