Wilde and Unruly

Somewhere in the back of my mind, I have the beginnings of what would be a list of dead people who I really admire. It's not really a fully-formed list - in fact, I can only accurately think of two names from it, the first being Albert Einstein, who I don't have to say anything about, and the other being Oscar Wilde.

I get the impression that many people today don't actually know who Oscar Wilde is, which is really unfortunate. In my opinion, he's one of the best and one of the funniest English writers of all time. In all fairness, however, he only ever wrote one novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray. When he was alive, he was most famous for his children's fairy tales, published in two collections titles The Happy Prince and Other Tales and A House of Pomegranates, but nowadays I'd wager most people recognize his name from the numerous plays he wrote, including Lady Windermere's Fan, An Ideal Husband, and The Importance of Being Earnest.

My first experience with Oscar Wilde's work was with his book, The Picture of Dorian Gray. I believe my mom bought it, attempting to catch up on the classics, then told me it was a book she knew I'd love. Dorian Gray, explained simply, is about a young man (Dorian) who, after having a portrait painted of him, sells his soul to ensure that his physical beauty will never fade, and that the painting will reflect his age instead.

The Picture of Dorian Gray is actually a pretty dark story, which would surprise fans of his lighter plays. Dorian grows narcissistic and self-absorbed throughout the story, captivated by the hedonistic views of his friend, Lord Henry. At the same time, however, the book is hilarious. The dialogue is quick and sharp, and Lord Henry easily becomes my favorite character with all the ridiculous, ironic things he says and does.

I fell in love with Oscar Wilde's writing style after reading his book, and I had to see more. His stories are easy to pick up and work through, unlike Charles Dickens or other writers before the turn of the century, while maintaining the period English language. I was disappointed to realize that he hadn't written any other novel, but I managed to find a collection of five of his plays, which was much easier to get than attempting to find a good movie version of all his best ones. I believe I finished most of the collection in a week (leaving out Salome, because it also sounds dark, and I want to see a production version of it first).

According to my own experience, The Importance of Being Earnest is Wilde's most famous work, nowadays. I highly recommend it, if you haven't seen it yet - it's amazing. Almost every line makes you want to laugh, and the ironic wit that ties everything together is just great. I highly recommend the Rupert Everett/Colin Firth version, both because it's newer (while maintaining accuracy) and because it features a poem written for music by Oscar Wilde, which plays during the scene when the two lead women learn that neither Jack nor Algernon, the lead men, are named Earnest. If you can't see a movie or stage play production, you can always read the script, as I did.

Recently, I bought the combined collection of Oscar Wilde's fairy tales, for which he was quite popular when he was alive. I was surprised after reading the first one, titled 'The Happy Prince'; it's pretty sad. The story itself is sweet, but it doesn't end so happily, and as far as I remember, all of the others in that first section are the same. Despite being so sad, however, all of the fairy tales have deep moral messages, about focusing on the good in life and helping those in need.

They were also really religious, which I thought was interesting, since it was revealed later in Oscar Wilde's life that he had homosexual tendencies (That's the politically correct way to say it, right?) Not that you can't be homosexual and religious - in fact, what's more interesting is that Oscar Wilde hasn't become more popular recently with the rise of the "gay movement." You'd think having a great literary figure who wrote amazing witty plays and a powerful novel would be something to be proud of.

I kinda get the feeling that Will Arnett and Mitchell Hurwitz had Oscar Wilde in mind when they decided on a name for their 2010-2011 TV series, 'Running Wilde'. I briefly mentioned in a previous blog post that I was planning on watching the show this summer. It wasn't advertised very well, and I didn't hear about it until halfway through the season, when I was browsing Hulu and saw the title, immediately thinking it might be a miniseries about the life of the writer. It's not, which slightly disappointed me, but I watched it because I figured it had to be very clever, to be paying homage to Oscar Wilde.

(I wont give it a formal review, except to say that it's not as funny as Arrested Development, which it seems to be an alternate-universe sequel of, but that it is cleaner, and I'd be willing to keep watching it, had it not gotten canceled.)

All things considered, I think more people should know about Oscar Wilde. There's a plethora of really bad humor in media nowadays, but all of Wilde's work is ridiculously great. I consider Oscar Wilde to be one of my top five favorite writers ever. I've probably said that about at least six different writers before - I don't actually have a defined list of my top five favorite writers ever, or of anything, really - but for Oscar Wilde it's definitely true. I can't help but think that the person capable of writing such awesome stuff must be awesome himself. Isn't this picture proof enough?