I'm actually really surprised that I'm the only person who is offering Alexander Pushkin's
Eugene Onegin (
wiki article,
online text) this year for Yuletide.
Basic storyline? Russia, 1820s-30s.
Eugene Onegin, a wealthy Petersburg dandy utterly bored with life, inherits his uncle's country estate and goes to live there for some time. He befriends his neighbor,
Vladimir Lensky who introduces Onegin to
Olga and Tatiana Larin (his fiance and her sister). The dreamy and poetic Tatiana falls in love with Onegin and even goes as far as to write him a letter. But she's a simple country girl and he;s not interested and tells her so. Later, Lensky drags Onegin to Tatiana's name day party where Onegin is bored and uncomfortable under Tatiana's love-struck gaze. He flirts with Olga to rile Lensky up as a sort of revenge for dragging him to the affair. Lensky -- naive and childish as he is -- challenges Onegin to a duel. Let's just say it doesn't go well and Onegin leaves for Europe devastated. He returns to Petersburg 6 years later where to suddenly finds Tatiana -- married and in high society circles. This time around he's the one doing the chasing...
NOW. Aside from a nice love story and Pushkin's exquisite poetry (which is somewhat lost in translation, sadly) there is this whole Onegin and Lensjy thing. Boy!friendship or boy!love?
( Excerpt 1 )
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Their friendship, Vladimir's excessive jealousy when Onegin dances with Olga and the fact that he can forgive Olga but not Eugene, how remorseful Eugene is about the duel....there is this intense chemistry between them.
( MINI PICSPAM )