Eugene Onegin: A Novel in Verse. A Novel Versification by Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin by Douglas s> Hofstadter (review)

Abstract

REVIEWS 3 I 3 very good degree in physicsis much botheredby the problem of a photon, but the contradictionbetween historyas historyand as fuel for fiction strikesany educated reader,and Niels Bohr is not much help here. Evdokimovaexplores the role of Peter the Great in Poltava, Mednyivsadnik, ArapPetravelikogo with great intelligence and verve, just as she takes apart very neatly Pushkin's responseto Radishchev (thejourney fromMoscow to St Petersburg),to arrive at a plausibleview of a Pushkinbalancingnecessityand accident, tyrannyand revolt to arrive at some sort of liberal conservative nationalism. She is very well read on the theoryof historicalfiction and in historicalfiction of the early nineteenth century. What is missing in this work (wheremuch space is taken up by painstaking translation from French and Russian into English), is a considerationof the most glaringcontradictionsin Pushkin'shistoricallyrics. How could a man write Anchar,a profound poem which takes the most modern, anarchic and despairing view of history, and then denounce supporters of Poland as 'slanderers of Russia'? Or how could he portray himselfgalloping to Erzerum,shouting Ver banaatat any unfortunatepeasant he encountered, and yet let his Grinev expound a view of progressive humanization of power? Like Lermontov, Pushkin appears capable of maintaining two completely incompatible ideas in his head. To the rights of man, as Camus did, Pushkinwould have to add the right to walk away and the rightto contradicthimself.The lapsesof historicalimagination arejust as impressiveas the imagination itself. PerhapsSvetlana Evdokimovawill write a second volume? The Athlone Presshasreissued,withbibliographyupdatedto I997, Tatiana Wolff's compilation of all Pushkin'sutterances on literature. This is a work that has evolved over half a century and, although based on a Soviet model, not only ismore accessiblethan itsRussianpredecessors(thereis a good index and an excellentbibliographicalappendix),but thetranslationis so exemplary that, even to professional Russianists,it remains an essential vade-mecum. All we now need is more of Pushkin'spoetic texts in poetic English for Tatiana Wolff's compendium to accompany. 'They use the snaffle and the curb all right,Butwhere'sthe bloody horse?' Queen.lary College DONALD RAYFIELD University ofLondon Hofstadter,Douglas (ed.). Eugene Onegin. A Novelin Verse. ANovelVersification by AlexanderSergeevich Pushkin.Basic Books, New York, 1999. lxvi + I37 pp. Notes. Illustrations.?15.50: $22.00. IT may well come as a surprisethat a new attempt to anglicize Pushkin's masterpiece should appear so soon after the publication of James Falen's excellent version (Oxford University Press, I998). Douglas Hofstadter (a distinguishedcognitive scientistand winner of the Pulitzerprize for an earlier book) is a relativelynew but immensely enthusiasticadmirerof Pushkin,and he has produced, whatever else, a version of EvgeniiOneginwhich is distinct from its predecessors. In his garrulous Translator's Preface, Professor Hofstadter not only gives a blow-by-blow account of how he learned (some) 314 SEER, 79, 2, 2001 Russian for the purpose of popularizing Pushkin's novel in verse (many readers may choose to skip this very leisurely exercise in autobiography), but also makes comparisons with other translations (into English) and offers a critique of his own work vis-A-vis those of Oliver Elton (revised by A. D. P. Briggs), Walter Arndt, Charles Johnston, James Falen, and Hofstadter's nemesis Vladimir Nabokov. This he does mainly on the basis of Chapter 4, Stanza 20 where even the much admired Falen, whose translation had inspired this new enterprise, is below his best or, as his admirer puts it, 'to tell the truth, a rather run-of-the-mill effort for him' (p. xxix). The present reviewer gives the same fourteen lines as an illustration of the Hofstadter style, rather than choosing an exceptionally felicitous or, indeed, inept passage (the standard is uneven, perhaps not surprisingly, as the translation was produced at the rate of one stanza a day): Hallo, hulloo, my gentle reader! And how'reyour kinfolk,old and young? Praylet me tellyou, asyour leader, Some scuttlebuttabout our tongue. WAhat's 'kin'?It'srelativelysubtle, Butyou'll tune in if I but scuttle: Our kithand kinwe're meant to love; We dish out kisses,tokensof Our high esteem;we pay a visit Each Christmas -it's a Russianrut Or else send notes in greeting,but... It isn't out of fondness,is it? It'sall so they'llforgetforthwith Us...