#wildeblr

[epoxyconfetti]

Tumblr hive mind and Oscar Wilde aficionados: What is the best/most faithful filmed version of The Importance of Being Earnest?

[a-midwinter-nights-ennui]

sometimes i think about a bookshop i went to in washington dc. it was the summer of 2022, and i was in maryland for my cousin's wedding. i was staying in dc, and one day, i decided to get on the subway, and go somewhere interesting. i wound up in what seems to have been a small suburb, filled with little gift stores and artisan sandwich shops, but the store i entered was, of course, a book shop. it wasn't the kind of place with the week's bestsellers spread appealingly on a table in the front entrance, and a YA graphic novel shelf. it was filled, filled with books. the second floor was home to must stacks, organized by author. every so often, there'd be a scotch-taped index card reading 'Tolkien' or 'Sartre' or 'Eliot'. i headed straight for the w's, as i was in the market for a new copy of "The Picture of Dorian Gray", and found that, to see the Wilde section, i'd have to stand on an armchair, and wedge myself between the shelf and a window, mostly obscured. what i found was Richard Ellman's Oscar Wilde biography, a copy of the Importance of Being Earnest, and a book that haunts me to this day. The Picture of Dorian Greyhound. it seemed to be a children's adaptation of the gothic lit classic, starring an all-dog cast. the fact that i did not buy it is my second-greatest second hand book about but not by oscar wilde tragedy.

[a-midwinter-nights-ennui]

i, as many of you do, treat oscar wilde's life like one would a favorite fandom. so,

who's your favorite oscar wilde character (contemporary)

oscar wilde

alfred douglas

robert ross

the marquess of queensbury

john gray

constance holland

vyvyan and cyril holland

reginald turner

ada leverson (the sphinx)

frank harris

Voting ended onApr 3, 2023

[a-midwinter-nights-ennui]

so. i got drunk (for the first time!!), i watched half of the oscar wilde movie.

i saw so much more of michael sheen's butt than i ever wanted to.

[a-midwinter-nights-ennui]

bonding with ai oscar wilde abt how stupid literary critics are.

[a-midwinter-nights-ennui]

i'm not gay. i'm just a...

unspeakable of the oscar wilde sort

[a-midwinter-nights-ennui]

fellas, is it gay to lovingly craft a portrait of a young man so beautiful you obsessively worry it will reveal your true feelings for him if ever exhibited? (asking for a friend.)

[a-midwinter-nights-ennui]

wildeblr, drop everything and read oscar wilde by st john ervine.

it's, like, a criticism of wilde's literary works, and a large amount of it is just ervine talking about that, but the few chapter devoted to wilde's family and personality are a RIOT.

so it is just the most mean-spirited thing i have ever read. he goes on and on about how much of a slut oscar's dad was, that he had a "bastard on every farm in ireland" and that poor old sir william was grotesquely ugly, to boot.

as for jane franchesca, oscar's mom, she is called a shitty poet, and a bad housekeeper, the worst insult for a woman. according to ervine, sometimes she wouldn't get out of bed til 11, which i took as a personal insult, because neither do i.

ervine says that "what little talent wilde had he squandered" and that he was overrated and disgusting.

it's quite possibly the most entertaining thing i've ever read.