Do I need to put Spoiler Alert for a novel-in-verse originally published two hundred years ago? Because likely Spoiler Alert.
Me: So I finished Yevgeny Onegin.
Geoff: And?
Me: They still don’t end up together in this translation.
Geoff: So what, you’re holding out for a translation where they do?
Me: (shifty gaze) Maybe.
I’ve read Yevgeny Onegin before, and seen the opera (actually in the opposite order in that I saw the opera first then read the book), so I knew what was coming reading this translation. I can’t really recall any issues with the translation I read fifteen years ago, not that I could tell you who was the translator of that version. This translation also seems fine (not being a student of comparative literary translations I doubt I could say much of anything intelligent contrasting such translations in any case). The stanzas rhyme (unlike Nabokov’s version, not that I’ve read that version), so of course I’ve spent the last few days bouncy-bouncy-talking in iambic tetrameter as the rhythm has invaded my brain.
What may be lacking are explanatory notes. It’s been a long time since my Russian literature course. I could remember some things, but others, a footnote or two would have been nice. But maybe the audience for another translation of Yevgeny Onegin are people who already know a whole lot about nineteenth century Russia and mayn’t need such help. But I did. Not enough to ruin my overall enjoyment of the book/poem, but every now and then I had to stop and try to remember what something meant or put it out of my mind that I didn’t know.
But Onegin — he seemed less dickish to Tatyana in this version than I remembered, but far more dickish to Lensky. I guess that’s the point, him being a superfluous cad and all. Still doesn’t change the fact that I secretly hope him and Tatyana will get together at the end of the poem. Or, at least in the book/poem, Onegin throws himself to the ground wailing as he does in the operatic version I saw, at the realization of all he could have had, all that he threw away so carelessly, tearing his shirt open and crying. Instead, Onegin gets rebuffed, Tatyana stalks out, Onegin is like “Oh, okay, I guess” and then Tatyana’s husband walks by The End. But that’s more Pushkin’s fault than Briggs’, so I guess I’ll let that slide.
Onegin, fall to your knees in overwrought operatic emotion. Aah, be still my heart.
Yevgeny Onegin by Alexander Pushkin, a new translation by A.D.P. Briggs went on sale July 12, 2016.
I received a copy free from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.