The Unmasking of Oscar Wilde - Book 43

I got this book by Joseph Pearce on my kindle to go along with my 'Victober" read of The Picture of Dorian Gray.  Victober is a booktuber thing where people read lots of Victorian literature in October.  I'm not doing that much because I'm too caught up in other things, but I thought I could re-read The Picture of Dorian Gray which I've had in mind to do for a while now.  I had to get the book on hold at the library because for some reason I wanted to read it via a real book instead of via kindle or audio.  So while I waited I got The Unmasking of Oscar Wilde.

Poor Oscar Wilde.  He really was of two minds and he never successfully (understatement!) integrated them.  Most of his writing has a high moral tone, fairy tales full of wisdom, plays that explore right and wrong and yet, he at the same time, was living a life that descended more and more into reckless depravity.  Until he was finally caught and ruined.

Wilde was a brilliant scholar and literary man.  His first written work was in poetry and art criticism.  His poetry, while popular, was not particularly original.  He really gained celebrity via his witty bon mots and his outlandish, dandy style of dressing.  He became the guest to have when high society was having dinner parties.  He worked hard on this persona.  He loved attention and notoriety.  Before he ever wrote the works that he is really known for now, he was asked to give a speaking tour of the USA which he did.  He traveled all over the U.S. as well as up into Canada for over a year.  In fact his first play debuted in New York, however, it fell flat.  He hadn't gotten into the play writing groove yet.

Weirdly, Wilde's descent into decadence began on his honeymoon.  He had already been influenced by the likes of Baudelaire and now with his brand new, innocent and adoring wife, he read a book by a French author, Huysmans, who led the decadent movement in France.  This book entitled A Rebours (Against the Grain) advocated for abandoning moral principles in pursuit of sensation and pleasure.  This book inspired The Picture of Dorian Gray.  After this Wilde seems to have had his first homosexual encounter with a Canadian, Robert Ross, a man who became an English publisher (I think, if I am recalling correctly).  This man actually became a life long friend and was at Wilde's side when he died.  After this introduction into this lifestyle, Wilde became hooked and by degrees became more and more addicted to sex.  He befriended a handsome young man named John Gray who became the model for Dorian Gray.  His affair with Gray lasted a while but then Gray began to become unhappy and disillusioned.  Wilde began to neglect his wife and two sons.  He loved gathering disciples of young men around him who looked up to him as their mentor in all matters artistic and 'edgy.'  During this time though, strangely, Wilde, was writing very moralistic stuff that people couldn't really understand because it contrasted so with his lifestyle.  The Picture of Dorian Gray, The Selfish Giant, The Happy Prince, Lady Windemere's Fan, A Woman of No Importance and much poetry were rife with Christian imagery and moral lessons.  He finally was introduced to Lord Alfred Douglas who was Wilde's undoing.   A very handsome and unstable homosexual, Douglas became Wilde's obsession.  They would solicit young boys as prostitutes, often sharing them.  They traveled to Algeria to partake of the 'exotic' boys there.  Wilde was becoming more and more reckless and degenerate.

Douglas' father, Marquess Queensbury, was a volatile man who grew to hate the relationship between Wilde and Douglas.  He and Douglas' mother saw Wilde as corrupting Alfred, whereas Joseph Pearce really wonders if it wasn't more the other way around. Father and son hated each other and came to blows legally when Wilde was urged by Douglas to sue the Marquess Queensbury for libel.  This was not smart as the Marquess had plenty of evidence of Wilde's soliciting young boys.  Wilde lost the suit and then was arrested and tried, found guilty and sentenced to two years hard labor.  May I just interject here that in our day and age which is seen as less prudish than the Victorian Era, Wilde would have gotten a much harsher sentence?  He was kind of like the Jeffrey Epstein of his day, except with boys. Now we realize just how much harm seducing young men does to them. I wonder and grieve for the male prostitutes and young boys Wilde and his set preyed upon.  What damage they must have done!

Wilde suffered much during his imprisonment.  He read lots of Christian texts and Dante was the most comforting to him.  He wrote his great opus De Profundis which was a long letter to Douglas explaining everything and renouncing him.  This was published after Wilde's death.

All his life Wilde had been intrigued by Catholicism.  He had flirted with it heavily while at Oxford.  But his father threatened him with disinheritance and in fact an older half brother who pre-deceased Wilde, basically cut him out of his will because he was afraid he'd become Catholic.  So Wilde drifted away from Catholicism, even though its ethos and symbolism populated his writing.  He turned instead into a pathological sex addict bringing ruin and heartbreak to his loving wife and two children.

After prison, Wilde wound up living in France where he was a social pariah.  Some friends still were loyal but he had a lonely existence where he drank too much and wound up occasionally soliciting male prostitutes.  He literally was reduced to begging because he could not stay within his limited income.  His wife died, he never saw his children again. and then all his decadent literary circle of friends began to die.  John Gray who had been the model for Dorian Gray became a priest!  The man who wrote the book that inspired Wilde to indulge in decadence, converted to Catholicism!  In fact all those fin de seicle decadent artistes, like Aubrey Beardsley converted and then died tragically.  Wilde's own mother, whom he always loved, died a broken woman while he was in prison.

Wilde didn't last long as a has-been.  His health broke down (some say syphilis, a theory Pearce rejects, and others say meningitis).  He lingered for a bit but then fearing death he summoned his old friend Robert Ross, who had also become Catholic(!) to send for a priest and at the last minute, actually on his death bed, he converted to Catholicism finally.

This book disturbed me.  I can't say it was a pleasant read.  It is hard to read about a person embracing depravity compulsively when he ought to have known better.  His selfish obsession and narcissism wreaked pain on all close to him.  He was a very bad man who so obviously could have been a good man.  All his life he struggled with his contradictory character.   And yet people forgave him.  There was something likable about him.  He was incredibly witty and entertaining and he could tell a good story.  He was a very complex, brilliant, selfish, confused and witty man.  The best thing about Wilde was his artistic work and at least he left that to the world.

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