Clarissa's Blog

Why is it that I always make huge literary discoveries in the middle of the night and then can’t sleep? I’m reading a forgotten novel by the Russian writer Leskov. The novel is titled At Daggers Drawn and is part of my Classics Challenge.

So I read the novel and discover that it’s extremely similar to Dostoevsky ‘s The Devils. And I mean scarily similar. 

I do an online search and discover that Leskov ‘s novel was published 2 years earlier and Dostoevsky kept reviewing it on every piece of paper he could find.  What does this mean, then? Did Dostoevsky plagiarize his best novel?? We all know the guy was a jerk but at least one could hope he wrote his own stuff.

In case you never heard of Leskov, he is the only Russian writer to create a female character who actually likes sex. Not in the novel I’m reading now but still.