Dorian: An imitation - Softcover

Self, Will

3.66

1,797 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0140290567 ISBN 13: 9780140290561

Publisher: Penguin, 2003

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"Self's Dorian subtitles itself "an imitation", and that it is exactly what it is, in the full Wildean sense. It flatters its original by taking both subject and style entirely seriously. The locations, characters, plot and epigrams are all transposed from the 1890s to the 1990s... Little is materially altered, but everything is reused - sharpened, blackened and intensified by Self's idiosyncratic remix of Wilde's combination of wit and rage, extravagant debauchery with clinical introspection...Self's reincarnation of Dorian has taken the fag ends of both an English century and an English myth and given them new, troubling and hugely entertaining life." Guardian

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From the Back Cover:

'Chilling, hysterical, tasteless and haunting. A Gothic thriller complementing and enriching its original' Independent on Sunday

'Shot through with dark humour and pathos' Big Issue

In the summer of 1981, aristocratic, drug-addicted Henry Wooten and Warhol-acolyte Baz Hallward meet Dorian Gray. Dorian is a golden adonis - perfect, pure and (so far) deliciously uncorrupted. The subject of Baz's video installation, Cathode Narcissus, and the object of Henry's attentions, Dorian is launched on a hedonistic binge that spans the '80s and '90s. But as Baz and Henry succumb to the disease du jour, how is it that Dorian, despite all his sexual and narcotic debauchery, remains so unsullied - so vibrantly alive?

'Self's reincarnation of Dorian has taken the fag ends of both an English century and an English myth and given them new, troubling and hugely entertaining life' Neil Bartlett, Guardian

'A book that filled its first reviewers with "the odour of moral and spiritual putrefaction" just got smellier, darker and funnier' Observer

'Savage and hilarious [with a] delicious sense of dread. Wilde would have been flattered by Self's brilliant "imitation" of his tainted love story' Time Out

About the Author:

Will Self has published three short story collections and three novels, all of which are in Penguin. His most recent novel HOW THE DEAD LIVE was shortlisted for the 2000 Whitbread Fiction prize, and DORIAN was longlisted for the Booker Prize 2002. Self is also a big media figure, with a regular BBC Radio 4 slot and a starring role in SHOOTING STARS on BBC2. He lives in Stockwell, South London

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