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First Love
Used book in good condition, due to its age it could contain normal signs of use
124 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1860
About the author
Ivan Turgenev
1,936 books2,396 followersIvan Sergeyevich Turgenev (Cyrillic: Иван Сергеевич Тургенев) was a novelist, poet, and dramatist, and now ranks as one of the towering figures of Russian literature. His major works include the short-story collection A Sportsman’s Sketches (1852) and the novels Rudin (1856), Home of the Gentry (1859), On the Eve (1860), and Fathers and Sons (1862).
These works offer realistic, affectionate portrayals of the Russian peasantry and penetrating studies of the Russian intelligentsia who were attempting to move the country into a new age. His masterpiece, Fathers and Sons, is considered one of the greatest novels of the nineteenth century.
Turgenev was a contemporary with Fyodor Dostoevsky and Leo Tolstoy. While these wrote about church and religion, Turgenev was more concerned with the movement toward social reform in Russia.
These works offer realistic, affectionate portrayals of the Russian peasantry and penetrating studies of the Russian intelligentsia who were attempting to move the country into a new age. His masterpiece, Fathers and Sons, is considered one of the greatest novels of the nineteenth century.
Turgenev was a contemporary with Fyodor Dostoevsky and Leo Tolstoy. While these wrote about church and religion, Turgenev was more concerned with the movement toward social reform in Russia.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,836 reviews
December 21, 2022
O sweet feelings, soft sounds, goodness and peace of a moved spirit, the melting joy of the first tender emotions of love - - where are you, where are you?
Nostalgia.
Reading First love made me wonder on the nature of nostalgia. Is the nostalgic feeling negative or positive? Is First love, the 1860 novella of which Turgenev by the end of his life thought of fondly as ‘the only thing that still gives me pleasure, because it is life itself, it was not made up….First Love is part of my experience’ - a tale of nostalgia? If nostalgia means ‘the pain from an old wound’, a feeling in which bitter-sweetness is preponderant, the novella certainly is a nostalgic one. If nostalgia is rather ‘a wistful desire to return in thought or in fact to a former time in one’s life, to one’s home or homeland, or to one’s family and friends; a sentimental yearning for the happiness of a former place or time’ – I would think of this story as of a profound melancholy, rather than a nostalgic one. Even taking into account a slight tinge of sadness is an intrinsic part of nostalgia, the tale of the narrator can hardly be seen as the wish to turn back time reminiscing on feelings of pleasure in the past.
Unlike my experiences with other Russian 19th century writers in my teens, my first acquaintance with Ivan Turgenev’s writing wasn’t exactly a coup de foudre. Reading Fathers and Sons at sixteen, having high expectations of that classic novel (curious I was about the ‘nihilism’) Turgenev’s tale didn’t enthral me like Anton Chekhov’s stories (The Lady With the Little Dog and Other Stories, 1896-1904), Tolstoy’s War and Peace, or Dostoyevsky’s The Idiot and Crime and Punishment did. Subsequently, I disregarded him for about the next thirty years. Nonetheless, by various ways Turgenev reminded me of his existence more than any other Russian writer did: I encountered him when reading Flaubert’s letters, when reading on Eugène Delacroix, on Franz Liszt, Frédéric Chopin and George Sand – or on Dostoyevsky’s peregrinations (on their feud and quarrel/near fight in Baden-Baden). A few years ago I read his Home of the Gentry, which mesmerised me and for the first time it dawned on me that reading Turgenev for me might equate the relish of drinking wine, which I also only later in life got to appreciate. A friend writes about Turgenev’s style that it is softer, more subtle than the style of some of his fellow 19th century Russian writers and he, I feel, is spot on – Turgenev’s prose is of a sensitivity, beauty and subtlety which I think was wasted on my hapless teen self.
Sometimes a title seduces, sometimes it keeps me from reading a book. Such was the case with First love which I could have read far earlier, when I got a marvellous bibliophile edition of First love as a Christmas present from the typographer of the law publishing house I was working for more than twenty years ago. I presume I passed it to my father, as no longer finding it in the bookcase at home. It had a beautiful, purple cover and delicate paper, the kind of book one glances through with awe. I assumed the subject of First Love – which to my ears sounded like puppy love – wouldn’t particularly speak to me, nor when I would have read it at the age of the protagonist when the events unfold, nor later when I considered that phase in life too remote to be of interest anymore. And maybe I am still that sentimental I simply dislike the fact that the word ‘first’ ineludibly implies the sense of an ending? Maybe my nostalgia for that first love isn’t strong enough (we were both five years old, and according to our parents, very much in love with each other)? But I was wrong. First love is far richer than a mawkish tale on unrequited adolescent love (why is all in Dolors’s fabulous review). To me it is the narrative frame, the middle-aged Vladimir Petrovich recounting his recollection of his emotional experiences as a sixteen year old, infatuated with an impoverished, aristocratic young woman, larding his account with his comments and musings on time, love, youth and aging which makes this story (of which the denouement is a little predictable) so effective, intense and affecting. The plot and the denouement might be a little predictable, I loved the melancholic glow the tale wallows in.
In The Road to Middlemarch: My Life with George Eliot , the author, Rebecca Mead, writes about Eliot as ‘the great artist of disappointment. Her characters, even the good ones, stumble, fall, and fail—not into inexorable tragedy, for the most part, but into limited, mortal resignation’. Concurrently, when reading First Love is it rather obvious why Turgenev has been called ‘a poet of disappointment’. The human condition worded in an achingly beautiful prose.
Take this magnificent phrase:
The air blew in a gust for an instant; a streak of fire flashed across the sky; it was a star falling. ‘Zinaïda?’ I wanted to call, but the word died away on my lips. And all at once everything became profoundly still around, as is often the case in the middle of the night. . . . Even the grasshoppers ceased their churr in the trees — only a window rattled somewhere. I stood and stood, and then went back to my room, to my chilled bed. I felt a strange sensation; as though I had gone to a tryst, and had been left lonely, and had passed close by another’s happiness.
And it is this, this masterly evocation of happiness that seemed so near, which is just out of reach but cannot be grasped, which affected me most both in First Love as well as in Home of the Gentry. Yes, this is life.
If only for this sentence, First love was worth reading to me. It was another reminder how books, in just one sentence, paragraph or stanza can capture the essence of life – its sadness, its futility, the moment when we realise happiness might be for others, but not for us – the dawning and wilting of promise, the wisdom of resignation. Older, sadder, wiser, I think I am finally able to appreciate the kind of treasures Turgenev has to offer, and I could concur with Vladimir Petrovich looking back (on love): ‘I wouldn’t want it ever to be repeated, but I would have considered myself unfortunate if I’d never experienced it.’
As Turgenev wrote to Countess Lambert in 1861: ‘All my life belongs to the past. All that is dear in the present is a reflection of the past. And what, after all, was the best about the past? Hope…the possibility of hoping…in other words, the future…’.
Nostalgia.
(Illustrations Anna and Elena Balbusso)
Nostalgia.
Reading First love made me wonder on the nature of nostalgia. Is the nostalgic feeling negative or positive? Is First love, the 1860 novella of which Turgenev by the end of his life thought of fondly as ‘the only thing that still gives me pleasure, because it is life itself, it was not made up….First Love is part of my experience’ - a tale of nostalgia? If nostalgia means ‘the pain from an old wound’, a feeling in which bitter-sweetness is preponderant, the novella certainly is a nostalgic one. If nostalgia is rather ‘a wistful desire to return in thought or in fact to a former time in one’s life, to one’s home or homeland, or to one’s family and friends; a sentimental yearning for the happiness of a former place or time’ – I would think of this story as of a profound melancholy, rather than a nostalgic one. Even taking into account a slight tinge of sadness is an intrinsic part of nostalgia, the tale of the narrator can hardly be seen as the wish to turn back time reminiscing on feelings of pleasure in the past.
Unlike my experiences with other Russian 19th century writers in my teens, my first acquaintance with Ivan Turgenev’s writing wasn’t exactly a coup de foudre. Reading Fathers and Sons at sixteen, having high expectations of that classic novel (curious I was about the ‘nihilism’) Turgenev’s tale didn’t enthral me like Anton Chekhov’s stories (The Lady With the Little Dog and Other Stories, 1896-1904), Tolstoy’s War and Peace, or Dostoyevsky’s The Idiot and Crime and Punishment did. Subsequently, I disregarded him for about the next thirty years. Nonetheless, by various ways Turgenev reminded me of his existence more than any other Russian writer did: I encountered him when reading Flaubert’s letters, when reading on Eugène Delacroix, on Franz Liszt, Frédéric Chopin and George Sand – or on Dostoyevsky’s peregrinations (on their feud and quarrel/near fight in Baden-Baden). A few years ago I read his Home of the Gentry, which mesmerised me and for the first time it dawned on me that reading Turgenev for me might equate the relish of drinking wine, which I also only later in life got to appreciate. A friend writes about Turgenev’s style that it is softer, more subtle than the style of some of his fellow 19th century Russian writers and he, I feel, is spot on – Turgenev’s prose is of a sensitivity, beauty and subtlety which I think was wasted on my hapless teen self.
Sometimes a title seduces, sometimes it keeps me from reading a book. Such was the case with First love which I could have read far earlier, when I got a marvellous bibliophile edition of First love as a Christmas present from the typographer of the law publishing house I was working for more than twenty years ago. I presume I passed it to my father, as no longer finding it in the bookcase at home. It had a beautiful, purple cover and delicate paper, the kind of book one glances through with awe. I assumed the subject of First Love – which to my ears sounded like puppy love – wouldn’t particularly speak to me, nor when I would have read it at the age of the protagonist when the events unfold, nor later when I considered that phase in life too remote to be of interest anymore. And maybe I am still that sentimental I simply dislike the fact that the word ‘first’ ineludibly implies the sense of an ending? Maybe my nostalgia for that first love isn’t strong enough (we were both five years old, and according to our parents, very much in love with each other)? But I was wrong. First love is far richer than a mawkish tale on unrequited adolescent love (why is all in Dolors’s fabulous review). To me it is the narrative frame, the middle-aged Vladimir Petrovich recounting his recollection of his emotional experiences as a sixteen year old, infatuated with an impoverished, aristocratic young woman, larding his account with his comments and musings on time, love, youth and aging which makes this story (of which the denouement is a little predictable) so effective, intense and affecting. The plot and the denouement might be a little predictable, I loved the melancholic glow the tale wallows in.
