F.R.'s Reviews > Complete Short Fiction

I’ve always had a suspicion that Oscar Wilde is a prime example of style over substance. Yes the writing is arch and clever, the epigrams are well crafted and plentiful – but is there really anything else there? Is his fiction merely just an excuse for Oscar to show off his brilliant intelligence and keen wit? Is there much else going on behind that?

It’s something I raise knowing I’ll never reach a satisfactory answer, but this collection does contain examples for both the defence and the prosecution.

Take ‘The Portrait of Mr W.H.’, which is about literary theories and frauds built onto Shakespeare’s name. In other hands this could have been a serious and thoughtful essay, and whereas Wilde is bright enough to see there are serious points to be made, he mainly chooses to be flip and glib and shy away from them all. Furthermore the twists are obvious, the literary theory feels like it’s been clumsily inserted and the whole thing ends up resembling no more than the work of a clever sixth former.

But then we come to ‘Lord Arthur Saville’s Crime’, which is a cracking tale and one of the best ruminations on fate which exists in fiction. Although it’s clearly written by Wilde, it has the required seriousness to tackle the subject but also a dainty lightness in the prose. It’s a tale I greatly admire. The same is true for ‘The Canterville Ghost’, which is the kind of comic ghost story that Charles Addams or Tim Burton would enjoy. Again it’s Wilde, but hasn’t been subsumed by the Wildean.

The jury on style over substance therefore remains out.

Also of note in this collection are the children’s tales – ‘The Happy Prince’ and so on. Years after I first read them I remain unconvinced though. Yes they have their moments and there’s a nice line of cruelty within them, but they always feel somewhat pompous and sanctimonious to me. And Wilde doesn’t do hectoring all that well.

There are a number of other insubstantial sketches in this book, but the presence of ‘Lord Arthur Saville’s Crime’ and ‘The Canterville Ghost’ means that even a doubter like myself has to acknowledge that there were moments when Wilde was as brilliant as he though he was.