Philip Hensher
Series 3: Episode 18 - the author on his favourite line from a book...
“A youngish, sallowish gentlemen in spectacles with a lumpy forehead seated in a supplementary chair at a corner of the table, here caused profound sensation by saying in a raised voice “Esker” and then stopping dead.”
It’s the young man who says “Esker” from a dinner in “Our Mutual Friend”. Charles Dickens is supposed to have created something like 20,000 characters and the ones I love best are the ones that just exist in a single line. The young man who says “Esker” just comes into one sentence and never appears again. What a genius Dickens was.
