Some of The Picture of Dorian Grey is intended to be darkly funny, right?

By martenepilogue

I was talking about *The Picture of Dorian Grey* with someone the other day, just briefly while we were in a queue. I said I actually found it funnier than I was expecting, and she gave me this look like “uh, okay…?” which made me feel a bit awkward. We didn’t have much time to carry on, but she basically said that with a modern lens a lot of the classics can come off badly written. That’s fair I guess, but I didn’t mean it was badly written. I just assumed the whole point was that it was mocking vanity—like Dorian is kind of a caricature of that nineteenth-century aristocratic type, not someone you’re meant to take 100% seriously as this totally believable narcissistic murderer. I know people say it’s really quotable, and I still think that’s true, but I also felt like Lord Henry’s little lines—especially early on—were meant more like snappy jokes about society than actual “advice” you should take to heart. So if it wasn’t supposed to be funny, then maybe it does read kind of melodramatic and unreal. But to me, the book never felt like it was treating itself or the characters super seriously. More like a deliberately exaggerated satire with wit. Anyway, her reaction has me doubting myself now—did I misunderstand the whole thing? (Also, I’m not helping myself here because I did an audiobook, so maybe the way it was performed made it feel funnier than it would on the page.)