The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

Oscar Wilde’s novel The Picture of Dorian Gray is a classic of English literature. I’m writing a review of it because I want some horror to feature on Halloween.

Dorian Gray is, in my mind, a weird tale. Wilde produces a sense of creepiness that begins even in the seemingly light and hopeful first chapter. The title portrait is a supernatural object that horrifies and fascinates Gray. He is preserved in youth and beauty, and possibly even saved from the consequences of evil deeds, but the portrait become a mirror to his dark and sinful soul, something that eventually becomes too horrible for him to endure.

In addition to being a weird tale, it is a moral tale. Gray has beauty, wealth, and status, but he gives himself over to any kind of wickedness if their might be pleasure in it. At first, it is the infatuation of a hollow love for the actress Sibyl Vane. When she disappoints him on the stage by failing to present an ideal picture of love because acting it seems shallow compared to her real passion, he rejects her. Her suicide nearly turns him off the path he is pursuing, but when the thrill of the moment passed, he nearly forgot her. The sins of youth and ignorance turn more willful as he falls into using drugs and prostitutes. Eventually he murders a man. The book hints at other wrongdoing, possibly homosexuality, affairs with married women, seduction for the sake of its own pleasure, gossip, excessive drink, greed, blasphemy and leading  others into all these things.

The book could be a social commentary on the upper class of his time. With all the advantages they had, they were still corrupt. A fortunate life is not a sign of a good person. As with Job, poverty and hardship are not indications of an evil life.

Some think Wilde is exploring own life in the book. One can read hints of homosexuality in Basil Hallward’s feelings toward Gray (Basil paints the portrait), and in Gray’s feelings toward Lord Henry Wotton. Possibly Wilde was critiquing his own aestheticism, finding that it did not necessarily lead to a higher morality, but could as easily lead one to an immoral, selfish, and consuming pleasure-seeking.

In the book, Wilde never comes out and says what his intentions are, if he has any at all in terms of exploring himself, his society, or notions of beauty, art and morality. It seems clear, though, the Wilde suggests a person cannot be separated from his deeds and his consequences as Gray is with the aid of his magical painting. A man, his deeds, and their consequences may not be the same thing, but they are linked in a powerful way. When Gray tries to destroy the painting that bears the ugliness of his soul, he plunges the knife into his own heart.

Though some have accused Wilde of writing an immoral book, one could as easily argue that he wrote a very moral book. Gray is sympathetic to a degree, but he is an evildoer destroyed by the evil he did. The reader can contemplate issues of art, beauty, and morality for himself. Along the way, he can enjoy a creepy thrill.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon

Wilde, Oscar. The Picture of Dorian Gray.  1890. New York: Barnes & Noble, 2003.

My Inventions by Nikola Tesla

Nikola Tesla’s autobiography, collected under the title My Inventions, originally appeared as six articles in issues of Electrical Experimenter in 1919. It is a surprisingly thin book, especially in light of the several biographies that have been written about him, and the possibly greater volumes propounding the mythology of an almost demi-god genius.

To be fair, Tesla was a very creative and productive inventor. His AC motors, and the power systems that support them, enabled a new level of industrial power and automation. In many ways it was the technological foundation of the power grid we have today.

Tesla was ahead of his time and he realized it. He knew that the success of AC motors was greatly aided by coming about at the right time. Even so, it took many years from Tesla’s design to become a prototype and for that to become a commercial product with an infrastructure to support its use. At the time he wrote My Inventions, the value and practicality of his later inventions were still hard for many to see.

One of these later inventions was the radio. Tesla didn’t use that term “radio.”  It’s probably fair to say that he misunderstood the phenomena he was working with. Even so, he could produce radio transmissions and put them to practical use. As a demonstration, he built radio-controlled boats. It’s a stretch to say that Tesla envisioned smart phones, but he foresaw the possibility of using radio to transmit many kinds of data and signals, sometimes to devices “not bigger than a watch.”

“The pressure of occupation and the incessant stream of impressions pouring into our consciousness thru all the gateways of knowledge make modern existence hazardous in many ways,” Nikola Tesla, My Inventions

These articles were written at the end of World War I. Tesla reflected on the potentials of technology in peace and war. He imagined that wireless communication could shrink the world, leading to the kind of cultural exchange, common ground and commercial connections that would reinforce peace. He also imagined a rocket that could be guided to its target by radio control or internal mechanism; we could call it an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM).

Though visionary, he was not an infallible genius. He held to notions of physics that were not supported even by the science of his time. He had some wild ideas about psychology, biology and other fields, though some of these were no more far-out and off the mark that many that were popularly accepted by his contemporaries.

Tesla wrote very much from his own experience and perspective. Though he speaks of his upbringing in eastern Europe, his education and his career in Europe and the United States, he spends little time reflecting on the places, cultures and broader events he experience. You’ll learn more about Tesla’s peculiar ailments than about the life of youth in late-19^th Century Croatia. Perhaps that wouldn’t have sold many issues of Electrical Experimenter.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

The Astounding, the Amazing, and the Unknown by Paul Malmont

Empires of Light by Jill Jonnes

Men of Tomorrow by Gerard Jones

The Power Makers by Maury Klein

Tesla, Nikola. My Inventions. 1919. New York: Barnes & Noble, 1995.

