Everything sublime is as difficult as it is rare. Baruch Spinoza

Thursday, January 29, 2009

Rereading Oscar

Fingal O'Flahertie Wills

BORN
16 October 1854
Dublin, Ireland
DIED
30 November 1900
Paris, France

I know that when plays last too long, spectators tire. My tragedy has lasted far too long; its climax is over; its end is mean; and I am quite conscious of the fact that when the end does come I shall return as an unwelcome visitant to a world that does not want me.

De Profundis and Essays

(Letters From Reading Gaol)


There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That's all.
Opening page of Dorian Gray

Oscar Wilde, witty, urbane and in the end, tragic. And relevant a century after his death. The victim of one of Britain's periodic moral episodes, he spent 2 years in Reading Jail (Gaol) for homosexuality. He died penniless 3 years later. 

I have his complete works, I bought this in the mid-eighties and haven't returned to it since. My reference to Dorian Gray in an earlier entry brought him back to my mind. So I'm reading The Picture of Dorian Gray. I'll continue with The Importance of  Being Ernest. I won't work my way through all of it at once, but I'll leave the volume at my bedside.

3 comments:

Ganeida said...

That's right; leave the interesting posts till I'm not around & have a completely unmentionable computer. ;D I read Dorian Grey as we traveled round Europe & Wilde has to be one of my all time favourite authors. Complete nutter of course. He was married with 2 kids when all the dust hit the fan & he landed in jug. My favourites are his fairy tales ~ when he's not trying to be quite so clever & witty & his kindness shows.

Ashley Dumas said...

I have never read Oscar Wilde and it is something that I must try and do.

Sandra, the videos of the horses in the side bar are breathtaking. Is the one with the white horse, 'dressage'. I never even imagined a horse could be "trained" or (convinced) to preform that way. Wow!
It was really beautiful : )

Ash

Sandra said...

Ganeida, I wondered if you got lost in the wilds of Australia! He did what was and to an extent, still is common.......hide behind marriage. I will be sure to read the fairy tales, I don't remember them.

Ashley, yes that is dressage. The mare is doing a freestyle. I love that video, it is exactly how you want to see a horse trained and ridden. She is simply joyful, no tension at all!