I just finished reading Eugene Onegin, which I mostly enjoyed, but it reminded me of why I'm not into poetry/verse. Like a Mahler symphony (well, ok, some of them. Some are beginning to grow on me, and some I like, but I just cannot sit through and sit still for 2 hours straight of some of his 2-cd-length symphonies. One CD at a time, sometimes, but unless I have a lot of time on my hands, 2 cds is too long.), I can enjoy and even relish bits and pieces, but I think I'm just not one of these people who truly appreciate poetry.
I'm sure you can tell this from yours truly's writing style. This blogger (who I hope doesn't mind my linking to her w/o asking first), on the other hand, appreciates poetry. Again, you can tell by the way she writes her blog. It's beautifully written. The images (and imagery) are alluring. The language flows (and she is not even a native English speaker! ), and eloquently expressed ideas abound. I aspire to write a blog so artistically written. But I am neither poetic nor a poet, so I tend to think in sentences and paragraphs, rather than in metaphors.
It's not that I don't think some poetry is beautiful, moving etc. It's not that I didn't think big chunks of Eugene Onegin were brilliantly written, b/c they were. I found myself reading aloud several passages and enjoying the rhythm, the imagery it conveyed, etc. But I prefer the efficiency of regular sentences.
That said, I do appreciate poetic writing. E.M. Forester's Passage to India, Langston Hughes' Not Without Laughter are two books that I love for their poetic eloquence. Hughes' book, which I haven't read in years, but sometimes just like flipping through, is a tenderly written coming of age novel, while Passage to India is rife with sensual imagery and nature seems to take over the story, becoming the main characters, while the human dramatis personae get relegated to the background.
But to return to Onegin, my first beef with this particular edition, translated by Hofstadter, author of Godol, Escher, Bach, is that I found a bit of Hofstadter's personal politics poking its head in the translation. For example, it was obvious that he took issue with Nabokov's translation (which I haven't read), and unfortunately, this came out a bit too much in the notes. Sometimes, Hofstadter translated a verse a certain way, just because he "took issue" with Nabokov's version. If he wants to write an academic treatise critiquing Nabokov, that is fine, but I really wish writers would keep that sort of riffraff out of their craft and just write (or translate).
Second, there were extensive notes to explain all the references one might not get. If I'm reading an academic history book, I want copious footnotes. The more, the better. I want to know the minutiae of where a certain reference, idea, quote came from. But when I'm reading verse, having to look up a certain reference every 3 lines really kills the mood and rhythm. Also, this book was rife with references to historic names, most of which I recognized, but sometimes, I didn't understand the significance of the particular reference.
Third, although Hofstadter did a marvelous job with the translation, and surmounted the dual challenge of preserving the rhythmic flow and language integrity admirably, it is, after all, a translation, and I couldn't help but wonder how much was lost in translation. For example, it is probably impossible to get the natural rhythm and flow of many ancient Japanese texts were one to translate them into modern Japanese.
As much as I loved tidbits of EO, generally speaking, here is why I'm not one of these "appreciates poetry" people.
My version: Eugene Onegin dances with Lensky's fiancée and stokes the ire of his friend. Lensky challenges Eugene to a duel. Throw in a few sentences of context, maybe some descriptives for flair, and perhaps a bit of a character sketch, but that is several hundred words max. Maybe three paragraphs worth.
But Pushkin's version of the duel challenge spans from verse 41 of chapter 5 (where Eugene starts dancing w/ Olga), to all of chapter 6 (Lensky challenges Eugene, they duel, Lensky dies), totaling fifty verses.
Even if one hasn't seen the opera version of this (which I haven't), one can probably tell from the title what the outcome of the duel will be, since there are two more chapters after the duel, and the title, after all, is Eugene Onegin. So it wasn't that I was dying to find out what happened, but I still wanted to "cut to the chase" and skip all of that "extraneous" verse in between. (I'm sure it also didn't help that the bulk of my reading gets crammed in during the wee hours that are theoretically "past my bedtime".)
Thus, although I can now put this book into the "glad to have read" category, and plan to revisit a different translation (perhaps a version with footnotes, rather than endnotes) sometime later, after about chapter 4 or so, I was pining for the Occam's razor version, except the very last chapter, which I just couldn't put down.
And on that note, since I found a bunch of people to plow through War and Peace with, I'm off to look for a copy.
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8 comments:
I've thought about reading EO ... and especially now, since Opera San José is doing it next season ... but maybe I'll skip it.
I love some poetry. I used to consider myself a near-poet until I began studying with some friends and realized my poetry sucked; I, too, have a difficult time with metaphor. (A tree is a tree to me.) I also have a tough time being expressive in poetry, even while one of my stronger points is being a very expressive player. I guess I save the expressive part of me for music.
I envy anyone who writes poetically. It's a gift. I'm missing that gift. Sigh.
But while I wish I were a poet but I'm not, and I love poetry most of the time, I have an extremely difficult time with poetry in book-length form. I get so preoccupied with the rhythm (and rhyme, if it exists) I lose track of meaning.
I do love Mahler, though. Of course it's different when you're playing it! :-)
Ooh. Now that I've read EO, I'm interested in seeing the opera. I'm familiar w/ the (orchestral) music, but it'd be cool to see how it's done as an opera.
I'm with you on book-length verse--the verse distracts from the story line, which is what happened to me w/ EO. I'd read a line in my head. Then read it out loud. Then read the next few verses out loud. Repeat favorite passages out loud. Realize I completely missed the meaning of what I just read and start over, this time, looking for meaning (till I get distracted again. . .I also have ADD, so can't sit still for long periods.) Though I do love Shakespeare.
Awww, thanks for the compliments my dear. *head swells, then bursts*
:) Sage Broccoli quotes you a lot, too.
I think Onegin is pretty much untranslatable. A lot of Russian doesn't go into English well, especially not Pushkin's. I read Nabokov's translation once, but decided to stick to the opera after that!
Did you see the film starring my boyfriend Ralph Fiennes? The film was kind of lousy, but I love Ralph Fiennes. Did I mention I'm going to marry him and have his ten babies?
I was afraid of that, though I still think my lack of appreciation is not necessarily translation-related. Tolstoy, for example, is proving to be a much more interesting read so far.
And no, I haven't seen the movie!
... I'm not particularly a reader and *sadly* admit I am not familiar with either the orchestral or operatic versions... but I will be looking them all up.
I somewhat agree about Mahler. while I enjoy his music, it can go on over long. However, that said, I marvel at anyone who can keep the plot of a piece going for that length - rather like a novelist who can write a 600-700 page novel without seeming to just wander through it.
Hi,
Thanks for visiting. I don't know if there is an orchestral version of EO; I was just referring to the orchestral score to the opera, which now that it is showing locally, I might need to go see.
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