Double Your Brain Power by Jean Marie Stine

In Double Your Brain Power, Jean Marie Stine doesn’t tell you how to make your brain more powerful. She tells you how to get more out of the power your brain already has.

There are five major areas of brainpower covered by the book: learning, memory, reading, listening and thinking. Under each part, a few short chapters introduce specific techniques for improving performance.

I was particularly interested in the chapter on reading. I read a lot for pleasure and work. If I can get my work reading out of the way more quickly, I’ll be able to manage my other duties better. If I can read more books, I’ll be able to post more reviews on my blog. I’ve picked up some books on speed-reading and found the techniques to be so tedious that I never followed through on developing the skill. Stine doesn’t try to teach speed-reading. Her focus is on reading smarter, getting the information you need without reading every word, and remembering the important information. The techniques probably won’t help you get through Moby Dick in a day (though they might get you through it faster than if you didn’t use them), but they probably will help you plow through the paperwork, memos, and reports that come across your desk.

I also paid close attention to the chapter on memory. If you’ve read books on mnemonics, you’ll have seen some of the techniques Stine includes. The down side of mnemonics is it takes time and effort to be good as using the techniques. Fortunately, this is not the only, or even the primary, thing in the chapter.  There are effective, and easily mastered, methods for remembering better that Stine includes.

There are recurring themes that apply to many areas of brainpower. Be attentive. Relax because your brain works better when you relax. Believe you can do better and have a firm intention of improving. Focus and concentration improve all areas of brainpower. Make connections to the things you want to learn and remember, both to things you know and to your personal experiences. Use your feelings as well as you thoughts. Review important information.

Double Your Brain Power is almost a model how-to book. It focuses on specific areas one may want to improve and skills for making those improvements. Stine built some of the skills she teaches into the structure of the book, especially reviewing. The reviews are very brief, so the book does not seem repetitive. Illustrative stories are few, brief, and directly related to the skills discussed.

This structure lends itself to including a lot of information and to brevity. I find that to be a very good quality in a nonfiction book.

In addition, Stine follows the old adage about speaking or teaching: “Tell them what you are going to tell them, tell them, and tell them what you told them.” This is not as bad as it sounds. Stine does not linger on introductions and reviews. They serve their purpose of reinforcing the major points briefly.

Double Your Brain Power does not have a great deal of original concepts, and the author readily acknowledges when ideas or techniques are adapted from others sources. The advantage of this book is that it brings many useful skills together, gets to the point and describes them briefly.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

The Genius in All of Us by David Shenk

Idea Mapping by Jamie Nast

Moonwalking with Einstein by Joshua Foer

The Relaxation Response by Herbert Benson with Miriam Z. Klipper

Your Intelligence Makeover by Edward F. Droge, Jr.

Stine, Jean Marie. Double Your Brain Power. 1997. New York: Barnes & Noble, 2000.

How to Improve Your Memory by James D. Weinland

James D. Weinland’s How to Improve Your Memory is, in my mind, primarily a book on study skills. Weinland’s interest is learning, and memory is an important part of that.

As I read the book, it seemed to me that learning successfully is built on four areas: intention, attention, repetition and organization. Weinland has tips related to all of these.

Intention to learn is easy to come by when you have an interest in a subject. If you’re not interested, you’ll need to find some other motivation. Think about why you’re studying a subject and the benefits you hope to achieve. Even if you’re a student and you “have to” take a class, think of the opportunities that might open up to you if you get a good grade.

Attention is very important to memory and learning. If you forget something, it is very likely you weren’t paying attention to begin with. Remove distractions from your environment and mind (this wasn’t an issue when this book was published in 1957, but put away your cell phone and put it out of your mind). Engage as many senses as you can.

Remember that attention isn’t an infinitely available commodity. Get the rest you need. Don’t burn yourself out by focusing too long on one subject or closely related subjects. Give your mind, especially the executive functions a break, by alternating unrelated subjects, switching back and forth from mental to physical activities and making a little time for rest and recreation.

Repetition is important to memory, but it doesn’t need to be boring. Allowing time between practice sessions can actually improve performance.

Organization can go a long way to making learning easier. Some of the most successful mnemonic techniques involve arranging and associating things we want to remember with things we already remember well, especially locations. For instance, pigeonholing involves creating a spacial arrangement, such as a grid, with things to be remembered in each space. Mind maps do something similar with a more free-form arrangement that also takes advantage of our ability to remember images and colors. Memory castles are sophisticated applications of this strategy. Understanding how things are divided into wholes and parts or groups can help you break down subjects into smaller, easier to remember, parts that are connected so that remembering on item helps you remember the others.

I tend to connect the use of meaningful association to the idea of organization. Meaningful association builds on what you already know. This could be building on or filling in your background on a subject, finding analogies to familiar or using acronyms and rhymes. A related practice is it to come up with an outrageous image that represents what you want to remember. We find it easy to remember images—the more unusual the image the easier it is to recall—so we can take advantage of that by associating what we want remember with a crazy image that reminds of it.

The book is dated, but I think the advice is applicable even if the science of memory has advance. In addition, the book has the advantage of being short.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

Double Your Brain Power by Jean Marie Stine

Moonwalking with Einstein by Joshua Foer

The Organized Mind by Daniel J. Levitin

Rapt by Winifred Gallagher

Your Intelligence Makeover by Edward F. Droge, Jr.

Weinland, James D. How to Improve Your Memory. New York: Barnes & Noble, 1957.