Eugine Onegin

Eugine Onegin
By Douglas Hofstadter

Hofstadter’s preface is an intriguing love story by a master of symbols and patterns who falls prey to compulsiveness and pounces on random coincidences. He gives in to love-for the poem, if only for the love of his wife, Carol. The question that anyone familiar with Hofstadter is; is this book Carol’s symbol, his deceased wife living beyond her mortality? Ironically, the story line by the original author Sergeevich Pushkin, the godfather of Russian literature, is a love story as well. Hence you’ll find two parallel themes in my review. First is the answer to the Hofstadter question. The second is a question to all of you. Pushkin’s love story told in poetry is one of familiar refrain. I suspect love manifests itself in many ways and thrives on many different levels..

In Hofstadter’s book I Am a Strange Loop, discussed in my review found here on Cigar Room of Books, he tells a touching true-life story of his wife’s passing. In that story he eventually climbs out of the funk he found himself in. This translation project was his bridge. He provides a rationale of how the entwined life between himself and Carol became an entwined thought pattern. Thought being capable of transcending modalities, allows is wife Carol to live on through the people she was close to, and then through generations. In piecing together the story in Strange Loop and his preface in this book, I have come to conclude that the hidden power of love drove Hofstadter, to this project so that he could release his grief and find a higher plane to express his love for Carol. The most remarkable feat I find is this book is Hofstadter's soul, already fluent in a few languages which are mere symbols of thought, flowing from the patterns of DNA, he translates a poem written in Russian, a language he is not fluent in, by the most renowned Russian author ever, and receives high accolades from Russians who say he captured the pure essence of Pushkin’s heart and mind.

You find evidence in chapter 7 verse 23: to my summation. This stanza is Tatyana’s soul reacting to the same books her long departed Onegin had read. The story places Tatyana in the same study that Onegin had spent time in. Pushkin infers that time and space becomes only somewhat relevant as she is experiencing the thoughts and feelings of her denied true love through the common denominator of the word symbols. In that room she becomes one with her lover. All of the entwined expressions of life between Douglas and Carol continue through their children and through their work.

There could be found on many pages,
The clench marks of his fingernails.
The girl, her gaze alert, engages
Two eager eyes upon these trails
Tatyana notes, with trepidation
The types of thought and observation
That struck Onegin forcefully
Things he agreed with silently.
The margins brought to her attention
Tracks from his pencil, trapped in coal.
Thus everywhere Onegins soul
Transduced itself, without intention
Through jotted words, through checks and hooks,
Through interrogatory crooks.

The story line is pretty simple and one that should find common experience amongst most readers. What makes this book worth reading is the story is told in verse. I am told many a Russian has it committed to memory which is a testament to the passion I have experienced in my Russian experiences. Eugene is your classic Russian youth full of vim and vigor and a penchant to be a man of the world. Tatyana is a unique young woman with a penchant to marry the person she loves rather than the person presented to her by society’s fate. As the story unfolds Tatyana submits her soul to Onegin in classic Russian form through a love letter invitation. Onegin, who inwardly discovers her inward beauty as well as his love for her rebukes Tatyana as being too vulnerable to withstand the realities his antics. As tradition forces herself, Tatyana is destined to be matched up with someone in the person of Eugene’s rival friend. The rivalry ends in a duel where Eugene while victor, he is deeply remorseful and becomes reclusive. As there lives take separate courses Eugene eventually finds in his approach to Tatyana the “shoe on the other foot” and an already married Tatyana, still with a deep love for Eugene must now reproach him.

To comment on the story and its translation I provide the following view. In my youth the popular song was Love The One You’re With and we all did. But until a man seasons a few years he is lacking in the skills and judgment to respond appropriately. There is much more to love than the outward directed world reveals. My guess is that the reason Russians can remember the poem, is it sings a familiar refrain in the lives of many. In reading this book if you find the same fate, close your eyes and be there now. In this world where you come in to it and leave it alone, and some times in the middle you feel the same; this poem committed to memory, may be your one friend to help you feel not so alone. I wonder if Hofstadter found this same experience?

From a scientific or Darwinian view and a take away on Hofstadter: If DNA is a pattern that evolves through experiences within each host, it is the pattern or symbol of your soul that lives on. Hence life that looks to flourish and continue on in this world requires a host willing to conceive, bare and nourish the symbol of her being, a child. That requires a mate. In natural mate selection to the host searches for a mate with the mutual respect for life, found in love for one another. A love for one another that are vested in the ability to recognize the interconnectedness found in oneness of mankind beginning with one’s self. This couple then forms a life together contributing to a home, village, and state world. This is where the continuation of their DNA (symbols of their souls) continues on.