Reading becomes a breeze (and I just realised I totally sound like a television commercial for some sort of surface cleaner: ‘BAM! And the aristocracy’s very purpose is questioned! Eugene Onegin: For All Your Nineteenth-Century Social Critiquing Needs!’).Īt its heart, there really isn’t much plot it’s a simple case of a) young, aristocratic man is bored with his very existence (surprise surprise) b) young girl from the country falls in love with him c) things happen, most of them not jolly.

Although it’s a novel entirely in verse, don’t let that daunt you find the right translation and you immediately fall into the rhythm of the language. Eugene Onegin, with its sing-song verses, is as good an introduction to Russian literature as I can think of. Painting based on Eugene Onegin ( Image Source)īut starting with Pushkin is nothing like this. After all, what immediately springs to mind when one thinks of Russian novels are great behemoths of books, War and Peace and the complete works of Dostoevsky enough to make even the most determined reader pause with trepidation. I always looked upon Russian literature with slight fear and dread. And I have no wish to disparage Eugene Onegin, which was a refreshing change of pace for me, reading-wise. Yes, I think it’s safe to say that I’m entirely in awe of creative people. And then I feel still more pity for the tireless translators who had the monumentally difficult task of rendering those stanzas into some kind of readable English version. And if I was on the point of tearing my hair out over a joke-poem about a famous piece of literature, I can only imagine how frustrated Alexander Pushkin must have been as he sat composing Eugene Onegin, his famous verse novel, which is entirely made up of sonnet-length stanzas. Because it taught me just how difficult it is to write a sonnet (or, indeed, any poem – there go my plans of becoming a bohemian and moving to Paris to live in a loft). But although it’s quite possibly the worst thing I’ve ever written in my life (seriously – I’ve got some stories about seahorses that I wrote when I was seven years old this poem makes them look like Shakespeare), it was a useful exercise. The atrocious poem above took me far longer to compose than I care to admit. How to sum up this novel in just one word?Īll the characters are wealthy and extremely – bored. Russian aristos they knew English and Frenchīut not their mother tongue, it’s decidedly queerĪn appetite for Europe, Pushkin wanted to quench. Just the thing to inspire an emerging nation. He was a great looker, a fine young dandy ĭanced the mazurka and drank much brandy. Pushkin’s Euegene Onegin, what can I say? This book is #35 on my Classics Club List.

Onegin novel