Book 11 - The Soul of Man Under Socialism by Oscar Wilde

Reading date - May 2020

Another one I got on my Kindle.  A departure from the normal Wilde material.  For starters, there were no dandies throwing themselves onto beds and sofas (nobody sits in his work, read it and tell me I'm lying).

This is the book where the heavily over-used phrase "to live is the rarest thing in the world.  Most people exist, is all" comes from.

This is the kind of "book" (it's actually an essay) where I find I only get the best from it when I pore over every single word and sentence.  Of course, they're just words that you can read at a mile a minute but who really gets any satisfaction out of that when they are reading a book??  My dad says that the only thing I speed read is instructions..and then I have to go back and speed read again (he's right, it's practically my only vice).

The essay is not a description of how we would function under socialism, more a view on how we are suffering under capitalism.  How we are all materialistic sods rushing to earn more money to buy more things that we don't need.  If we were "under socialism" we would be more human and more caring..which is never a bad thing.  We would become more individuals than just massive cogs in a machine for the greater good of someone we don't see..and by doing so, poverty would be eradicated.

Some of the ideas are pretty lofty but I suppose if you're an artist who has come to major success (let's not talk about the latter part of his life), you'd favour this "socialism" because that would be how you would be able to flourish as your true individual self.

Will I read it again? Yes.

Have I ever only read a work by Oscar Wilde once? No.