Singular thoughts that I've had...

• Life makes you want things you can't have; and then it makes you want them even more...
• I don't want to be the one who can be, anymore. I want to be the one who is.
• The tiniest things have the greatest consequences.
• Love is so many layers removed from reality that reality seems not to exist anymore.
• There's that weird moment when a lot of work is waiting for you to pounce on, but you're too lazy to move and too bored of doing nothing!
• It's either the best or the worst; you can't swim in between.
• It doesn't matter whether you like vampires or not; they inevitably suck!
• A strange face today may be the most familiar face tomorrow.
• The world is a lonely crowded party; thank God the home isn't the world.
• Laziness is the mother of a lot of innovations!
• It's all in the mind; mind it!
• In life, a mix of all the spices makes for sweet.
• At school everybody is a superstar.
• Status speaks.
• Life is all about takin' the chances and breakin' the rules!!
• Life forces you to make choices and become happy, only to deny you that happiness and tell you that your choices didn't make a difference after all!
• Don't let your emotions run wild; they will smother you.
• The faster you work, the slower time moves.
• All the world's a masquerade!
• The past is the beginning of the future.
• Time makes bitter memories sweet.
• Change in the ways of the world is outrunning time.
• Even if the colours of the world grey out, the world remains a beautiful place. 
• If you want to see the wonders of the world, you have to go out there.
• Vacation is often a time to remind oneself that one doesn't choose family.

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde -- A Review

This is the only novel published by Oscar Wilde and he did suffer quite a bit for the consequent controversies and outrages it sparked; for it was written in 1895.

It has a prologue justifying the work of art as a beautiful thing. As much as the fact that the book is worth picking up only to read the prologue, the wisdom in reading the eerie story that follows also stands. Dorian Gray is a young man who wishes to give his soul to a portrait of himself in order to keep his own beauty eternally. Unfortunately for him, this wish of his comes true. The storyline is simple. It is about Dorian’s obsession with beauty and his subsequent unethical and evil deeds that cause his portrait to age and ultimately culminates in his stabbing the picture and dying as a consequence. Oscar Wilde uses three characters through whose dialogues he puts to the reader a lot many ideas of age, beauty, art, youth, wealth, pleasure, morality, happiness, truth and the soul. There is also a subtle hint towards homosexuality. Through not only witty dialogues, but even by descriptions Wilde talks of things and beliefs that contradicted those existing in that society.

Of the many wonderful things that one discovers about this novel, the one thing that struck me most was placing of Dorian Gray in the contrasting company of the nobility as well as the filthy back-street brothels and dingy alleyways; a contrast that so exactly depicted his character and lifestyle.

The dual identity issue of Dorian Gray is used in many contexts and is most probably one that we are all familiar with in some way or another. This is the novel that original put forward the idea. It is one of those masterpieces that one enjoys ever so much more every next time one reads it.

GENRE: Gothic, philosophical and speculative fiction