'I saw a ticket-porter coming upstairs, with a letter in his hand. He was taking his time about his errand, then; but when he saw me on the top of the staircase, looking at him over the banisters, he swung into a trot, and came up panting as if he had run himself into a state of exhaustion.
"T. Copperfield, Esquire," said the ticket-porter, touching his hat with his little cane.
I could scarcely lay claim to the name: I was so disturbed by the conviction that the letter came from Agnes. However, I told him I was T. Copperfield, Esquire, and he believed it, and gave me the letter, which he said required an answer. I shut him out on the landing to wait for the answer, and went into my chambers again, in such a nervous state that I was fain to lay the letter down on my breakfast table, and familiarise myself with the outside of it a little, before I could resolve to break the seal.
I found, when I did open it, that it was a very kind note, containing no reference to my condition at the theatre. All it said was, "My dear Trotwood. I am staying at the house of papa's agent, Mr. Waterbrook, in Ely Place, Holborn. Will you come and see me today, at any time you like to appoint? Ever yours affectionately, AGNES."
It took me such a long time to write an answer at all to my satisfaction, that I don't know what the ticket-porter can have thought, unless he thought I was learning to write.'
Brilliant book, truly outstanding, packed with vivid characters brought to life with great economy. it runs through almost eleven hundred pages without losing direction, treading water or becoming flabby with padding. Essentially one life-story but interwoven with so many more. Genius.
Le Carré's first novel, a tale of cold war espionage in London, introduces George Smiley to the world. It's not a classic in itself, quite slim, but sowing all the right seeds for better things to come.
'In the last stages of her degradation, demoralized by hopeless, totally oppressive circumstances while serving as a paid companion to a senile, toothless, and world's most ill-tempered mistress, blames for everything, begrudged every meal, every cast-off scrap of clothing, insulted with impunity by everyone, protected by no one, exhausted by her miserable existence and yet revelling in her inflamed and delirious fantasies, Tatyana Ivanovna was suddenly informed of the demise of a distant relative, whose remaining next of kin had long since passed away (a circumstance which in her frivolity she had never bothered to enquire about), a man unusual in every respect, who had led a sequestered life somewhere at the back of beyond - lonely, grim, unobtrusive, amassing wealth unobtrusively through usury and the practice of phrenology.'
Not one of the classic Dostoevsky works but probably one of his more entertaining, and surely Foma Fomich Opiskin ranks high among his most loathsome characters.
Rather a cerebral take on the tale of a man who sells his soul to the devil. Appreciation of the complex structure and multiplicity of styles is strictly one for scholars. Indeed, the average reader only has their word for it that such structures and styles are present. Without such knowledge it might simply appear that there is rather a lot of padding contrived to satisfy Goethe's deep-seated desire to have been one of the great writers of classical antiquity. Give him his dues though, it's a lifetime's work that enriched a popular legend with a whole new raft of memorable scenes. Fair play.