In The Road to Middlemarch: My Life with George Eliot , the author, Rebecca Mead, writes about Eliot as ‘the great artist of disappointment. Her characters, even the good ones, stumble, fall, and fail—not into inexorable tragedy, for the most part, but into limited, mortal resignation’. Concurrently, when reading First Love is it rather obvious why Turgenev has been called ‘a poet of disappointment’. The human condition worded in an achingly beautiful prose.
Take this magnificent phrase:
The air blew in a gust for an instant; a streak of fire flashed across the sky; it was a star falling. ‘Zinaïda?’ I wanted to call, but the word died away on my lips. And all at once everything became profoundly still around, as is often the case in the middle of the night. . . . Even the grasshoppers ceased their churr in the trees — only a window rattled somewhere. I stood and stood, and then went back to my room, to my chilled bed. I felt a strange sensation; as though I had gone to a tryst, and had been left lonely, and had passed close by another’s happiness.
And it is this, this masterly evocation of happiness that seemed so near, which is just out of reach but cannot be grasped, which affected me most both in First Love as well as in Home of the Gentry. Yes, this is life.
If only for this sentence, First love was worth reading to me. It was another reminder how books, in just one sentence, paragraph or stanza can capture the essence of life – its sadness, its futility, the moment when we realise happiness might be for others, but not for us – the dawning and wilting of promise, the wisdom of resignation. Older, sadder, wiser, I think I am finally able to appreciate the kind of treasures Turgenev has to offer, and I could concur with Vladimir Petrovich looking back (on love): ‘I wouldn’t want it ever to be repeated, but I would have considered myself unfortunate if I’d never experienced it.’
As Turgenev wrote to Countess Lambert in 1861: ‘All my life belongs to the past. All that is dear in the present is a reflection of the past. And what, after all, was the best about the past? Hope…the possibility of hoping…in other words, the future…’.
Nostalgia.
(Illustrations Anna and Elena Balbusso)
April 21, 2023
My outstanding reviews backlog is getting really bad. I finished this novella at the beginning of February and we are almost leaving April behind. Arghh, I am panicking a bit. Breath in, breath out.
Ok. Some classics are called classics for a reason. They are masterpieces that should be read across the ages and the skill of the writer should be admired for eternity. First Love by Turgenev is one such classic.
During a conversation with friends, one man shares the story of his first love. When young, he falls in love with an older girl, an impoverished princess of sorts, who is courted by many. We get to see all stages of his infatuation, who transforms in obsession, hurt and so on. Everything in not too many pages, just the right amount.
Ok. Some classics are called classics for a reason. They are masterpieces that should be read across the ages and the skill of the writer should be admired for eternity. First Love by Turgenev is one such classic.
During a conversation with friends, one man shares the story of his first love. When young, he falls in love with an older girl, an impoverished princess of sorts, who is courted by many. We get to see all stages of his infatuation, who transforms in obsession, hurt and so on. Everything in not too many pages, just the right amount.
November 19, 2021
Первая любовь (Pervaya ljubov) = First Love, Ivan Turgenev
First Love is a novella by Ivan Turgenev, first published in 1860.
It is one of his most popular pieces of short fiction. It tells the love story between a 21-year-old girl and a 16-year-old boy.
Set in the world of nineteenth-century Russia's fading aristocracy, Turgenev's story depicts a boy's growth of knowledge and mastery over his own heart as he awakens to the complex nature of adult love.
عنوانهای چاپ شده در ایران: «نخستین عشق»؛ «عشق اول»؛ نویسنده: ایوان تورگنیف؛ تاریخ نخستین خوانش: سال 2002میلادی
عنوان: نخستین عشق؛ ایوان تورگنیف؛ مترجم: محمدهادی شفیعیها؛ تهران، کتابهای جیبی، چاپ دوم سال1343؛ در159ص؛ چاپ دیگر تهران، ماهی، سال1389، در145ص؛ شابک9789642090877؛ موضوع: داستانهای آداب و رسوم از نویسندگان روسیه - سده19م
عنوان: نخستین عشق؛ ایوان تورگنیف؛ مترجم: عبدالحسین نوشین؛ تهران، کتاب درنا، سال1370؛ در208ص؛ چاپ دوم سال1371؛ چهارم سال1377؛چاپ پنجم سال1378؛
عنوان: نخستین عشق؛ ایوان تورگنیف؛ مترجم: ولی الله شادان؛ تهران، فرزان روز، سال1381؛ در97ص؛ چاپ دوم سال1389؛ شابک9789643213251؛ چاپ سوم سال1390؛ چاپ چهارم سال1394؛
عنوان: نخستین عشق؛ ایوان تورگنیف؛ مترجم: بهاره پاریاب؛ تهران، وسعت، زهره، ایران سخن، سال1386؛ در164ص؛ شابک9786009012374؛
عنوان: نخستین عشق؛ ایوان تورگنیف؛ مترجم: بابک شهاب؛ تهران، به نگار، سال1391؛ در126ص؛ شابک9786006835174؛
عنوان: نخستین عشق؛ ایوان تورگنیف؛ مترجم عبدالحسین نوشین؛ ویراستار جمشید نوایی؛ تصحیح آرش قلعه گلاب؛ مشهد، بوتیمار، تهران، نگاه، سال1391؛ در141ص؛ شابک9789649963105؛
عنوان: عشق اول و دو داستان دیگر؛ ایوان تورگنیف؛ داستایوسکی؛ مترجم از روسی: سروش حبیبی؛ تهران، فرهنگ معاصر، سال1391؛ در288ص؛ شابک9786001050602؛
عنوان: سه داستان عاشقانه (نخستین عشق، آسیا، سیلابهای بهاری)؛ ایوان تورگنیف؛ مترجم: عبدالحسین نوشین؛ تویسرکان، نشر تاخ، سال1377؛ در297ص؛ شابک9789649963105؛
عشق بزرگترين موهبت زندگی است، و نخستین عشق چنان مقامی دارد، که یادمان لذتبخش آن هماره با انسان میماند؛ «تورگنیف» در داستان «نخستين عشق»، با گوشه ی چشمی به روانشناسی، ماجرا را بازمیگویند؛ این داستان از جوانی خود «تورگنیف» مایه میگیرد؛ نویسنده سرگذشت نخستین دلدادگی خود را، به صورت داستان پرداخته اند؛ دختری که در داستان «زیناییدا» نام دارد، در حقیقت «یکاترینا لوونا شاخوتسکایا» نام داشته است، و پرنسسی بی چیز بوده؛ این پرنسس «یکاترینا لوونا» طبع شعر داشته، سرده های خود را منتشر میکرده؛ معشوق او نیز به راستی پدر «تورگنیف»، که به راستی مردی بسیار جذاب بوده، و با همسرش، که مادر «تورگنیف» باشند، و از خودش مسنتر اما بسیار ثروتمند بوده، ازدواج کرده بودند
تاریخ بهنگام رسانی 22/12/1399هجری خورشیدی؛ 27/08/1400هجری خورشیدی؛ ا. شربیانی
First Love is a novella by Ivan Turgenev, first published in 1860.
It is one of his most popular pieces of short fiction. It tells the love story between a 21-year-old girl and a 16-year-old boy.
Set in the world of nineteenth-century Russia's fading aristocracy, Turgenev's story depicts a boy's growth of knowledge and mastery over his own heart as he awakens to the complex nature of adult love.
عنوانهای چاپ شده در ایران: «نخستین عشق»؛ «عشق اول»؛ نویسنده: ایوان تورگنیف؛ تاریخ نخستین خوانش: سال 2002میلادی
عنوان: نخستین عشق؛ ایوان تورگنیف؛ مترجم: محمدهادی شفیعیها؛ تهران، کتابهای جیبی، چاپ دوم سال1343؛ در159ص؛ چاپ دیگر تهران، ماهی، سال1389، در145ص؛ شابک9789642090877؛ موضوع: داستانهای آداب و رسوم از نویسندگان روسیه - سده19م
عنوان: نخستین عشق؛ ایوان تورگنیف؛ مترجم: عبدالحسین نوشین؛ تهران، کتاب درنا، سال1370؛ در208ص؛ چاپ دوم سال1371؛ چهارم سال1377؛چاپ پنجم سال1378؛
عنوان: نخستین عشق؛ ایوان تورگنیف؛ مترجم: ولی الله شادان؛ تهران، فرزان روز، سال1381؛ در97ص؛ چاپ دوم سال1389؛ شابک9789643213251؛ چاپ سوم سال1390؛ چاپ چهارم سال1394؛
عنوان: نخستین عشق؛ ایوان تورگنیف؛ مترجم: بهاره پاریاب؛ تهران، وسعت، زهره، ایران سخن، سال1386؛ در164ص؛ شابک9786009012374؛
عنوان: نخستین عشق؛ ایوان تورگنیف؛ مترجم: بابک شهاب؛ تهران، به نگار، سال1391؛ در126ص؛ شابک9786006835174؛
عنوان: نخستین عشق؛ ایوان تورگنیف؛ مترجم عبدالحسین نوشین؛ ویراستار جمشید نوایی؛ تصحیح آرش قلعه گلاب؛ مشهد، بوتیمار، تهران، نگاه، سال1391؛ در141ص؛ شابک9789649963105؛
عنوان: عشق اول و دو داستان دیگر؛ ایوان تورگنیف؛ داستایوسکی؛ مترجم از روسی: سروش حبیبی؛ تهران، فرهنگ معاصر، سال1391؛ در288ص؛ شابک9786001050602؛
عنوان: سه داستان عاشقانه (نخستین عشق، آسیا، سیلابهای بهاری)؛ ایوان تورگنیف؛ مترجم: عبدالحسین نوشین؛ تویسرکان، نشر تاخ، سال1377؛ در297ص؛ شابک9789649963105؛
عشق بزرگترين موهبت زندگی است، و نخستین عشق چنان مقامی دارد، که یادمان لذتبخش آن هماره با انسان میماند؛ «تورگنیف» در داستان «نخستين عشق»، با گوشه ی چشمی به روانشناسی، ماجرا را بازمیگویند؛ این داستان از جوانی خود «تورگنیف» مایه میگیرد؛ نویسنده سرگذشت نخستین دلدادگی خود را، به صورت داستان پرداخته اند؛ دختری که در داستان «زیناییدا» نام دارد، در حقیقت «یکاترینا لوونا شاخوتسکایا» نام داشته است، و پرنسسی بی چیز بوده؛ این پرنسس «یکاترینا لوونا» طبع شعر داشته، سرده های خود را منتشر میکرده؛ معشوق او نیز به راستی پدر «تورگنیف»، که به راستی مردی بسیار جذاب بوده، و با همسرش، که مادر «تورگنیف» باشند، و از خودش مسنتر اما بسیار ثروتمند بوده، ازدواج کرده بودند
تاریخ بهنگام رسانی 22/12/1399هجری خورشیدی؛ 27/08/1400هجری خورشیدی؛ ا. شربیانی
May 20, 2017
This short story explores the complexity of love, its raptures and tormenting effects on the heart of an inexperienced young man of sixteen, Vladimir, who spends the summer of 1833 in a cottage nearby the Neskuchni gardens in the outskirts of Moscow.
