Paccaud-Huguet, Josiane <br/><br/>
Will Self’s Dorian, an Imitation: The True Liar of Fiction 

 -  2008.<br/>							 
<br/><br/> 97 
<br/><br/> By transposing the myth of Dorian Gray into the England of the 1980’s, Will Self satirically exposes the ravages of magic thinking spread by our virtual realities: the picture of Dorian has become Cathode Narcissus, the conceptual work of art which focalises the love of one’s self-image with its correlate: the “de-realization” of the human body whose mortal dimension is denied. But the dream of magic inversion becomes a nightmare, the real which the narcissistic dream wanted to avoid returns. Dorian’s tragic passion has spread itself to a whole society drowning in the imaginary scenarios of its virtual realities. To the general “erection of credulousness,” Will Self prefers the cunning art of fiction: what is at stake is the rehabilitation of the willing suspension of disbelief, the screenplay of fantasy as a possible antidote to Narcissus’ madness.