Eugene Onegin: A Novel in Verse (Oxford World's Classics) Paperback – March 25, 2009

Ok . . . the debate is over for me. The James Falen translation is definitely the one to read (note to Kindle readers: it's well worth the $7 to get this vs. a free version.) It is fresh, brisk, fast, and captures both the wit of the salon and ballroom scene and the despair following the duel (I can't imagine that's a spoiler for anyone.) I really can't stress how well it reads, and if you read it aloud to yourself (as I did) the rhythm and spirit of Pushkin's verse is captured more so than in any other translation I have read. The rhymes are clever and musical, but by frequently alternating masculine and feminine rhymes it doesn't grow tired or sing-songy. I loved the Nabokov translation (Eugene Onegin: A Novel in Verse, Vol. 1) years ago though as more of an academic exercise than the lyrical pleasure provided by Falen's, which clearly draws on the Nabokov and is more accurate for having done so.The central story hasn't changed in 150 years (I can remember a couple of similar errors sans duels in my youth): girl falls madly for guy who arrogantly rejects her not out because he doesn't have feelings for her, but because he fears her attraction for him; only later when he sees her all grown up he realizes too late his mistake but he is SOL. I was also surprise at, despite the many outdated social conventions, at it's core it remained so eternal and current ("To Moscow and the marriage mart! They've vacancies galore . . . take heart!")Of course, I still cannot grasp why this is so important to the development of the Russian language or to the Russian soul (whatever that means) and why Russian's hold it so centrally dear, but it is a wonderful work and a great way to spend both a snowy night and a sunny afternoon on a park bench, which the fickleness of the Russian "spring" afforded me the week I read this.

Beyond the beautiful and craft of words and rhyme, which tells me the original Russian must have been an immensely pleasurable reading experience even more than Falen's translation, the intriguing delayering of the characters and the depth of the meanings behind the feelings of the main character, Onegin, the narrator's grips you by his active role in keeping the intrigue and commentary to get you even deeply connected with the characters. The story of young and pure love mixed with sins and ills of the Russian society and an experienced lady Player and his woes in the time of Pushkin is just a gem of a novel and of poetry. I only wish, I can read it in its original form and language. The poetry is so beautiful, the feelings intense and the meanings sublime, that I found my self reading aloud the letters by Tatyana and Onegin to my wife to let her enjoy as well how the lovely sentiments have been beautifully expressed.

Coming to this, I was already familiar with Pushkin -- both from his short story "Queen of Spades" (and Tchaikovsky's operatic version), and from other allusions to him in later Russian writers. Pushkin has for Russians the same sort of significance that Shakespeare has for English speakers. Everyone, from Gogol and Dostoevsky, to Pasternak and Solzhenitsyn, has riffed on him. And although the "Queen of Spades" hinted at why he holds place of pride in Russian letters, "Onegin" only offers additional proof of his genius.Without giving away too much, the story itself has a nice, circular design to it. One of Pushkin's chief virtues must be his voice itself -- which, as I am not a Russian speaker, I guess to be a sort of cheeky, and Byronic, one,(nb: Pushkin is obviously familiar with, and indebted to, Byron, particularly in this work). This James Falen translation is particularly meritorious -- it preserves Pushkin's "Onegin octave" verse form, and iambic tetrameter. Falen's translation is gorgeous, musical, and in remarkably clear, grammatically sound English.Aside from its story, "Onegin" may be thought of as commenting on, and narrating the death of the long poem as a viable literary form, and the rise of the novel. For instance, consider that the death of Lensky coincides with the narrator's own growing dissatisfaction with verse, and preference for prose. Pushkin's own dissatisfaction proved to be prophetic -- after "Onegin", epic verse has practically vanished, as a form. The longest poem (that I am aware of) which is of more recent vintage than "Onegin" is by another Russian, but in English: Nabokov's "Pale Fire."Ultimately, we witness the passing of an entire world in "Onegin," that of late-eighteenth century (and early nineteenth) Russia -- with its duels, its music, its ballrooms, its manners. It is about to be supplanted by the grittier, dimmer psychological world of Dostoevsky, or the bright, hard-edged realism of Tolstoy.