Who doesn’t remember falling in love for the first time? Trying to put into words the rush of contradictory emotions, the awakening of desire tangled with the insecurities of youth and the loss of the innocence of childhood is like trying to describe the immeasurable vastness of the universe, of which we cannot even start scratching the surface. And yet Turgenev masters his art and delivers a tale so rich in nuance, detail and realism that it’s impossible not to relive the inexpressible state of intoxication that is linked to first love.
There is a distinctive European taste to Turgenev’s approach without it resembling the contemporary Romantic authors of the time. Vladimir will enter the adult world of deceitfulness, guilt, jealousy and suffering that so is intrinsically woven into the human psyche and will become painfully aware of the treacherous nature of emotions. Princess Zaskeyin, the object of his fervent adoration, will change the meaning of the young man’s life in ways he cannot predict that will also affect the apparent balance of his family of noble descend, which reflects the ongoing profound change the Russian society was submitted to at the onset of the nineteenth century.
Turgenev’s character portrayal is not only delicately accurate but also revealing of gender and class disparities. Princess Zaskeyin may appear capricious and flirtatious at first glance, but her condition is one attached to her deplorable role as a mere object of beauty to be possessed, a trophy to be exhibited to attract suitors and a steady source of income for her impoverished mother. On the other hand, the masculine dominance is but a farce when passion is unleashed and threatens to shatter all superficial decorum, leaving all the characters equally exposed to the turmoil of unrequited or, and forbidden love.
Shrouded in melancholic prose that taunts the reader with passages of lush descriptions of inner and outer landscapes, this tale is an affirmation of life as a continuous process that is partially revealed in stages but never fully disclosed.
Mind and heart might become one in Turgenev’s crystalline storytelling, where the interior world of the characters flows unhindered to the shores of the reader’s conscience, sending the warning that love is a dangerous weapon that can inflict wounds impossible to heal… but what a catastrophe to never suffer from its vicious bite!
Who doesn’t remember falling in love for the first time? Trying to put into words the rush of contradictory emotions, the awakening of desire tangled with the insecurities of youth and the loss of the innocence of childhood is like trying to describe the immeasurable vastness of the universe, of which we cannot even start scratching the surface. And yet Turgenev masters his art and delivers a tale so rich in nuance, detail and realism that it’s impossible not to relive the inexpressible state of intoxication that is linked to first love.
There is a distinctive European taste to Turgenev’s approach without it resembling the contemporary Romantic authors of the time. Vladimir will enter the adult world of deceitfulness, guilt, jealousy and suffering that so is intrinsically woven into the human psyche and will become painfully aware of the treacherous nature of emotions. Princess Zaskeyin, the object of his fervent adoration, will change the meaning of the young man’s life in ways he cannot predict that will also affect the apparent balance of his family of noble descend, which reflects the ongoing profound change the Russian society was submitted to at the onset of the nineteenth century.
Turgenev’s character portrayal is not only delicately accurate but also revealing of gender and class disparities. Princess Zaskeyin may appear capricious and flirtatious at first glance, but her condition is one attached to her deplorable role as a mere object of beauty to be possessed, a trophy to be exhibited to attract suitors and a steady source of income for her impoverished mother. On the other hand, the masculine dominance is but a farce when passion is unleashed and threatens to shatter all superficial decorum, leaving all the characters equally exposed to the turmoil of unrequited or, and forbidden love.
Shrouded in melancholic prose that taunts the reader with passages of lush descriptions of inner and outer landscapes, this tale is an affirmation of life as a continuous process that is partially revealed in stages but never fully disclosed.
Mind and heart might become one in Turgenev’s crystalline storytelling, where the interior world of the characters flows unhindered to the shores of the reader’s conscience, sending the warning that love is a dangerous weapon that can inflict wounds impossible to heal… but what a catastrophe to never suffer from its vicious bite!
December 25, 2022
“¿Sabes tú lo que puede hacer libre a un hombre?... Su voluntad, su propia voluntad, y le dará también poder, que es mejor que libertad. Aprende a querer y así serás libre y mandarás.”No cabe duda de que Turguénev lo tuvo que pasar muy malamente con sus amoríos. Bueno, malamente y también buenamente, porque, como muy bien dice Víctor Gallego Ballestero en el prólogo a mi edición de Alba, de la que también es su brillante traductor: “Es como si, de algún modo, de una forma oscura, en el fondo del alma, esos hombre y mujeres necesitaran el sufrimiento y la tragedia; o, acaso, como si no hubiera para el hombre otro destino que el error y el fracaso.”
“¡Y qué deleitosas me parecían esas amargas sensaciones, cómo me embriagaban!”Así se expresa un chavalito de dieciséis años enamorado locamente de una coqueta y hermosa jovencita llamada Zenaída cinco años mayor y que parece disfrutar mucho de los tormentos que ocasiona a sus no pocos pretendientes.
“Es dulce ser la única fuente, la causa despótica e irresponsable de las grandes alegrías y las penas más profundas de otra persona.”Un sentimiento, este del amor, que se persigue como aquello que es capaz de llenar una vida para descubrir no mucho más tarde que se lamentará durante el resto de ella, y por el que sus afligidos e impotentes afectados son capaces de someterse al más humillante trato.
“Soy una coqueta sin corazón… ahora va usted a tenderme la mano y yo se la traspasaré con una aguja. Se sentirá avergonzado… sentirá dolor, y sin embargo, a pesar de lo que respeta usted la verdad, no dejará de reírse. Lushin se ruborizó, se dio la vuelta y se mordió los labios, pero acabó tendiéndole la mano. Ella le pinchó, y él, en efecto, se echó a reír... También ella se reía, al tiempo que le clavaba la aguja a bastante profundidad y le miraba a los ojos, que él trataba de desviar en vano.”Ah, pero el amor no perdona a nadie, también Zenaída probará los sinsabores de su propia medicina con… me callo, aunque es algo que se adivina claramente casi desde el inicio, no seré yo el que adelante acontecimientos.
“No deseaba que esa experiencia se repitiera en el futuro, pero me habría considerado desdichado de no haberla vivido”Otro relato cinco estrellas de Turguénev.
March 12, 2023
قصة مأساوية - وصف تورجنيف لصبي يبلغ من العمر ستة عشر عاما يقع في الحب لأول مرة
الصراع الأساسي في الرواية.
لم يكن بين المحب ومحبوبته بل بين المحب وأبيه
فالولد أحب فتاة تكبره في السن بخمس سنوات بينما هي أحبت أبيه و أحبها
مأساة سوداوية في قصة قصيرة عبقرية من كاتب متميز جدا
February 25, 2018
Not my kind of "love" story.
UNUSUAL FIRST RUSSIAN LOVE
Ivan Turgenev was the first Russian writer to become popular and successful in Europe, even way way WAY before of Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy,, thanks to that Turgenev left Russia and he was living several years in different countries of Europe, but still, it’s undeniable that due the impact of his novels and short stories, that European and American readers became interested to read other authors from Russia, getting better the chances to Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy and others.
First Love is one of his most known and popular works, along with one of the most autobigraphicals about Turgenev…
…and with that in mind…
…Yikes! If Turgenev’s adulthood wasn’t an usual one, his childhood neither was!
I guess that due the title of the story and the basic premise, I was expecting a little cute love story between two young persons in the Russia of the 19th Century, but while in the basic thought, that was it…
…also it wasn’t that…
…at all…
A 16-years-old boy falls in love with a 21-years-old girl, in the Russia of the 19th Century. The boy is from a family with a lot of money, and while the girl is from a family with royalty background, it doesn’t have money. He’s quite infatuated by her, however while she got aware since the very first moment that he was in love of her, she keeps teasing him, sometimes even cruel.
However, this isn’t a regular love story, even I questioned myself if it is a love story at all, at least between the two main characters.
There are developments, unexpected twists in this tale that I just couldn't cope about it, they're not just right, in the first twist, and when you think that the worse is over, you meet with yet another twist that it's just too sad.
I can’t detailed more, because I fear to spoil the key angles of the story, that I found awful but still if someone else want to try the book (it’s quite quick to read), well, I won’t be the one to spoil the relevant moments of this hard to digest tale, but I can't deny that it's a bold tale, well written.
