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igenlodeThis is fanfiction. It is 100% a Modern-Day AU of "Eugene Onegin" - in verse, with Pushkin-style authorial digressions and reflections on the characters - and it's brilliantly done. And in translation, none the less; I haven't seen the French original, but this is a piece of masterly writing in its own right, and I can't imagine the difficulty of trying to get the flavour of such a thing.
The conjuring of teenage awkwardness both male and female is pitch-perfect - Tatiana running away in order to be closer to Eugene in her mind - as is the awkwardness of their reunion, and the refiguring of the setting into Parisian suburbia in the 2000s. What doesn't work for me is the 'duel' (obviously hard to find a workable modern equivalent, but I didn't feel that this one did) and the decision to make Tatiana's dilemma, as a liberated woman, be the choice between her independent career and her love-life, rather than the choice between her desires and her given word. I've seen this done elsewhere as an 'updating' of the story, and it just changes the essence of the character.
The book is very, very clever, though. And very much Pushkin, while being engaging in its own right.
No good as a 'comp' for Arctic Raoul, unfortunately, having been published in 2018. And judging by the Goodreads reviews it was marketed in America as 'YA fiction' to children who had never heard of Eugene Onegin, which as with Blood Red Snow White about Arthur Ransome was a predictable disaster. (It's perverted! It's full of 'triggers'! Eugene is such a dislikable character! Everyone is so entitled! It's all split up into poetry)...
The conjuring of teenage awkwardness both male and female is pitch-perfect - Tatiana running away in order to be closer to Eugene in her mind - as is the awkwardness of their reunion, and the refiguring of the setting into Parisian suburbia in the 2000s. What doesn't work for me is the 'duel' (obviously hard to find a workable modern equivalent, but I didn't feel that this one did) and the decision to make Tatiana's dilemma, as a liberated woman, be the choice between her independent career and her love-life, rather than the choice between her desires and her given word. I've seen this done elsewhere as an 'updating' of the story, and it just changes the essence of the character.
The book is very, very clever, though. And very much Pushkin, while being engaging in its own right.
No good as a 'comp' for Arctic Raoul, unfortunately, having been published in 2018. And judging by the Goodreads reviews it was marketed in America as 'YA fiction' to children who had never heard of Eugene Onegin, which as with Blood Red Snow White about Arthur Ransome was a predictable disaster. (It's perverted! It's full of 'triggers'! Eugene is such a dislikable character! Everyone is so entitled! It's all split up into poetry)...