> Not entirely in agreement with this, Rob, tho' I know what you mean. The
> Moby isn't quite up to the pitch of the Karamazov, it can seem a little
> theatrical and neurotically narrow by comparison, while you could hardly
> call Middlemarch or Great Expectations or The Mayor of Casterbridge
examples
> of the higher gossip.
Well, to stand by my casuals, I +would+ call _Middlemarch_ exactly the
higher gossip -- Beatrice Webb before her time. Net curtains with attitude.
Hardy, yeah, I'll give you --Little Tom was trying there. But the pomes are
better. And Jude and Tess (or Tess and Jude) are +so+ screaming depressing.
Dickens is perhaps the closest. Though I wouldn't myself pick Pip's Fortunes
as the keynote -- Little Dorrit? Bleak House?
Scott? Lanark? Cloud Howe? [NO ONE bloody mentions the General Strike --
maybe too close to home, even still. My grandaddy blacklegged on the
Glasgow trams in 26. How do you deal with that?]
But what does come up against The Brothers? Not even (pace Matthew) Trish.
Dat's the biggie. Tolstoy gossiped, Dostoevsky wrote novels.
Robinette.
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