The Wilde Passions of Dorian Gray
by Mitzi Szereto
Cleis Press. 288 pages, $15.95
AUTHOR Mitzi Szereto, who recently wrote a funny, sexually explicit riff on Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice subtitled Hidden Lusts (2011), has now written an erotic sequel to Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray, that gothic tale of a young man who magically trades places with his portrait, which ages for him in the attic.
The Picture of Dorian Gray, first serialized in a magazine in 1891, is a kind of literary experiment by a playwright who was attempting a novel.Approximately one third of it follows the moral degeneration of the attractive Dorian after his friend, the painter Basil Hallward (who believes that everyone’s character can be read in their face) asks him to pose for a painting. Basil’s friend Lord Henry Wotton insists on meeting the young Adonis, and then apparently corrupts the innocent Dorian by constantly making witty comments that overturn conventional Victorian morality. Another third of the book could be titled “The World According to Lord Henry.” A final third is devoted to references to historical figures and descriptions of the beautiful objects that Dorian obsessively collects, including ecclesiastical garments worn by Roman Catholic clergymen during Mass. Dorian enjoys the perversity of owning these things as a nonbeliever.
Oscar Wilde’s real-life disgrace in the 1890s due to his reckless lawsuit against the Marquess of Queensbury (father of Oscar’s younger friend and lover, “Bosie”)—followed by Wilde’s conviction for sodomy, his prison term, and his early death in exile in Paris—has made his story of the beautiful, dangerous boy, Dorian Gray, seem like a prophesy. The book itself, however, which lacks the coherence of most celebrated 19th-century novels, can only hint at the nature of Gray’s degeneracy, still an unspeakable topic in literature.
Mitzi Szereto has wisely avoided following the structure of the original work. Instead, she has resurrected Dorian (who dies upon destroying his hideous portrait) as a kind of immortal predator. After a brief chapter in London in the 1890s in which the original exchange of Dorian with his own image is summed up, we next encounter Dorian in Paris in the 1920s playing sex games with thinly disguised avatars of the writers F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald and the painter Salvador Dali. Dorian is shown to be a sensation seeker for whom nothing is off-limits, fully pansexual with a special appetite for playing the dominant partner who sometimes “tops from below.”
Dorian moves to Marrakesh in the 1940s in order to prevent aging London acquaintances from recognizing him in Paris. The influence of Lord Henry in some sense accompanies Dorian wherever he goes, taking the form of aphorisms directly quoted at the beginning of each chapter. Dorian eventually takes refuge in a Peruvian monastery in the 1960s, where he finds a way to cause trouble.
Despite Dorian’s usual preference for young men as bedfellows, he is haunted by a recurring dream of a beautiful young woman whose aura of innocent love shows his life in perspective. Perhaps he is haunted by his own hopes for salvation, which confront him in New Orleans in the “present day” (post-Hurricane Katrina). There he is recognized as a kindred soul by a group of apparent goths who are actual vampires (shades of Anne Rice). This close-knit group is led by a modern-day dandy who reminds Dorian of his old mentor, Lord Henry, in the London of over a century before. Unfortunately, the vampire-leader is a man of few words who lacks the breezy wit of the original Lord Henry.
The climax of Dorian’s long search for something he is only dimly aware of wanting is as satisfying in Mitzi Szereto’s version as it is in Oscar Wilde’s—possibly more so. Szereto’s use of language is faithful to the original, even in the frequent sex scenes. She’s a novelist who knows how to construct a coherent plot, and she treats Oscar Wilde’s book with respect. So by all means check out The Wilde Passions of Dorian Gray, especially if you’ve already read the original novel, or use it as an excuse to read The Picture of Dorian Gray if you haven’t.
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Jean Roberta is a widely published writer based in Regina, Saskatchewan.
