Dear Akiko and all,

Unfortunately, I haven't read Odoevsky's "Russian Nights" and cannot tell you much about that novel. I skimmed through the first chapter (First Night) though (the full text of the novel can be seen, in Russian, at http://orel.rsl.ru/nettext/russian/odoevsky/noshi.htm) and I find that at least some of the motifs in TT can indeed go back to Odoevsky's novel.

For example, in the first chapter there is a detailed description of a coach followed by a meditation on the long way mankind had to make in order to produce such an ordinary thing as a coach.

One of the novel's characters is nicknamed Faust.

From what I have read I couldn't determine where the novel is set. It must be either Moscow, or Petersburg. Probably it is Moscow where Odoevsky was born and where he lived before moving to Petersburg in 1846. Finally, I learned from a biographic article that Odoevsky was a mystic and that at the time he wrote RN he experienced the strong influence of the European mystics (St. Martin, Arndt, Portridge, Baader et al.).

All this seems to confirm Simon Karlinsky's suggestion that "the Russian novelist" in the chapter 6 of TT is a composite figure and that Odoevsky can be regarded as one of the possible prototypes.

Still, I think that the parallels between TT and Turgenev's "Faust" are even more striking. "Faust" begins with the hero revisiting his "old nest" after nine years of absence and ends with the heroine's late mother (whom the hero had known when she was alive) snatching her daughter away from the hero at the moment when she is on the point of becoming his lover.

As for Dostoevsky, I doubt that he plays any serious role in TT (he is very important in ADA, though).

best,

Alexey

----- Original Message -----

From: Donald B. Johnson

To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU

Sent: Saturday, November 20, 2004 7:47 PM

Subject: Fwd: TT: Odoevsky, Dostoevsky, Swedenborg

----- Forwarded message from a-nakata@courante.plala.or.jp -----
    Date: Sat, 20 Nov 2004 16:42:44 +0900
    From: Akiko Nakata <a-nakata@courante.plala.or.jp>

Thanks to Jansy and Alexey, the thread connecting Pauline and Turgenev is
getting thicker.

As Don has mentioned before, Simon Karlinsky suggests that we should not
expect the Russian novelist in Ch. 6 to be a writer we know but consider him
an amalgam (like Koncheyev in *The Gift*) of several nineteenth-century
Russian writers such as Turgenev, Dostoevsky, Gogol, Vladimir Odoevsky. All
of them have similarities to and differences from the novelist in question.
According to Karlinsky, *Faust in Moscow* would be a highly appropriate
title for Odoevsky's *Russian Nights*. I would be grateful if Alexey or
anyone would kindly tell me more about the novel. Are there parallelisms
between the novel and TT?

Russian Nights (1844)

Vladimir Fedorovich Odoevsky (1804-1869)

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?

Akiko

----- End forwarded message -----

Thanks to Jansy and Alexey, the thread connecting Pauline and Turgenev is getting thicker.

As Don has mentioned before, Simon Karlinsky suggests that we should not expect the Russian novelist in Ch. 6 to be a writer we know but consider him an amalgam (like Koncheyev in *The Gift*) of several nineteenth-century Russian writers such as Turgenev, Dostoevsky, Gogol, Vladimir Odoevsky. All of them have similarities to and differences from the novelist in question. According to Karlinsky, *Faust in Moscow* would be a highly appropriate title for Odoevsky's *Russian Nights*. I would be grateful if Alexey or anyone would kindly tell me more about the novel. Are there parallelisms between the novel and TT?

Russian Nights (1844)
Vladimir Fedorovich Odoevsky (1804-1869)

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?

Akiko