Summer Reading Recommendation!

Posted by Sasha Sapp on Thursday, June 7, 2012 at 9:44 am

Numbly, as if you didn’t feel the wall supporting your quivering body, you slid to the floor. What your mouth stifled, you eyes cried loud and clearly, widening as if they were prepared and ready to split down the center. Vile, wicked, and sinister, the red streaked eyes stared into yours. A blood stained smile curved menacingly, and crawled across the face of your splitting image. Yet like a defenseless creature you sat- staring in utter terror, in utter frozen fear- at the painting of yourself. The muscles in your body cowered in fear, tensing and hardening, thwarting any possible chance of escape. “Is this how foul I am? Are these sins truly mine?”….

Well that is not the actual text, but it is my own variation of the wonderfully dark tale, The Picture of Dorian Gray. Set in London during the late 1800’s, this a tale of the beautiful yet vain Dorian Gray. He meets Basil Hallward, who becomes infatuated with his beauty, and paints him. Gray meets his friend, Lord Henry Wotton, and is influenced heavily by his ideas of hedonism and self-pleasure. Gray foolishly wishes that the painting of him will age instead of him, and begins participating in things moral and immoral alike. This is an excellent classic focused on themes of morality and one’s self, and it is also a challenging enough text to help broaden someone’s vocabulary. I highly recommend this book for it is a reflection of something that most want- youth. Yet it teaches a lesson of life and is sure to leave a great influence upon its reader. You will find yourself lost in the hedonistic world of Gray who lives only for the pleasures that he demands. You will feel sympathy for the poor Hallward who tries to impose a better influence upon Gray. Most importantly, your heart will be pulled at its strings in this completely human tale that we could all relate to in some way.

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