DG Preface

I really liked this preface. I even caught myself smiling at one point when I was reading it. Wilde talks of art, and interpreting art. He says that those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupted, and that is a fault. There is hope, however, for those who see beauty in beautiful things. My impression of this statement was that he's addressing those who would scorn homosexuality, as Wilde himself was gay. Love is still a beautiful thing, no matter who its between, which I think is what Wilde was getting at. To see something ugly is a beautiful thing is a fault. I especially liked the part about moral and immoral books, which I wholeheartedly agree with. Books are either well written or badly written, as Wilde states. He segues into something similar to Huck Finn(I believe) about finding morality or insights in a book. In Huck Finn, Twain tells the reader not to find any insight or moral lesson in the book. This is the same thing. Like Wilde states, there is nothing beneath the surface of a book. It is simply a story. If you look beneath the pages of the book and interpret the story, you are not discovering some commentary or insight on life, you are discovering you, essentially. What you see in a book is because you see it there, not because it was made that way. It is a lot like a Rorschach ink blot test. What you see tells more about you than about the story. An author or artist may mean to do something on purpose, such as name a character a certain way or symbolize something with something else, but in the end, it is the reader who makes heads or tails of it. I really liked this idea--the idea that a story can mean what you want it to mean, as long as you see it and believe it.