Eugene Onegin

Eugene Oneginis the master work of the poet whom Russians regard as the fountainhead of their literature. Set in 1820s Russia, Pushkin's verse novel follows the fates of three men and three women. Engaging, full of suspense, and varied in tone, it also portrays a large cast of othercharacters and offers the reader many literary, philosophical, and autobiographical digressions, often in a highly satirical vein.Eugene Oneginwas Pushkin's own favourite work, and this new translation conveys the literal sense and the poetic music of the original.

What Hacker News says

chchJun 2024

I always saw Pale Fire as somewhat of self-parody, which made me enjoy it more.

Seven years before Pale Fire came out, Nabokov was working on his translation of Eugene Onegin. Often, people argue that a translated novel should have no end/footnotes, because a "good translation" should read "naturally" to a reader. Nabokov disagreed, and wrote an article that included the phrase:

> "I want translations with copious footnotes, footnotes reaching up like skyscrapers to the top of this or that page so as to leave only the gleam of one textual line between commentary and eternity." [1]

Quite a fun image, and one he took somewhat seriously, as his endnote commentary for Onegin is more than twice as long as the translation itself! [2]

So, for me personally, I can't imagine a world where he didn't reflect on his own zeal here, and realize "I think there's a novel idea in here somewhere!"

[1] "Problems in Translation: Onegin in English." Partisan Review 22, no. 4 (1955): 512.

[2] https://secondstorybooks.cdn.bibliopolis.com/pictures/136717...

thread

Jun8Jul 2018

Great essay, e.g.

"There should be a word for the ambiguous kinship between translators who share an author. It’s a bond marked by tender antagonism or light rivalry, mixed with a uniquely intimate solidarity."

It does seem interesting that such a word does not exist in light of the bitter feuds resulting from translations one of the foremost being Nabokov vs.Wilson (summary: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/09/books/review/feud-nabokov..., read Wilson's scathing review of the Eugene Onegin translation that's a textbook case of a hatchet job: http://www.nybooks.com/articles/1965/07/15/the-strange-case-...).

If you're interested in her, another good essay is by her other translator, Benjamin Moser, adapted from his Introduction to Collected Stories : https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/the-true-glamour....

A good essay about the Bishop-Lispector relationship is https://www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/70270/its-complica.... From what we know of Lispector's development, Bishop's assertion that “She’s never read anything that I can discover” sounds either like gross naïveté or an outsider's bumbling misunderstanding. But it agreed with the carefully constructed self image by Lispector, e.g. see https://www.thenation.com/article/not-the-word-but-the-thing....

“What if Clarice Lispector had not been a disconcerting beauty?” is an interesting question examined lightly here. Again, I'd say that the beatific, straight pose is an important part of the image that Lispector herself created rather than the one imposed on her by "the male gaze". Almost all images of her have the rather unsettling straight on gaze, more of a glare really, and she never smiles.

thread

rustyfeJun 2014

I just finished reading The Signal and The Noise by Nate Silver. It was an interesting read, but it felt a bit shallow in it's analysis.

I was feeling the need for some fiction, so I picked up Vladimir Nabokov's translation of Eugene Onegin by Aleksandr Pushkin. Not sure what to think about it yet, but it's interesting reading Nabokov's analysis and seeing into his mindset a little. Sheds some light on his work as well.

thread