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EUGENE
ONEGIN
Aleksander Pushkin
Translated by Vladimir Nabokov
Princeton
This reissue of Nabokov’s famous 1964 translation includes
his erudition plus a foreword by Brian Boyd, Nabokov’s biographer.
Boyd is supportive of Nabokov’s rendering but nevertheless argues it
will remain controversial. The controversy centres, it seems, on the
decision to put clarity of meaning before poetic similarity. “…it is
when the translator sets out to render the “spirit”, and not the
mere sense of the text, that he begins to traduce his author,”
writes Nabokov. This version gives the sense, precise and
straightforward. In doing so its implicit message is that the poetry
is available only in the original. It is a goad to the lazy: if you
want to know not only the story of
Eugene Onegin and its
many references and allusions, you will have to learn Russian.
The poem is preceded by a translator’s foreword, a brief
EO Revisited, seven pages
on the method of transliteration, the translator’s introduction
which includes the detailed and helpful section on the structure of
the poem, Pushkin’s observations on the work, a brief publishing
history, and a reference for the manuscripts. It is followed by
seven pages of notes and the fragments of Onegin’s journey. It is,
therefore, a book for scholars and the putative “general reader”.
Pushkin’s poem-novel is regarded as perhaps the greatest
poetic work in Russian. Those who can’t read it in the original will
have to take other people’s judgment. Yet the wide and deep reach of
its influence rests on its themes and their exploration perhaps as
much as its poetic supremacy. Like
Don Quixote,
Madame Bovary and
Northanger Abbey, Eugene
Onegin is partly about the influence of reading. Onegin’s favourite
books are The Giaour and
Don Juan and a few novels
which bring to life the fashionable man of his epoch. Nabokov
believes Pushkin read Byron shortly before beginning work on
Onegin. The Byronic hero
is complex and has many antecedents, but early in the poem Onegin
displays its world-weary cynicism. It could be argued that his
rejection of Tatyana is a function of his self-centred, indulgent
(today we might call it narcissistic) personality. His fate of
loneliness and regret could, in the same way, be seen as the
inevitable outcome of his posturing.
The question of whether, beneath the posturing, there is any
substantial sense of selfhood is central to the poem. Its
fascination lies, to a degree, in its suggestion that selfhood is
nothing more than a selection of assumed poses. Onegin is a
substantially self-destructive character; does he put on this
self-destructive persona because he knows it exerts fascination? Is
it mere attention-seeking? It’s because we don’t know that Onegin’s
character remains compelling.
Onegin, and the other principal characters, are, of course,
victims of social convention. Onegin, like Pushkin himself, feels
compelled to fight the duel which does him no good. Onegin’s second,
Zaretsky, fails in his duty to offer the chance of apology. Thus,
slavery to convention and failure to meet its demands combine to
produce tragedy. Though the conventions of early nineteenth century,
upper-class Russian society are now outworn, the matter of how far
to comply with convention, what it is, where is comes from, whether
it should be resisted, remains interesting.
Eugene Onegin is,
essentially, a simple love story. The story of love gone wrong is
always sure to attract, because through our varying economic,
political, social and cultural transformations the need to love and
be love remains constant. Romantic love may be a set of passing
conventions and the culture of the harem or the brothel may suggest
that love is no more universal than Cossak dancing, but the need for
close affectionate relations is probably as much a biological
inheritance as language. It is because Onegin begins the story at
odds with himself, rejects what could fulfil him and ends up more or
less bereft that the story and its resonances continue to have
traction. Flaubert was of the view that happiness is always close at
hand if we have the modesty and insight to see it. His tragic
heroine destroys her potential happiness by categorical agreement
with social conventions and exorbitant expectations, It seems there
is a permanent tendency to overreach ourselves which constantly
violates our happiness. Whether this is the reason Pushkin’s great
work endures, is impossible to know. What’s certain is that anyone
with a keen interest in it will find here both an excellent
translation and fine erudition.
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