Hmm, I will have to add it to my rather large list of books to read. My fiance just purchased a collection of six books from B&N for me and I am only on the first one. They are all classics and some are quite thick so it'll take me a while.

realiz wrote:This is one of the few books that I have not fiinished, and it surprised me after I had heard such good things about it. I only managed to get half way through and then gave up. Rather than finding this book compelling, I found something about it repelling and I just did not want to continue. Reading these comments makes me want to go back and try again and see if I can look at it with a different perspective and find something I missed before.

There are some elements in Dorian Gray that I found a bit repulsive. I didn't like the characters much, I found them vain in the extreme and arrogant and idly rich. But in a way this feeling of repulsiveness kept me at it, sort of compelling in its own way. Also I just like Oscar Wilde's writing.

I think reading the 'classics' is sometimes more about snob factor than anything else. Sure there is lots of good writing and writers out there, including Oscar Wilde in my view, but the term 'classic' stamped across the front of the book is no assurance of a good read .. I think that some of the classic authors take time to warm up too so I think reading classics is often a matter of patience .. plus many classics are simply very long books so they time and patience to read .... I read Don Quixote a while back and that really took time to warm up too but in the end I found it a worthwhile read and generally enjoyable.

I have always wanted to read The Old Man and the Sea.

This is one that I would have no hesitation recommending. I read it as a teenager and loved it and then read it again in my around ten years ago and felt the same way.

I think reading the 'classics' is sometimes more about snob factor than anything else.

I have gotten this feeling at times when I have picked up a 'classic' and been very disappointed, and then I'll have the opposite happen when I read one and am totally awed and understand how that book has stood the test of time.

I finished reading this book over the weekend while we were in Corpus Christi for our interviews. I can honestly say I thoroughly enjoyed this book, I can't even remember a single part of the book that I didn't find interesting. It's a short book, only around two hundred pages, so that probably had a lot to do with it, but as always Oscar Wilde wrote a great story.

I just finished it, and I loved it. I will abandon a classic that is too slow rather than slog through, but I could not put it down. Dorian reminds me of someone I knew 37 years ago. If I listened to him I would have been that woman at the opium den.