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

  • New Essay Collection by Umberto Eco image of tag icon

    I’ve always been a fan of Umberto Eco, and not only of his fiction (of which my favorite is The Name of the Rose). Eco’s essays, thoughts on popular culture as filtered through his semiotic lens, are always good for re-conceptualizing the way we view everyday items. For instance, I’ve used his essay “Lumbar Thought,” […]

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  • The Bookaholics’ Guide to Book Blogs image of tag icon

    So I just received my copy of the Bookaholics’ Guide to Book Blogs, and naturally looked for myself. There I was – BookFox, in the index – except with the wrong http address. It’s www.thejohnfox.com, not www.bookfox.com. Thanks for fact checking that one. But I shouldn’t worry about it, I told myself, I mean people […]

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  • BookFox Double image of tag icon

    I googled myself this morning and discovered that BookFox is not alone in the universe. No, second in the Google rankings (and it better stay that way) is my Chinese counterpart, also named Bookfox (but clearly different because the "f" is not capitalized). By virtue of instant translation, I discovered that my website double explored […]

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  • Roundup Literary Saloon image of tag icon

    The Literary Saloon chronicles how a bureaucratic error of Kafkaesque proportions in Iran led to the accidental publishing of Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s latest novel – Memories of My Melancholy Whores. Usually, Iran bans that sort of thing, and on the second time around, they did. Memories of My Melancholy Whores was one of those novels […]

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  • Learn More About Me image of tag icon

    John Matthew Fox is a fiction and nonfiction writer living in Los Angeles. He has a Master of Professional Writing degree from the University of Southern California and an MA in Literature from New York University. Aside from schooling, he’s also been educated by the road, traveling through more than 40 countries on 6 continents […]

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  • Scribes on Picket Lines image of tag icon

    So as a writer, albeit a fiction writer, not a screenwriter, I’m following the writers strike very closely. In fact, very closely might be an understatement. I consume the news rapaciously. My wife says I’m addicted. But I have good reason: I live in LA and know hundreds of producers, writers, teamsters, directors, etc., in […]

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  • A Very Short Stack image of tag icon

    What’s wrong with the Washington Post blog Short Stacks? First of all, it’s not a blog. It’s a weekly column – except it’s not even a weekly column, it’s only a weekly list of books matching a theme. If I was being nice, I would say that Short Stacks is trying to expand what a […]

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  • Roundup Sir Arthur Conan Doyle image of tag icon

    Remembering the ghosts of Arthur Conan Doyle, in the Times Literary Supplement (via Light Reading) Over at LitKicks, Levi asks whether the political ideologies of Tanenhaus are expressed through the selection of books that are selected for the NYTBR. Chelsea – the literary journal published since 1958 – appears to be folding, since it says […]

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  • Norman Mailer: RIP image of tag icon

    The reports about his hospitalization had been drifting in for weeks, but even though it’s not a surprise, Norman Mailer’s death is still depressing. RIP: 1923 – 2007. One of his lesser known books – The Fight – nonetheless has a special place in my heart. Mailer chronicles the lead-up and fight between Muhammad Ali […]

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