Russian
Nights
(1844)
This captivating novel is the summation of Odoevsky's views and interests in many fields: Gothic literature, romanticism, mysticism, the occult, social responsibility, Westernization, utopia and anti-utopia. Compared to The Decameron, to Hoffman's Serapion Brethren, and to the Platonic dialogues, Russian Nights is a unique mixture of romantic and society tales framed by Odoevsky's musings on strands of Russian thought and his own obsessions.
A thing about Dostoevsky. Recently I happened to read that Dostoevsky wrote in *A Writer's Diary* that he took Swedenborg's psychic powers of clairvoyance seriously. Does he write about clairvoyance or translucency in his works?