Lit Update (Not That You Care)

I finished The Picture of Dorian Gray today. At first, I had made up my mind that I really didn't like it, but the macabre twists and the sinister ending improved my opinion. I just wish that middle part, in which Wilde goes into minute detail about every single hobby Dorian Gray has ever had, could have been cut down. I mean, it's important to character development and all, but did I really need to know about his budding obsession with rock-collecting? Does that really give me insight into his personality? Couldn't it have just been mentioned in passing instead of taking up an entire page?

Every so often, I read someone's opinion that the literature of today is so short and to-the-point that everybody's standards have changed, nobody is capable of reading the complex, nuanced sentences of old, etc. I used to dismiss such statements, but I'm starting to think there's some truth in them. I mean, even when I look at the difference between what my parents can read and what I can, it's huge. My mom reads Edith Wharton, and her books make me snore. My dad enjoyed A Tale of Two Cities, perhaps one of my least favorite reads of all time. On the other hand, I have two friends of my age group who read Edith Wharton and love Charles Dickens, respectively. So perhaps all it really boils down to is individual taste. Or maybe I have the attention span of a three-year-old after birthday cake. Who knows?