I'm probably the last person who should respond, since I
know "neither Onegin, nor Nabokov's translation of it, nor,
indeed, the Russian language".

But two people have expressed incomprehension at how anyone
could call VN's /Onegin/ "perverse".  I can imagine how someone
might come up with that opinion.  Suppose the person thought, in
spite of VN's arguments, that the goal of translating great
poetry was to produce something that resembled the original by
being a great poem, and further thought that this goal could be
achieved.  Such a person might say that Nabokov was the ideal
translator of /Onegin/ into an English masterpiece.  Then it's
precisely Nabokov's stated goal--a pony, not a Pegasus--that
would strike such a person as perverse.

To me, "perverse" is exactly the word to express this opinion.
It doesn't suggest incompetence or failure at one's aim.
It's "Obstinately persisting in an error or fault; wrongly self-
willed or stubborn", according to the /American Heritage
Dictionary/.  If Nabokov's intention was an error (according
to the opinion I've imagined), he certainly persisted in it
stubbornly.

Jerry Friedman

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EDNote: Jerry Friedman raises a valid point.  It seems to me that "such
a person" as he posits would, in his terms, be taking a perverse
position in presuming to determine what VN's goals should or should not
be.  -SB