Romeo & Juliet meets Jane Austen in Russian Tragedy (i.e. Eugene Onegin)

Hello to all my quarantine readers out there, and to those who read before it was cool. I have finally finished my next book! It was a much shorter read than I expected, but boy was it a wild ride! If you like love, intrigue, odd melancholic people who pine for one another and completely miss their shot, and of course balls (the dance kind)... this could be the next adventure you go on. (This is for those of you who are willing to step out of your comfort zone or are literature/play lovers.)

The reason I ended up reading Eugene Onegin is because way back when, in high school, I had a teacher who made us read a little Russian Lit. It was a weird, dark, theatrical world I stepped into, unlike anything I had ever read before. Honestly, the Russian poets and authors made Shakespeare look like a play for kids. I grew up with a mother who was an English major and I often found myself lofting through the pages of Romeo & Juliet or Midsummer Night’s Dream at home. (Granted I had no idea what any of it was until high school). But as a kid the idea of fairies and mayhem appealed to me. So, it was no surprise that the playful themes of Pushkin stoked my inner imagination.

I began reading the book because of a friend. I wanted to read a genre I hadn’t read before or read very little of. For some reason, my brain settled on Russian Literature. My friend is a former ballerina and knew me well enough to know I’m a bleeding-heart romantic (even if I don’t seem like it on the surface). He told me of a ballet he used to dance in all the time called Eugene Onegin (it's also an opera). I had never heard of it and thought it was a strange idea to read a ballet, but he convinced me, and I began my journey.

The book is in three sections. The first is all about the translation aspect. Believe it or not, it takes years to translate Russian poetry into a comprehensive English novel. My history-loving self appreciated the fact the author, Stanley Mitchell, laid out the timeline of all the events that were going on during the time Pushkin wrote the novel. There was lots of civil unrest and poets were being killed due to the enlightenment ideals they subscribed to at the time. I was thankful for this section because I don’t know much about Russian history and needed the background information to understand some of the references. To me it was fascinating, but still hard to get through.

The actual discussion of the language translation almost put me to sleep. I learned a lot about the poetic and grammatical form Pushkin used, but it was so painful to get through. Unfortunately, the beauty of Pushkin’s rhyme doesn’t come through as clearly in English. Even though Mitchell took painstaking efforts to get the translation as close to the rhythm as possible it’s still not quite the same. If you are a true nerd and have the ability to figure out Russian, I’d highly recommend reading it in the original language. The main reason is because Pushkin writes in a form called the tetrameter. It’s his own creation, like how Shakespeare created Iambic Pentameter. It presents a very sing-songy atmosphere for the novel which I really enjoyed.

Although very informative and something I liked, the first part is not a light read. It's dry with lots of information packed into every sentence. It doesn't read super easily either, so if you're a person who gets bored quickly by reading these sorts of things, skip it. Otherwise you will never end up actually reading the novel, which would be a shame because that's the fun part.

The novel itself is not very long. Honestly, most of the book is the actual explanation of things. I got through this section in a day. It is a tragedy, almost a more subtle Romeo & Juliet (you’ll have to read it to understand what I mean). It has a couple weird dream sequences like many ballets. It also has an aspect where Pushkin writes in the first person. That was kind of difficult for me to adjust to. It kind of feels like the ramblings of an old man that is very lonely and on the verge of Alzheimer's. It bounces back and forth between him and the narration of the story. Sometimes the transition is very abrupt and gets confusing.

In this book Pushkin also omitted a lot of sections due to personal dislike of them or the political atmosphere at the time. That creates random chaos for scene changes and plot progression. Mitchell was kind enough to translate those as well in his last section of the book to help fill in some gaps. Interesting yes, but I wouldn’t say these are a necessity to enjoy or understand the book. There are also copious amounts of notes to explain all of the very odd nuances of Pushkin’s writing.

If you are a person who likes a happy ending and don’t like dark undertones in a book, I would sit this one out. This is for the Shakespeare lovers, the Jane Eyre enthusiasts, and people who are interested and willing to give something new a shot. If worse comes to worst and you can’t handle it, or aren’t interested, you can always look for it among the ballet troops nearest you and go watch it! (Shameless plug for supporting the arts 😊)