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
Reflections on Madeleine L’Engle 
So Madeleine L’Engle, the writer of children’s books, died last week. All I’ve been thinking about is how much I liked reading A Wrinkle in Time, how I thought the sequel – A Wind in the Door – wasn’t nearly as good, and how I could tell you virtually nothing about the plot of either. […]
Read More Latest E-book Push So Amazon and Google are wading into the rather stagnant waters of the E-book, hoping to get something roiling. New York Times has the article, which chronicles a bit of the history of the E-book, which everyone keeps on saying will take off but it hasn’t quite yet. The obvious comparison is to the success […]
Read More New Quarterly Conversation I’ll make this brief and direct: Go visit the Fall issue of The Quarterly Conversation – I believe that it’s issue number nine – where you can find wonderful essays on things ranging from James Wood to prisons to a whole slate of book reviews.
Read More Upcoming Literary Books Here is an eclectic selection of forthcoming literary novels, completely limited by my own tastes and knowledge, for which I am unapologetic. Most of these are coming out in the next month or two, so ice up your poor, blurry, tired eyes and get to work. Other Colors: Essays and a Story by Orhan Pamuk […]
Read More “Blindness” Made Visible One of my favorite novels, “Blindness” by the Nobel Prize winner Jose Saramago, is being made into a movie. The director is one I respect – the Brazilian Fernando Meirelles, who’s created both “City of God” and “The Constant Gardener.” IMDB lists the shooting date for “Blindness” in 2008. What is interesting and particularly fascinating […]
Read More Diary of a Bad Year So J.M. Coetzee’s new novel is out – but only in Holland. They’ve had it for the last few weeks while we poor slobs here in the U.S. have to sit on our hands for another few months, until October 23rd. The Literary Saloon alerted me to the first English language review of Diary of […]
Read More Blogger Wars In the ongoing saga that is the debate over whether blog writers are parasitical hacks or legitimate voices, there’s a new article in the LA Times that sides with the bloggers. Jay Rosen, a professor at NYU (as an alumnus, I cheer), has taken issue with Michael Skube’s assertion that all blogs are useless attempts […]
Read More Orhan Pamuk in Harper’s In the September issue of Harper’s magazine there’s an excellent article on the recent Nobel prize winner Orhan Pamuk, written by Christopher de Bellaigue (also check out the photo essay of Turkey on the pages preceding it). Alas, it’s not available online or I would link. The article, “There is no East” is less about […]
Read More If I Did It (Again) O.J. Simpson’s quasi-confessional memoir about how he would have killed his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ronald L. Goldman, has found a home: Beaufort Books, a vanity publisher (although in this case, it’s not exactly vanity – more like debasement). If the book actually sells, Judith Regan will strut and feel justified. But […]
Read More