Dosvedanya, folks!
UNUSUAL FIRST RUSSIAN LOVE
Ivan Turgenev was the first Russian writer to become popular and successful in Europe, even way way WAY before of Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy,, thanks to that Turgenev left Russia and he was living several years in different countries of Europe, but still, it’s undeniable that due the impact of his novels and short stories, that European and American readers became interested to read other authors from Russia, getting better the chances to Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy and others.
First Love is one of his most known and popular works, along with one of the most autobigraphicals about Turgenev…
…and with that in mind…
…Yikes! If Turgenev’s adulthood wasn’t an usual one, his childhood neither was!
I guess that due the title of the story and the basic premise, I was expecting a little cute love story between two young persons in the Russia of the 19th Century, but while in the basic thought, that was it…
…also it wasn’t that…
…at all…
A 16-years-old boy falls in love with a 21-years-old girl, in the Russia of the 19th Century. The boy is from a family with a lot of money, and while the girl is from a family with royalty background, it doesn’t have money. He’s quite infatuated by her, however while she got aware since the very first moment that he was in love of her, she keeps teasing him, sometimes even cruel.
However, this isn’t a regular love story, even I questioned myself if it is a love story at all, at least between the two main characters.
There are developments, unexpected twists in this tale that I just couldn't cope about it, they're not just right, in the first twist, and when you think that the worse is over, you meet with yet another twist that it's just too sad.
I can’t detailed more, because I fear to spoil the key angles of the story, that I found awful but still if someone else want to try the book (it’s quite quick to read), well, I won’t be the one to spoil the relevant moments of this hard to digest tale, but I can't deny that it's a bold tale, well written.
Dosvedanya, folks!
June 14, 2023
Turgenev's novella First Love is one of the most resonant books on young love I have had the pleasure of reading. It is not only a simple but very effective tale on fluttering adolescent hearts, but also a gesture of artistic defiance of an age which demanded a writer to lift the nation. His passionate writing with much pathos, insight and self-awareness shows his talent at it's best when renouncing all the fancy stuff and just describing exactly what love does to one who is new to the most irreplaceable of humanly gifts.
First Love, although a social and romantic story, contains as well a moving portrait of the relationship between father and son (a theme he explored deeper in his novel 'Fathers and Sons'). The novella carried with it a strong sense of real experiences, so it wouldn't surprise me if it turned out to be Turgenev's most autobiographical work. The prose was beautiful and vivid, and the characters, seeing as in length it's barely over one hundred pages, really had a lasting impression by the end.
One of the key things I admire most about older works of Russian literature, is that although they don't inevitably fit in with the modern day criteria in terms of realistic tendencies, the characters still feel more alive and more believable than most. Though the circumstances they find themselves in the middle of may sometimes seem overly dramatic, there is a fundamental truth that lets the reader form a profound connection with them. Their actions and environment might not seem like reality now, but we humans are built on emotion, and the feeling behind that is universally grand.
Regardless of whether it's 1860 or 2019, young love will always remain a bitch. Where only the few lucky ones emerge without the mental scars.
May 26, 2018
Sensitive. Romantic. Sincere.
Imaginative story. Cleverly told.
A must for anyone who likes to read.
Imaginative story. Cleverly told.
A must for anyone who likes to read.
February 6, 2018
‘That’s love,’ I said to myself again, as I sat at night before my writing-table, on which books and papers had begun to make their appearance; ‘that’s passion! . . . To think of not revolting, of bearing a blow from any one whatever . . . even the dearest hand! But it seems one can, if one loves . . . While I . . . I imagined . . . ’ (Garnett's translation.)
‘That’s what love is’, I told myself again, sitting at night in front of my desk on which books and notebooks had begun to appear. ‘That’s real passion! Not to object, to bear a blow of any kind, even from someone you love very much – is that possible? It’s possible, it seems, if you’re in love… But I’d – I’d imagine...’ (Freeborn's translation.)
Good grief.
I judged a book by its title; it saddens me to say that my intuition didn't fail me this time. Fortunately, I read Asya before this novella – so it’s easier to talk about this one first since there was almost no connection. Otherwise, I would have had second thoughts and probably avoided Turgenev’s prose until November. Oh, his prose! His absolutely exquisite prose with which he explored the complexity of love, the whirl of emotions, the innocence of youth. His poetic language gave me the strength to keep reading this story.
I have to be honest: if it weren’t for the last chapter, I would've given this book a 2-star rating. Maybe my nature was too determined to reject so much mushiness this time, but still, there are many things and concepts to which I couldn’t relate. My idea of love doesn't include losing individuality, giving up the right to have personal space nor the blind devotion that makes one lose all perspective. In that sense, I think it's only natural that I can't identify with these stories, since even when I was a teenager, I wasn't prone to such violent outbursts of affection. I end up bored, let alone if I don't find the writing engaging or remotely enjoyable.
On the other hand, I couldn’t sympathize with almost any character – perhaps the servants who had to put up with their caprices. I mean, could the female protagonist be any more insufferable? Could the men be any more pathetic? Could this depiction of love be any more different from what I have in mind? Could you stop talking like Chandler?
A story in which an intelligent man (whose amount of wealth we don’t know) falls in love with an intelligent woman (whose degree of beauty is not mentioned) just doesn’t entice anyone, huh?
Yeah, I know, that was a stupid thing to write. It’s late, I think I had too much coffee and fell into a state of rapturous delirium.
Most of my friends on here loved this novella, but I'm done for now (I may relapse, who knows) with the juvenile and pointless phase of feeling bad because I didn't like so much what my friends loved - hello, personality. That being said, my curiosity went as far as using the filter to take a look at the number of people who didn't enjoyed this book so much.
I could have been among those 475 and their two "it was ok" stars. The last chapter made me open another door and join another group. However, I read the "2-star group" reviews. I was a little relieved. And then slightly frightened.
There’s an episode in which a poem written in 1825 by Alexander Pushkin is mentioned. I looked for it and wanted to share it.
The intensity of passion and oblivion in small doses.
Beneath the blue sky of her native land
She languished, faded…
Faded finally, and above me surely
The young shade already hovered;
But there is an unapproachable line between us.
In vain I tried to awaken emotion:
From indifferent lips I heard the news of death,
And received it with indifference.
So this is whom my fiery soul loved
With such painful intensity,
With such tender, agonizing heartache,
With such madness and such torment!
Where now the tortures, where the love? Alas!
For the poor, gullible shade,
For the sweet memory of irretrievable days
In my soul I find neither tears no reproaches.
Jan 24, 18
* Note: I read Constance Garnett and Richard Freeborn’s translations. I prefer the latter.
** Also on my blog.
July 25, 2021
“She had no great faith in him, and after listening to his outpourings, she would make him read Pushkin, as she said, to clear the air.”
Having read this book right after finishing Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin, this quote couldn’t be more perfect!
I can’t seem to stop thinking about this story! It has been a few days, and I keep wondering about the things that went unsaid, the subtle hints Turgenev gives throughout the story, and that ending!!! For such a short piece of writing, it didn’t feel like it lacked development or plot. He captured a whole world in such a short amount of space and time!
First Love was my first Turgenev, and I truly can’t wait to read more from him!!!
Having read this book right after finishing Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin, this quote couldn’t be more perfect!
I can’t seem to stop thinking about this story! It has been a few days, and I keep wondering about the things that went unsaid, the subtle hints Turgenev gives throughout the story, and that ending!!! For such a short piece of writing, it didn’t feel like it lacked development or plot. He captured a whole world in such a short amount of space and time!
First Love was my first Turgenev, and I truly can’t wait to read more from him!!!
September 24, 2015
Oh, sweet emotions, gentle harmony, goodness and peace of the softened heart, melting bliss of the first raptures of love, where are they, where are they?
Vladimir Petrovich, "a man of forty, with black hair turning gray." sits on an evening, after a good meal, with a couple of old friends, sipping the port and drawing on a good cigar. They challenge each other to tell the stories of their first time falling in love. It's a common framing device now, this looking back at the folly of youth with the wisdom of an older age. I don't know which novelist started the trend, but I was thrilled to get confirmation that one of the masters of the after dinner conversation, Joseph Conrad, paid tribute and acknowledged the influence of the great Russian contemporary of Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy. This novella is my first attempt to read Turgheniev, and suddenly I wonder what took me so long, why did I think that he was somehow inferior to these two giants? He speaks truer to my heart than the volcanic, mystical Fyodor and is more delicate in his dissection of the soul than the monumental Lev.
Returning to the quiet evening of recollections, two out of the three friends turn out to have little to tell, a sad state of affairs that could probably be replicated today in a similar proportion. One is a tad cynical and wonders what is this feeling that poets brag about, the other tells of an arranged marriage and a slow growth of friendship and respect. Only Vladimir Petrovich has a whopper of a tale to tell:
I was sixteen then. It happened in the summer of 1833.
And just like this, I am taken back to my own summer of 198_, marvelling at the accuracy of the descriptions of moods and impulses that have little changed from one generation to another, from one corner of the world to its antipodes. This is Vladmir Petrovich in the last summer of his childhood, this is me before I learned to keep it all bottled up inside and be wary of who I am giving my heart away to:
I knew a geat deal of poetry by heart; my blood was in a ferment and my heart ached - so sweetly and absurdly; I was all hope and anticipation, was a little frightened of something, and full of wonder at everything, and was on the tiptoe of expectation; my imagination played continually, fluttering rapidly about the same fancies, like martins about a bell-tower at dawn; I dreamed, was sad, even wept; but through tears and through the sadness, inspired by a musical verse, or the beauty of evening, shot up like grass in spring the delicious sense of youth and effervescent life.
Vacationing with his affluent parents in a dasha out in the country, young Vladimir is supposed to learn for his admission to university, but the call of the fields, of the forests and of the peaceful waters of the Don is too strong. One fine morning, his promenade is interrupted by the sound of laughter from a neighboring and slightly rundown mansion.
