At last, I broke the curse of hating every single epic poem I have read since maybe Troilus and Cressida. I read this in German, and the translation was very pleasant in that there was a perfect rhyme scheme. I did wonder about that, though - I would have thought a translation close to the text wouldn't manage that. But I enjoyed it.

It follows Eugen Onegin, a sort of feckless wanderer type, who consistently gets into trouble by not really wanting to commit to anyone or anything. He inherits a nice estate though no effort of his own, and then he proceeds to sit around there reading his friends' poetry and telling him his taste in women is shit. Said friend drags him to meet his fiancee, who has a sister, who is instantly in love with Eugen. He shoots her down with some well-known bullshit (It's not you, it's me; I love you like a sister). Then he flirts with the friends' fiancee to dick him around a bit, and they have a duel which kills the friend. Ironic, considering how Pushkin died.

Fast forward through a bit that Pushkin deleted from the text originally. Tatjana marries into the aristocracy, Eugen is totally into her now and asks her to betray her husband. She tells him he's being a dick. It ends on a cliffhanger. I think maybe this is why I enjoyed this, it was such a simple story at heart and it left room to enjoy the poetry and the background details, of which there were loads.