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> 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.