Suddenly I heard a voice; I looked across the fence, and was thunderstruck ...
There she stands, with the sun in her hair and laughter in her eyes, tall and gracious like a queen, ordering about a group of admirers. Her name is Zinaida, and she is one of the most unforgettable heroines in Russian literature. Poor Vladimir doesn't stand a chance. A lucky turn helps him to get an introduction to the household, but he is, like many youngsters who live more in books than in the real world, tongue tied:
Though, indeed, at the moment, I was scarcely capable of noticing anything; I moved as in a dream and felt all through my being a sort of intense blissfulness that verged on imbecility.
Zinaida is a little older, in her early twenties, and apparently a coquette who likes to surround herself with admirers, toying with them like a cat with mice. In the evening they gather around her like moths to a flame: Count Malevsky, the poet Meidanov, the doctor Lushin, the dragoon Byelovzorov, old Vonifaty the merchant, Nirmatsky the banker. They play society games, riddles and challenges, discuss literature and politics. Zinaida drags the young boy into their unconventional and turbulent circle, a revolutionary change from the strictures of his own household. It's no wonder he looks at her like to a godess and that these moments will be engraved on his heart for ever:
I was as happy as a fish in water, and I could have stayed in that room forever. Have never left that place.
A little context is welcome now, as the discussions in the impoverished saloon of Zinaida turns to the preferences of her audience for the Romanticism of the early 19 century, and mentions are made of Pushkin, Goethe, Schiller, Hugo or Byron. The merits of each are analyzed, and a more naturalist approach is suggested as a better alternative to the exaggerated emotions of the Romantic school. A little further research confirms Turgheniev stance and references in the admiration Gustave Flaubert, Henry James and the already mentioned Joseph Conrad held for the Russian writer.
In the meanwhile though, young Vladimir finds out about the reverse of the medal, as his sudden passion for Zinaida is tempered by feelings of inadequacy and by the early onset of jealousy:
I felt at that time, I recollect, something like what a man must feel on entering the service: I had ceased now to be simply a young boy; I was in love. I have said that my passion dated from that day; I might have added that my sufferings, too, dated from the same day.
It is in the nature of a romantic young boy to torment himself with a too vivid imagination:
My fancy set to work. I began picturing to myself how I would save her from the hands of enemies; how, covered with blood I would tear her by force from prison, and expire at her feet.
... but what about Zinaida? what about the slightly older woman? Why is she encouraging Vladimir, and stringing him along with her bevy of admirers? She does seem an epitome of frivolity and irresponsibility, shallow and vain and so proud of her ability to twist the men's will around her little finger. Her portrait is where the artist truly shines and the revelation of her inner nature is both subtle and dramatic. She is not immune herself to the arrows of Cupid, and because this is still a novel of a more moralistic and male dominated epoch, Zinaida will be the one who will suffer the most for the folly of love:
"You needn't think I care for him," she said to me another time. "No; I can't care for people I have to look down upon. I must have some one who can master me ... But, merciful heavens, I hope I may never come across anyone like that! I don't want to be caught in anyone's claws, not for anything."
It's a wonder how well Turgeniev captures the torment of youth, how truly his words ring and how much of what Vladimir goes through echoes the memories of my own summers, now filtered through the burden of the years, yet still as clear and poignant as if they happened only yesterday. I did get curious about the inspiration for the novella, and I found out that in the words of the author this is the most autobiographical of all his works. There's even a name for the real life Zinaida, and a history very close to the events of the fictional Vladimir .
Regardless of the real life inspiration or of some critics who considered the subject trivial, I am grateful for the visit down memory lane that the story inspired, and will echo the words of Turgeniev in saying that I am glad that summer happened, even if it ended in tears.
The tinkle of the bells of the Don monastery floated across to me from time to time, peaceful and dreary; while I sat, gazed, listened, and was filled full of a nameless sensation in which all was contained: sadness and joy and the foretaste of the future, and the desire and dread of life. But at that time I understood nothing of it, and could have given a name to nothing of all that was passing at random within me, or should have called it all by one name - the name of Zinaida.
- - -
... All was at an end. All the fair blossoms of my heart were roughly plucked at once, and lay about me, flung on the ground, and trampled underfoot.
- - -
And I went away. I cannot describe the emotion with which I went away. I should not wish it ever to come again; but I should think myself unfortunate had I never experienced such an emotion.
Note: my edition is part of a collection named "The Art of the Novella." I would recommend two other similar stories dealing with the passion of youth:
- Fyodor Dostoevsky - "White Nights"
- Joseph Conrad - "Youth"
March 30, 2021
“¡Y estoy sentado delante de ella! –pensaba.- ¡He llegado a conocerla! ¡Qué felicidad, Dios mío!”
Iván Turguéniev junto a Fiódor Dostoievski y Lev Tolstói continuó la profunda reforma y modernización literaria que iniciaron Alexandr Pushkin y Nikólai Gógol en la Rusia zarista del siglo XIX. Luego llegaría el enorme Antón Chejov para dejar a Rusia junto a los alemanes, los ingleses y los franceses en lo mejor de la literatura de su tiempo.
Independientemente de su estilo que tal vez difería un poco de Dostoievski o Tolstói, fue un gran escritor de cuentos y novelas siendo “Primer amor” su cuarta novela, publicada en 1860.
Con marcadas reminiscencias del Romanticismo que aún dominaba Europa, Turguéniev nos deja una novela fresca pero correcta que nos narra el ardiente primer amor de un joven de dieciséis años llamado Vladímir Petrovich hacia una joven cinco años mayor que él llamada Zenaida.
El despertar sentimental de Vladímir irá transformándose en un torbellino de pasiones ante una mujer que juega con sus sentimientos así también como de otros cuatro aspirantes de su corazón.
Con el correr de la historia, naturalmente se suscitarán complicaciones entre los personajes.
Cabe destacar que Turguéniev trabaja el argumento de la novela con aplomo dándonos la posibilidad de inclinarnos hacia uno u otro personaje, pero de alguna manera hacia Vladimir puesto que quién no ha tenido un primer amor y se ha deshecho en lágrimas ante un amor no correspondido.
Hacia este punto se orienta la historia y algunos personajes como Piotr, el padre de Vladimir tendrán singular importancia.
Como escribí anteriormente, es una novela correcta pero no de las mejores de Turguéniev como por ejemplo “Relatos de un cazador”, “Padres e hijos” o “Nido de nobles” aunque deja un interesante recuerdo en el lector, puesto todos alguna vez hemos sucumbido ante el amor de alguien por primera vez y en alguna manera es un hecho que recordaremos por habernos marcado para toda la vida.
Tengo que destacar que tuve la inmensa suerte de conseguir un ejemplar antiquísimo, publicado en España en 1893 (33 años después de la publicación de la novela), lo que hizo aún más interesante mi lectura. Dejo una foto en mi reseña para que se pueda apreciar este hermoso y antiguo volumen de “Primer amor”.
Iván Turguéniev junto a Fiódor Dostoievski y Lev Tolstói continuó la profunda reforma y modernización literaria que iniciaron Alexandr Pushkin y Nikólai Gógol en la Rusia zarista del siglo XIX. Luego llegaría el enorme Antón Chejov para dejar a Rusia junto a los alemanes, los ingleses y los franceses en lo mejor de la literatura de su tiempo.
Independientemente de su estilo que tal vez difería un poco de Dostoievski o Tolstói, fue un gran escritor de cuentos y novelas siendo “Primer amor” su cuarta novela, publicada en 1860.
Con marcadas reminiscencias del Romanticismo que aún dominaba Europa, Turguéniev nos deja una novela fresca pero correcta que nos narra el ardiente primer amor de un joven de dieciséis años llamado Vladímir Petrovich hacia una joven cinco años mayor que él llamada Zenaida.
El despertar sentimental de Vladímir irá transformándose en un torbellino de pasiones ante una mujer que juega con sus sentimientos así también como de otros cuatro aspirantes de su corazón.
Con el correr de la historia, naturalmente se suscitarán complicaciones entre los personajes.
Cabe destacar que Turguéniev trabaja el argumento de la novela con aplomo dándonos la posibilidad de inclinarnos hacia uno u otro personaje, pero de alguna manera hacia Vladimir puesto que quién no ha tenido un primer amor y se ha deshecho en lágrimas ante un amor no correspondido.
Hacia este punto se orienta la historia y algunos personajes como Piotr, el padre de Vladimir tendrán singular importancia.
Como escribí anteriormente, es una novela correcta pero no de las mejores de Turguéniev como por ejemplo “Relatos de un cazador”, “Padres e hijos” o “Nido de nobles” aunque deja un interesante recuerdo en el lector, puesto todos alguna vez hemos sucumbido ante el amor de alguien por primera vez y en alguna manera es un hecho que recordaremos por habernos marcado para toda la vida.
Tengo que destacar que tuve la inmensa suerte de conseguir un ejemplar antiquísimo, publicado en España en 1893 (33 años después de la publicación de la novela), lo que hizo aún más interesante mi lectura. Dejo una foto en mi reseña para que se pueda apreciar este hermoso y antiguo volumen de “Primer amor”.
May 30, 2020
This short novella captures all the confusion and naïveté of young love. Turgenev requires only a few pages of understated prose to completely expose his subject: Despite the intolerable pain of heatbreak, and the fact that one might view love as folly, in hindsight or with age, young love nonetheless has an enduring, preternatural strength, against which life's other fruit seem pale in comparison.
September 16, 2023
- قصة لا بأس بها، كلاسيكية وبطيئة النغمات... قصص الحب الأول كثيرة وغالباً ما تنتهي لكن المميز في هذه القصة هو طبيعة "المنافس" والحالة الخاصة للمحبوبة!!
- الترجمة على ما يبدو قديمة جداً!!
