You're so hard, moaned miss havisham, with her former action. You praised me when i learnt my lesson. I have never forgotten your wrongs and their causes. If you had brought up your adopted daughter wholly in the dark confinement of these rooms, and then let her know that there was such a thing as the daylight, by which she had never once seen your face,. would it be weakness to return my loveyyes? Estella looked at her for a moment, and with a kind of calm wonder, but was not otherwise disturbed. So i begin to think, said estella, in a musing way, that i almost understand how this comes about.
Dickens. Tolstoy. Their names and reputations shake the ground – and so do their books, if you drop one. But whose legacy is more enduring? Whose vision truer and more relevant today? Should you embark on War and Peace or Our Mutual Friend? To battle it out, in 2018 Intelligence Squared brought two celebrated writers, John Mullan for Dickens and Simon Schama for Tolstoy, to our stage. They called on a cast of star actors, including Tom Hiddleston, to bring their arguments to life with readings from the authors’ finest works. The debate was chaired by author, playwright and broadcaster Bonnie Greer. This is the first instalment of a three-part episode.
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