Jan. 26th, 2008

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I finished Oscar Wilde's "A House of Pomegranates" last night. It is a collection of four shorter works, one perhaps as long as a novella. The stories are in essence fairytales.

These stories show a strange mix between beauty and morality. Wilde is obviously describing beautiful things for the sake of describing beautiful things. Much of each story is devoted to these poetic descriptions of beauty for beauty's sake. But the beauty runs independent of the plot and is as often associated with the wrong as with the right.

The morality is old fashioned heavy handed fairytale morality. Could this be Christian symbolism before me I see? Or perhaps Oscar just likes a trinity. The organized church is never the hero or victor in any of these stories, but the christian bits lurk in the corners and sometimes leap out on to center stage.

My favorite story was "The Birthday of the Infanta". I envy the dwarf who's never seen a mirror.

5. Oscar Wilde "A House of Pomegranates"

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