بعض الإقتباسات:
"لم يكن لي حب أول. بدات بالحب الثاني مباشرة"
"ان سر الحياة كله هو في هذا: ان لا يملّك الانسان نفسه - لأحد ما او شيئ ما - الا لنفسه. ان يكون هو سيد نفسه"
"ثمة نساء يحددن سعادتهن في التضحية"
- الترجمة على ما يبدو قديمة جداً!!
بعض الإقتباسات:
"لم يكن لي حب أول. بدات بالحب الثاني مباشرة"
"ان سر الحياة كله هو في هذا: ان لا يملّك الانسان نفسه - لأحد ما او شيئ ما - الا لنفسه. ان يكون هو سيد نفسه"
"ثمة نساء يحددن سعادتهن في التضحية"
February 28, 2024
Who hasn't had a first love in their life? We all in some way have experienced this in our life; so Turgenev cannot be any better, can he? First Love is then his story of that experience.
According to Wikipedia, Turgenev has been in love with a young woman, which lasted until he discovered that she was his father's mistress. This experience of his own life takes the shape of a story in First Love. Turgenev himself has admitted that this short novella is the most autobiographical work of his.
The beauty of this piece of work doesn't come from the story. It comes through all the emotions that are touchingly and truthfully described. The love the protagonist, Vladimir Petrovich feels for a young girl who is much older to him, the rapture, the loss, and the pain, and the effects of the shocking discovery all were vividly described that the reader feels all that he feels. I too lived through Vladimir's emotions, experiencing them with him all along. It was an emotional journey.
One word must also be said about Turgenev's writing. His is one of simplicity. It may not have the religious ardour or the philosophical wisdom of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, but sometimes simplicity itself is quite alluring.
According to Wikipedia, Turgenev has been in love with a young woman, which lasted until he discovered that she was his father's mistress. This experience of his own life takes the shape of a story in First Love. Turgenev himself has admitted that this short novella is the most autobiographical work of his.
The beauty of this piece of work doesn't come from the story. It comes through all the emotions that are touchingly and truthfully described. The love the protagonist, Vladimir Petrovich feels for a young girl who is much older to him, the rapture, the loss, and the pain, and the effects of the shocking discovery all were vividly described that the reader feels all that he feels. I too lived through Vladimir's emotions, experiencing them with him all along. It was an emotional journey.
One word must also be said about Turgenev's writing. His is one of simplicity. It may not have the religious ardour or the philosophical wisdom of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, but sometimes simplicity itself is quite alluring.
June 10, 2022
“I burnt as in a fire in her presence ... but what did I care to know what the fire was in which I burned and melted--it was enough that it was sweet to burn and melt.”
In Ivan Turgenev's novella, First Love, a much older Vladimir Petrovich recounts the first love that has haunted him into later life. As a sixteen-year old, he is obsessed with an older woman, Zinaida, who holds court with a drawing room full of suitors. This infatuation moves him to question the nature of love, sacrifice and passion. However, as a lens to understand the object of his obsession, it falls remarkably short. Late in the book, she tells him, "I am not what you imagine me."
Vladimir refuses to recognize any failure of understanding. "Whatever you did, however you tormented me, I should love and adore you until the end of my days." Despite what he sees as Zinaida's betrayal, he can't come to grips with the final image of his love. What did this image say about the childish love he had bestowed on her? Years later, he seeks her out one more time. Very solid story.
“My son,' he wrote to me, 'fear the love of woman; fear that bliss, that poison....”
“And now, when the shades of evening begin to steal over my life, what have I left fresher, more precious, than the memories of the storm—so soon over—of early morning, of spring?”
In Ivan Turgenev's novella, First Love, a much older Vladimir Petrovich recounts the first love that has haunted him into later life. As a sixteen-year old, he is obsessed with an older woman, Zinaida, who holds court with a drawing room full of suitors. This infatuation moves him to question the nature of love, sacrifice and passion. However, as a lens to understand the object of his obsession, it falls remarkably short. Late in the book, she tells him, "I am not what you imagine me."
Vladimir refuses to recognize any failure of understanding. "Whatever you did, however you tormented me, I should love and adore you until the end of my days." Despite what he sees as Zinaida's betrayal, he can't come to grips with the final image of his love. What did this image say about the childish love he had bestowed on her? Years later, he seeks her out one more time. Very solid story.
“My son,' he wrote to me, 'fear the love of woman; fear that bliss, that poison....”
“And now, when the shades of evening begin to steal over my life, what have I left fresher, more precious, than the memories of the storm—so soon over—of early morning, of spring?”
December 1, 2021
I was impressed with my first novella by Ivan Turgenev in this tender depiction of first love. It seems to me that he wrote as it were from his own youthful experience of love, as the protagonist’s heady exhilaration and inevitable scarring felt all too real and tangible.
Summer 1833. Vladimir Petrovich, a 16-year-old Russian youth, was exploring the countryside at his family’s manor house, daydreaming, and fancying himself a knight. His carefree days came to an abrupt end when a royal family that had fallen on hard times took up residence in a dilapidated lodge nearby. Vladimir was smitten by the tall and slender 21-year-old Princess Zinaida. In that first encounter, she was observed in the garden slapping four young men on their foreheads with flowers. Not a good first impression, won’t you say? And yet, Vladimir worshipped her.
Zinaida was haughty and teasing like Dickens’ Estella. She knew her power over this naive, lovelorn youth. As one of her suitors rightly pointed out to her, “Caprice and irresponsibility… Those two words sum you up.” Poor Vladimir. Love is a lavish emotion and lavish too is the suffering of young love. Zinaida too was in love, but who with? She had no want of admirers.
First Love is a psychologically perceptive novella written in language that is lush and fittingly intoxicating. It makes a great introduction to Ivan Turgenev.
I was led to this novella by Glenn's enticing review. Read it here:
Glenn's review
Thank you, Glenn.
Summer 1833. Vladimir Petrovich, a 16-year-old Russian youth, was exploring the countryside at his family’s manor house, daydreaming, and fancying himself a knight. His carefree days came to an abrupt end when a royal family that had fallen on hard times took up residence in a dilapidated lodge nearby. Vladimir was smitten by the tall and slender 21-year-old Princess Zinaida. In that first encounter, she was observed in the garden slapping four young men on their foreheads with flowers. Not a good first impression, won’t you say? And yet, Vladimir worshipped her.
Zinaida was haughty and teasing like Dickens’ Estella. She knew her power over this naive, lovelorn youth. As one of her suitors rightly pointed out to her, “Caprice and irresponsibility… Those two words sum you up.” Poor Vladimir. Love is a lavish emotion and lavish too is the suffering of young love. Zinaida too was in love, but who with? She had no want of admirers.
First Love is a psychologically perceptive novella written in language that is lush and fittingly intoxicating. It makes a great introduction to Ivan Turgenev.
I was led to this novella by Glenn's enticing review. Read it here:
Glenn's review
Thank you, Glenn.
![Profile Image for [P].](https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/users/1486240560i/40516522._UY200_CR13,0,200,200_.jpg)
July 9, 2015
Recently I have found myself drawn to novels about looking back to the past, about nostalgia and youth. I guess it is a sign that I am getting older or perhaps it is a consequence of the tough time I have been having in my personal life, where, without going into too many details, death has been on the agenda quite a lot. I find myself currently feeling highly emotional, over sensitive, and sentimental. Just yesterday, in fact, I was flicking through Alain-Fournier’s beautiful French novel Le Grand Meaulnes, and almost burst into tears [which is certainly very unusual for me] when I came across this passage:
The 'fairy,' the 'love-dream of our adolescence,' is Yvonne, a young girl who, in short, comes to signify, both for the central characters and the reader, the magic of youth and the impossibility of recapturing the period of your life when everything was new and an adventure. So, anyway, bearing all that in mind, it seems as though this is both the perfect and the worst time to read Ivan Turgenev’s First Love [Первая любовь, Pervaya ljubov], which deals with very similar ideas and themes.
The novella begins with a group of men, ‘not old, but no longer young,’ sharing the stories of their own first loves. However, only one of the party has an interesting tale to tell, which took place one summer when he, Vladimir Petrovich, was sixteen. That it was summer is, I believe, significant, because it is of course generally thought to be a season of sunshine and gaiety and positivity, when everything is alive, when the days are longer, the blood is warm, and anything seems possible. Moreover, the age of sixteen is one of the pivotal years of one’s life. One is [to paraphrase that wise old bird, Britney Spears] not a child, not yet an adult; one is open-minded, willing to experience, but may not [certainly at the time the novel was written, if not these days] have any real life experience of your own. Indeed, Vladimir describes himself as ‘expectant and shy'; and while he wanted to give the impression of maturity admits that he was not yet allowed to wear a frock coat. He also points out that his father was ‘indifferent’ to him and his mother neglectful, which meant that he had the necessary freedom to chase those new experiences, and all the more reason to look for love and attention from someone else.
The object of this love is Zinaida, a 21 one year old, impoverished princess who has just moved to the area with her boorish mother. In Benito Perez Galdos’ towering novel Fortunata and Jacinta, Juanito first meets the woman who comes to be his lover on a stairway, while she eats a raw egg, the juice running down her fingers. This is not only a fabulous way to introduce a character, but is clearly meant to say something important about the character herself, and Turgenev does something similar here. When Vladimir first spots Zinaida she is in her garden surrounded by a group of men, and so one knows instantly that she is popular with the opposite sex. Moreover, she is, in turn, tapping each of her suitors on the forehead with a flower. What this suggests, and what the rest of the text backs up, is that she is a lively, free-spirited, young girl. In fact, it comes as no surprise in this regard that she was, apparently, much admired by Gustave Flaubert.
