None of the other classic novelists cause as much difficulty to their respective champions. Tolstoyâ??s appeal will surely continue for as long as there is war, peace or heartbreak; Dostoevsky, Proust and Joyce as long as there are show-offs; Mann, Updike and Nabokov as long as there is a disjuncture between youth, age and erections; Eliot and Flaubert as long as there is human life; and itâ??s a truth universally acknowledged that Austen will endure for as long as lazy hacks need an opening line. But Dickens? Dickens in the modern era has Simon Callow and Stephen Fry. I wouldnâ??t start from here, as the saying goes.
