Dorian, Graying: Is Youth the Only Thing Worth Having?Baywood Publishing Company, 1995 - 243 pages In his latest and perhaps most adventuresome book, Robert Kastenbaum offers a fresh view of the quest for perpetual youth. The focus is on the "pretty monster" that Oscar Wilde created a century ago in "The Picture of Dorian Gray". We see Dorian first within the frame of his own times, responding to the pressures of modernization by attempting to escape the natural progression of time. Next we enter Dorian, the Opera, a re-imagining of his quest in the postmodern world of interactive computers. Finally, we observe Dorian's obsession and plight in our own graying society. This insightful analysis of the dangers inherent in becoming "terminally young" also provides a set of propositions worth consideration by gerontologists, educators, philosophers, media mavens, and policy-makers. |
Contents
Tithon and On and On and | 9 |
Dorian in His Own Times | 31 |
Intermezzo | 75 |
Copyright | |
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Common terms and phrases
advanced adult adventures aesthetic already artist Basil Hallward beauty become character Compumusic continue creature dance death DORIAN GRAY Dorian Theme elderly elders endurance equity eternal youth evil example experience fantasy Frankenstein Freud friends gerontologists grow old HENRY LORD Herbert Deutsch his/her Holmes human imagine immortal aging Kastenbaum kill later adult live look Lord Henry Lunaria mad scientist mind mind-work monster moon child moral never observe older one's opera Oscar Wilde passion perhaps perpetual youth person and image photograph Picture of Dorian pleasure POLLY FOX Proposition reality relationships repression responsibility RICK SHANNON Royal Humane Society scene Sibyl Vane smile social society STELLAR story Struldbrugs suicide SUNBEAM Tennyson thought tion Tithon turn Varney the Vampire Victorian Victorian era VIDEO DORIAN virtual reality Wilde's women York YOUNG WOMAN