[From the German film Erste Liebe, which is based on Turgenev’s novella]
Vladimir later describes the girl’s personality as a mixture of ‘cunning and carelessness, artificiality and simplicity, calmness and vivacity’ and I think this does a fine job of summing her up. She is not wholly one thing or the other; she is mysterious, enigmatic, never transparent, seemingly cruel at times, and yet somehow always charming. For example, she instantly gives the boy a nickname, Voldemar, and deliberately plays on his intensifying feelings, while at the same time showing him tenderness and favouring him over the other men in her life. She is, in short, the kind of girl I have myself lost my fucking mind over more than once. And that is strangely comforting in a way, that, even over one hundred years ago, men were giving their hearts to these beautiful, maddening young women. [First Love was, so it is said, based on Turgenev’s own experiences].
Interestingly, the situation in the garden does not only tell us about Zinaida. It also reveals something about the men in her life and hints at the reasons for her betrayal of Vladimir [yeah, she does him wrong]. Her admirers all fawn over her, they are all servile, eager to please. This is made clear by the fact that they allow her to hit them on the head with a flower. Later, one buys her a kitten, when she asks for one, and looks to get her a horse. Vladimir is no different. When Zinaida, not expecting him to comply, asks him to prove his love by jumping off a wall, with a 14 foot drop, he does just that. And yet the girl herself says that she can only love a man who would ‘break her in two’ i.e. who would not be her lapdog. This is one thing that I have never understood about men, or a certain type of man. Take my own brother as an example. He hangs around the women he likes, doing their bidding, buying them presents, in the hope that this will somehow show him to be a lovely, sensitive guy, and yet it never works. He never gets the girl because he comes across as weak and pathetic. And this is exactly what happens in First Love. In this way, you have to credit Turgenev with nailing a still-relevant, seemingly universal aspect of human relationships and psychology.
While First Love is increasingly packaged as a single, stand-alone book, and is, more often than not, described as a novella [by me in this review, no less], it is, in fact, not much more than an obese short story. Yet for such a short work, it is admirably sophisticated. For example, in terms of the structure, there is a lot of very satisfying mirroring going on. Both Zinaida and Vladimir are young, both are in a sense abandoned to themselves by their parents, and, more importantly, both experience their first loves during the course of the narrative. I think it is easy to overlook that Zinaida is not only an object of affection, that she too is going through one of the most tumultuous, defining moments of a person’s life, and it is this that gives the text a greater depth and makes her a more rounded and sympathetic character, because, let’s face it, young love is a bitch, and no one ever really handles it very well or emerges from it spotless. Oh, don’t get me wrong, it’s wonderful too; I wholeheartedly recommend it, but, even so, I couldn’t wish it on anyone with an entirely clear conscience.
“Weeks went by, then months. I am speaking of a far-away time – a vanished happiness. It fell to me to befriend, to console with whatever words I could find, one who had been the fairy, the princess, the mysterious love-dream of our adolescence.”
The 'fairy,' the 'love-dream of our adolescence,' is Yvonne, a young girl who, in short, comes to signify, both for the central characters and the reader, the magic of youth and the impossibility of recapturing the period of your life when everything was new and an adventure. So, anyway, bearing all that in mind, it seems as though this is both the perfect and the worst time to read Ivan Turgenev’s First Love [Первая любовь, Pervaya ljubov], which deals with very similar ideas and themes.
The novella begins with a group of men, ‘not old, but no longer young,’ sharing the stories of their own first loves. However, only one of the party has an interesting tale to tell, which took place one summer when he, Vladimir Petrovich, was sixteen. That it was summer is, I believe, significant, because it is of course generally thought to be a season of sunshine and gaiety and positivity, when everything is alive, when the days are longer, the blood is warm, and anything seems possible. Moreover, the age of sixteen is one of the pivotal years of one’s life. One is [to paraphrase that wise old bird, Britney Spears] not a child, not yet an adult; one is open-minded, willing to experience, but may not [certainly at the time the novel was written, if not these days] have any real life experience of your own. Indeed, Vladimir describes himself as ‘expectant and shy'; and while he wanted to give the impression of maturity admits that he was not yet allowed to wear a frock coat. He also points out that his father was ‘indifferent’ to him and his mother neglectful, which meant that he had the necessary freedom to chase those new experiences, and all the more reason to look for love and attention from someone else.
“O youth! youth! you go your way heedless, uncaring – as if you owned all the treasures of the world; even grief elates you, even sorrow sits well upon your brow. You are self-confident and insolent and you say, ‘I alone am alive – behold!’ even while your own days fly past and vanish without trace and without number, and everything within you melts away like wax in the sun .. like snow ..”
The object of this love is Zinaida, a 21 one year old, impoverished princess who has just moved to the area with her boorish mother. In Benito Perez Galdos’ towering novel Fortunata and Jacinta, Juanito first meets the woman who comes to be his lover on a stairway, while she eats a raw egg, the juice running down her fingers. This is not only a fabulous way to introduce a character, but is clearly meant to say something important about the character herself, and Turgenev does something similar here. When Vladimir first spots Zinaida she is in her garden surrounded by a group of men, and so one knows instantly that she is popular with the opposite sex. Moreover, she is, in turn, tapping each of her suitors on the forehead with a flower. What this suggests, and what the rest of the text backs up, is that she is a lively, free-spirited, young girl. In fact, it comes as no surprise in this regard that she was, apparently, much admired by Gustave Flaubert.
[From the German film Erste Liebe, which is based on Turgenev’s novella]
Vladimir later describes the girl’s personality as a mixture of ‘cunning and carelessness, artificiality and simplicity, calmness and vivacity’ and I think this does a fine job of summing her up. She is not wholly one thing or the other; she is mysterious, enigmatic, never transparent, seemingly cruel at times, and yet somehow always charming. For example, she instantly gives the boy a nickname, Voldemar, and deliberately plays on his intensifying feelings, while at the same time showing him tenderness and favouring him over the other men in her life. She is, in short, the kind of girl I have myself lost my fucking mind over more than once. And that is strangely comforting in a way, that, even over one hundred years ago, men were giving their hearts to these beautiful, maddening young women. [First Love was, so it is said, based on Turgenev’s own experiences].
“She tore herself away, and went out. And I went away. I cannot describe the emotion with which I went away. I should not wish it ever to come again; but I should think myself unfortunate had I never experienced such an emotion.”
Interestingly, the situation in the garden does not only tell us about Zinaida. It also reveals something about the men in her life and hints at the reasons for her betrayal of Vladimir [yeah, she does him wrong]. Her admirers all fawn over her, they are all servile, eager to please. This is made clear by the fact that they allow her to hit them on the head with a flower. Later, one buys her a kitten, when she asks for one, and looks to get her a horse. Vladimir is no different. When Zinaida, not expecting him to comply, asks him to prove his love by jumping off a wall, with a 14 foot drop, he does just that. And yet the girl herself says that she can only love a man who would ‘break her in two’ i.e. who would not be her lapdog. This is one thing that I have never understood about men, or a certain type of man. Take my own brother as an example. He hangs around the women he likes, doing their bidding, buying them presents, in the hope that this will somehow show him to be a lovely, sensitive guy, and yet it never works. He never gets the girl because he comes across as weak and pathetic. And this is exactly what happens in First Love. In this way, you have to credit Turgenev with nailing a still-relevant, seemingly universal aspect of human relationships and psychology.
“There is a sweetness in being the sole source, the autocratic and irresponsible cause of the greatest joy and profoundest pain to another, and I was like wax in Zinaïda’s hands; though, indeed, I was not the only one in love with her. All the men who visited the house were crazy over her, and she kept them all in leading-strings at her feet. It amused her to arouse their hopes and then their fears, to turn them round her finger (she used to call it knocking their heads together), while they never dreamed of offering resistance and eagerly submitted to her.”
While First Love is increasingly packaged as a single, stand-alone book, and is, more often than not, described as a novella [by me in this review, no less], it is, in fact, not much more than an obese short story. Yet for such a short work, it is admirably sophisticated. For example, in terms of the structure, there is a lot of very satisfying mirroring going on. Both Zinaida and Vladimir are young, both are in a sense abandoned to themselves by their parents, and, more importantly, both experience their first loves during the course of the narrative. I think it is easy to overlook that Zinaida is not only an object of affection, that she too is going through one of the most tumultuous, defining moments of a person’s life, and it is this that gives the text a greater depth and makes her a more rounded and sympathetic character, because, let’s face it, young love is a bitch, and no one ever really handles it very well or emerges from it spotless. Oh, don’t get me wrong, it’s wonderful too; I wholeheartedly recommend it, but, even so, I couldn’t wish it on anyone with an entirely clear conscience.
January 18, 2021
Deliciosa novela cortísima donde el escritor retrata con una prosa poética los sentimientos de un joven adolescente enamorado de una chica mayor que él, el duelo entre la razón, la lealtad, y el corazón, con un final sobrecogedor para todos los protagonistas.
Muy, muy recomendable.
Muy, muy recomendable.
November 6, 2021
First Love is the absorbing, painfully candid account of 16-year-old Vladimir’s young, idealistic passion for his next-door-neighbour, a capricious 21-year-old named Zinaida, who, alas, is in love with someone else.
I read Turgenev’s Fathers And Sons years ago, and forgot what an elegant and psychologically penetrating writer he was. The Russian author said this was one of his most autobiographical works, and it shows. It’s there in Vladimir’s loathing of Zinaida’s other suitors and his roiling, turbulent emotions. Reading his words, I can practically feel the acne on my skin from my teen years. (Oh youth!)
Zinada is a fascinating figure – there’s more than a touch of Great Expectations’s Estella about her, although that book would come out a year later, in 1861 – and you’re left to interpret her motivations from what we’re given of Vladimir’s (albeit limited) account of her actions.
This slim book – a novella, really – is less shocking than it would have been to a 19th century reader, and it’s pretty easy to figure out who Zinaida’s lover is. But it’s evocative enough to make me want to read more Turgenev, or some of his Russian colleagues. After all, I live in Canada, another cold climate, and winter is coming.
