He got up and sat on the edge of the bedstead with his back to the window. “It’s better not to sleep at all,” he decided. There was a cold damp draught from the window, however; without getting up he drew the blanket over him and wrapped himself in it. He was not thinking of anything and did not want to think. But one image rose after another, incoherent scraps of thought without beginning or end passed through his mind. He sank into drowsiness. Perhaps the cold, or the dampness, or the dark, or the wind that howled under the window and tossed the trees roused a sort of persistent craving for the fantastic. He kept dwelling on images of flowers, he fancied a charming flower garden, a bright, warm, almost hot day, a holiday—Trinity day. A fine, sumptuous country cottage in the English taste overgrown with fragrant flowers, with flower beds going round the house; the porch, wreathed in climbers, was surrounded with beds of roses. A light, cool staircase, carpeted with rich rugs, was decorated with rare plants in china pots. He noticed particularly in the windows nosegays of tender, white, heavily fragrant narcissus bending over their bright, green, thick long stalks. He was reluctant to move away from them, but he went up the stairs and came into a large, high drawing-room and again everywhere—at the windows, the doors on to the balcony, and on the balcony itself—were flowers. The floors were strewn with freshly-cut fragrant hay, the windows were open, a fresh, cool, light air came into the room. The birds were chirruping under the window, and in the middle of the room, on a table covered with a white satin shroud, stood a coffin. The coffin was covered with white silk and edged with a thick white frill; wreaths of flowers surrounded it on all sides. Among the flowers lay a girl in a white muslin dress, with her arms crossed and pressed on her bosom, as though carved out of marble. But her loose fair hair was wet; there was a wreath of roses on her head. The stern and already rigid profile of her face looked as though chiselled of marble too, and the smile on her pale lips was full of an immense unchildish misery and sorrowful appeal. Svidrigaïlov knew that girl; there was no holy image, no burning candle beside the coffin; no sound of prayers: the girl had drowned herself. She was only fourteen, but her heart was broken. And she had destroyed herself, crushed by an insult that had appalled and amazed that childish soul, had smirched that angel purity with unmerited disgrace and torn from her a last scream of despair, unheeded and brutally disregarded, on a dark night in the cold and wet while the wind howled
The Blog
Culturomics on the Short Story 
Culturomics has been well covered in the last few days, on the heels of a study published in the prestigious journal, Science. Using Google Ngram Viewer, powered by Google Books, the authors studied the rise, fall, and evolution of certain terms from 1800 – 2000 in a database of 5.2 million books. The danger of […]
Read More My Reading in 2010 It’s time to take stock of my reading for the year. In the sidebar on the right, you’ll see a partial list of my books for the year. I read about 75, plus about 40 journals (the journals aren’t listed). It’s not a particularly staggering number — any bookworm who reads consistently will likely put […]
Read More Bad Writing: The Movie What is bad writing? That’s what this new documentary asks, as it follows the journey of a terrible poet as he asks literary luminaries what they think of his work. Love the all-star lineup of authors: Margaret Atwood, David Sedaris, Nick Flynn, Steve Almond, George Saunders (and love the Saunders quote – “I had a […]
Read More Granta Party: The Best of Young Spanish-Language Novelists The Granta party last night at the Crocker Club — the occasion being the release of The Best of Young Spanish-Language Novelists — was a smash hit. David Kipen, proprietor of Libros Schmibros, lead a lively discussion with two of the contributors, Carlos Yushimito and Carlos Labbe, who opined, among other things, that the Nobel […]
Read More Bound to Last: 30 Writers on their Most Cherished Book If you’re depressed about the future of the written word, Bound to Last: 30 Writers on Their Most Cherished Book is your Prozac. The anthology fairly pulses with admiration for the printed word (yes, only printed — sans electronic conveyance). Bound to Last features a familiar cast of literary archetypes: the hero, identified by hardback […]
Read More New Journal Rankings In the left hand column, you will see the same link to a new page: my previous journal ranking system has been overhauled. While previously, the rankings were compiled on a number of admittedly subjective factors, now the ranking is based upon the last three years of the Best American Short Stories (BASS). I hope […]
Read More Perpetual Folly Pushcart Prize Rankings Cliff Garstang is out with his annual Perpetual Folly Pushcart Prize rankings, which ranks literary journals according to how many Pushcarts or special mentions they've won in the past decade. As is wise with any of these lists, he offers the disclaimer: Rankings of literary magazines are of questionable value. Most such rankings are subjective. Others […]
Read More Literary T-shirts Nothing says literary more than wearing a literature-inspired T-shirt, preferably under a beaten-up thrift-store blazer. And since I’ve been mulling over some purchases, I’ve made the rounds through the internet nooks and crannies and come up with some of my favorite literary T-shirts. Here they are. Library themed from Threadless: Edgar Allen Poe, Quote the […]
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