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
Best Books of 2009 
During the next week, I’m going to be posting some recommendations for the best short story collections of 2009, as recommended by various experts (and I do mean experts — got some knowledgeable peeps ready to hold forth). Until that point, however, I refer you to some of the best-of lists cropping up about town. […]
Read More Tod Goldberg Interview on “Other Resort Cities” Tod Goldberg writes short stories (Simplify) and novels (Living Dead Girl), in addition to just being a hilarious guy (see: blog). He’s also the Director of the MFA program at UC Riverside Palm Desert. BookFox had the opportunity to interview him by email for the release of his latest collection, “Other Resort Cities.” BookFox: So […]
Read More Joan Didion and the Avoidance of Cliche The Morning News has a great memoir piece, a very new journalism/memoir style called "Joan Didion Crosses the Street." Out of a simple chance encounter with Joan Didion on a public street V.L. Hartmann reconstructs the significance of Joan Didion to her own childhood and her parents generation: When I was a teenager my mother […]
Read More Cormac McCarthy Interview Cormac McCarthy gives one of his once-in-a-blue-moon interviews to WSJ (to promote the new movie “The Road.”). So I guess there is someone other than Oprah that can coax him out of hiding. His caustic humor is sure in full form, though: WSJ: When you first went to the film set, how did it compare with […]
Read More Herta Muller: Reviewing the Nobel Prize Winner The Wall Street Journal takes a lukewarm tone regarding Herta Muller (via The Literary Saloon): “I am happy to have made Ms. Müller’s acquaintance without being eager to revisit her.” The final sentence of the WSJ article, written by Richard Woodward, indicates that Muller’s books are likely to stay on the shelves — not exactly a […]
Read More The Drawbacks of Diversity in Book Lists A lot of people have been complaining about the lack of women on the Publishers Weekly top ten list. For commentary, check out the NY Times, The Rumpus, and The Arts Blog. I have a problem not with this particular attempt to encourage diversification (and it is pretty strange that not a single woman appeared on […]
Read More Responses to Amazon/Walmart Price Wars over Books Emily Pullen at Skylight Books blog: What kind of soulless person would think that cheaper isn’t better? According to Merriam Webster, the verb to cheapen also means “to lower in general esteem; to make tawdry, vulgar, or inferior in some moral sense.” And frankly, that’s something that I’d rather not do to our concept of […]
Read More Poets and Writers’ MFA Program Rankings by Seth Abramson Poets and Writers offers the Top 50 MFA Programs in the nation, as compiled by Seth Abramson. Most of the article explains what criteria were excluded from the rankings. I don’t think it’s a bad idea that he completely avoids such subjective criteria as professor status — after all, as he notes, excellent writers are […]
Read More Nook: B&N E-Reader So Barnes and Noble released its e-reader today, which will compete with Sony’s e-reader and Amazon’s Kindle. Over at Business Center, they’re calling the Nook a Kindle-killer. Ironically, wasn’t this the term for not-yet-unveiled-but-hoped-for Apple Tablet? I guess they’ve waited so long to bring it out that it will have to be a Sony/Nook/Kindle killer. […]
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