I read Turgenev’s Fathers And Sons years ago, and forgot what an elegant and psychologically penetrating writer he was. The Russian author said this was one of his most autobiographical works, and it shows. It’s there in Vladimir’s loathing of Zinaida’s other suitors and his roiling, turbulent emotions. Reading his words, I can practically feel the acne on my skin from my teen years. (Oh youth!)
Zinada is a fascinating figure – there’s more than a touch of Great Expectations’s Estella about her, although that book would come out a year later, in 1861 – and you’re left to interpret her motivations from what we’re given of Vladimir’s (albeit limited) account of her actions.
This slim book – a novella, really – is less shocking than it would have been to a 19th century reader, and it’s pretty easy to figure out who Zinaida’s lover is. But it’s evocative enough to make me want to read more Turgenev, or some of his Russian colleagues. After all, I live in Canada, another cold climate, and winter is coming.
October 27, 2021
I was much more tolerant/understanding of the heroine’s marked displays of coquettishness this second time around. Good story. Must read. Four stars!
November 19, 2021
Second Turgenev. Honestly cannot think of much to write here, as this novella is clearly not in the same ballpark as Fathers and Sons. Nevertheless, it is beautiful, melancholy, infused with a tinge of nostalgia. My edition has a beautiful introduction by V. S. Pritchett, who sums it up perfectly: “Love, for Turgenev, is like some brief summer whirlwind or storm that sweeps through his people and transforms them.” I agree – it’s a quote that made me think about my own reaction to my first love. Does it remain? Do I look at every potential romantic match through that window? Will I be 3, 4, maybe 5 more relationships down the line in 20-30 years, still thinking back to the first? Does the frequency of romantic relationships in the modern age affect it at all? Just some thoughts for myself – I used this space as a notepad this time. To that end, I want to finish with a lyric yet again; this time, it’s Ambrosia, How Much I Feel:
How’s your life been goin’ on?
I’ve got a wife now, years we’ve been goin’ strong
Oh no, there’s just something that I’ve got to say
Sometimes when we make love, I still see your face
Just try to recall when we were as one
April 11, 2020
Some books are gender specific I think. Many of Virginia Woolf’s or Jane Austen’s for example, are distinctly written with a female audience in mind. Despite the romantic title, do not be deceived. First Love is not a romance novel, and it is written very much for a male audience.
We are in Russia, Summer, 1833, a dacha near Moscow. A boy is in love with the girl next door. While this seems like a cliché premise for a novel, Turgenev’s compact classic is anything but a trite teenage holiday romance. This is the ultimate coming of age story, universal in its emotional reach.
Oh, the palpating thrill and frustration of first love! This story is told from the view of forty year old Vladimir Petrovich, who, amongst friends, reflects on a pivotal period in his youth – a time when he is rudely initiated into the complicated and painful world of adulthood.
Turgenev deftly explores a roller coaster ride’s worth of human emotions in a concise two hundred odd pages. The teenage Vladimir confusedly navigates the dangers of infatuation, jealousy and ultimate torture that is unrequited love. The object of his burning affection, is the alluring Zinaida, the neighbours daughter. Several years his senior, the more mature Zinaida is both playful and dangerously seductive, and critically aware of her attractiveness – basically, a “conceited minx.” She is not short of suitors, who fall over each other to capture her attention and oblige her by taking part in her silly games.
However, dear Vlad is vastly underexperienced and really no match for his rivals, though Zinaida still loves to ‘toy’ with him and distract his from his study – “I was jealous; I was conscious of my insignificance; I was stupidly sulky or stupidly abject, and all the same, an invincible force drew me to her, and I could not help a shudder of delight whenever I stepped through the doorway to her room…she amused herself with my passion, made a fool of me, petted and tormented me…I was like wax in Zinaida’s hands…” She expertly plays one off against the other, pushes them away, only to pull them back, ambivalent to their devotion. It seems they will do anything for her. and then she changes, she loses her frivolity and gains a seriousness. She is in love. But it is not with any of her admirers….and this bitter twist in the tale is a particularly shocking and painful one for Vladimir. Much later in the novel, we realise that Zinaida too, suffers the fate of a love that can never be realised fully. So, they are both pained by the tortures of first love, just not with each other.
Turgenev delves deeper into the dissection of relationships through Vladimir’s parents – the coolness and strain between them, his mother’s refusal to treat him as an adult and her general neglect; his father’s inconsistent moods and at times blatant indifference towards his son. This friction on the home front further drives Vlad towards next door and his is drawn to the charms of Zinaida like a moth to the flame.
Without completely divulging the plot, Turgenev covers loss and betrayal, the blurry line between infatuation and love, and the pitfalls and pains of growing up, letting go and moving on – “a man must stand on his own feet, if he can get nothing but a rock to stand on…” Despite the line, “fear the love of a woman; fear that bliss, that poison…” Turgenev is not really sounding alarm bells for men around the world about the “dangers” of the femme fatale, but rather prompting us (both men and women alike) to question whether the only thing worse than being in love is not being in love at all.
We are in Russia, Summer, 1833, a dacha near Moscow. A boy is in love with the girl next door. While this seems like a cliché premise for a novel, Turgenev’s compact classic is anything but a trite teenage holiday romance. This is the ultimate coming of age story, universal in its emotional reach.
Oh, the palpating thrill and frustration of first love! This story is told from the view of forty year old Vladimir Petrovich, who, amongst friends, reflects on a pivotal period in his youth – a time when he is rudely initiated into the complicated and painful world of adulthood.
Turgenev deftly explores a roller coaster ride’s worth of human emotions in a concise two hundred odd pages. The teenage Vladimir confusedly navigates the dangers of infatuation, jealousy and ultimate torture that is unrequited love. The object of his burning affection, is the alluring Zinaida, the neighbours daughter. Several years his senior, the more mature Zinaida is both playful and dangerously seductive, and critically aware of her attractiveness – basically, a “conceited minx.” She is not short of suitors, who fall over each other to capture her attention and oblige her by taking part in her silly games.
However, dear Vlad is vastly underexperienced and really no match for his rivals, though Zinaida still loves to ‘toy’ with him and distract his from his study – “I was jealous; I was conscious of my insignificance; I was stupidly sulky or stupidly abject, and all the same, an invincible force drew me to her, and I could not help a shudder of delight whenever I stepped through the doorway to her room…she amused herself with my passion, made a fool of me, petted and tormented me…I was like wax in Zinaida’s hands…” She expertly plays one off against the other, pushes them away, only to pull them back, ambivalent to their devotion. It seems they will do anything for her. and then she changes, she loses her frivolity and gains a seriousness. She is in love. But it is not with any of her admirers….and this bitter twist in the tale is a particularly shocking and painful one for Vladimir. Much later in the novel, we realise that Zinaida too, suffers the fate of a love that can never be realised fully. So, they are both pained by the tortures of first love, just not with each other.
Turgenev delves deeper into the dissection of relationships through Vladimir’s parents – the coolness and strain between them, his mother’s refusal to treat him as an adult and her general neglect; his father’s inconsistent moods and at times blatant indifference towards his son. This friction on the home front further drives Vlad towards next door and his is drawn to the charms of Zinaida like a moth to the flame.
Without completely divulging the plot, Turgenev covers loss and betrayal, the blurry line between infatuation and love, and the pitfalls and pains of growing up, letting go and moving on – “a man must stand on his own feet, if he can get nothing but a rock to stand on…” Despite the line, “fear the love of a woman; fear that bliss, that poison…” Turgenev is not really sounding alarm bells for men around the world about the “dangers” of the femme fatale, but rather prompting us (both men and women alike) to question whether the only thing worse than being in love is not being in love at all.
February 23, 2020
These are the days of frock-coats and coxcombs and courtships, when being distinctive mattered in person, not online. The days of young men making fools of themselves (then again, they still do). So, Turgenev had something unexplainable going on with the composer, Pauline Viardot. This makes a certain part of the story palpable. Before he died, he admitted that First Love: “is the only thing that still gives me pleasure, because it is life itself, it was not made up...” Even without that perspective, the story stands alone as great craftsmanship wherein illogical love, and even something akin to the passion of poetry, burns on the page. Or should I say, lights up the page? No, it burns beneath my fingertips. No one takes a person through storytelling in such a beguiling way as does Turgenev (thank you Ilse for giving me the nudge to return to his writing again this year). I was captivated by the arc of the story; the way in which Turgenev leans into instinctive language through the retrospective narration of an older man who, at sixteen years old, falls in love with a woman five years his senior; how the story stays emotionally awake through evocations; how the ending throbs with bewildering revelations. So captivated that I decided to jot this review on my iPhone because I’m in the middle of the New England woods and don’t want to lose this moment, this feeling of the last page turned.
March 7, 2022
seems like a classical and PG version of Birthday Girl to me🙄
November 27, 2022
‘My son,’ he wrote, ‘beware of the love of women; beware of that ecstasy – that slow poison.’
POV: When your dad steals your girl. 😩😔
POV: When your dad steals your girl. 😩😔
January 30, 2023
3,5*
- Tudo isso foi há tanto tempo que me parece um sonho.
- Um sonho...- repetiu Veretiev, cujas faces pálidas coraram. – Não, para mim não foi um sonho. Foram tempos de juventude, de alegria, de felicidade, tempos de esperanças infinitas e de forças indomáveis. Que ambos nos nos tenham tornado velhos, tristes e tolos; que pintemos o bigode; que percamos tempo a vaguear nos passeios da Avenida do Neva; que já não prestemos para nada como uns cavalos aguados (...) – isso sim, é que é um sonho, um sonho hediondo, abominável!
- Um Recanto Tranquilo
A escrita de Ivan Turgueniev é cativante, com diálogos muito bem executados e uma boa percentagem de humor a preceder a tragédia, mas nem sempre imprime um ritmo constante à sua narração que, ao continuar para lá do zénite, perde o ímpeto.
Primeiro Amor-3,5*
Estalagem da Estrada Imperial-3*
Um Recanto Tranquilo-4,5*
Talvez por que viesse de um livro de romantismo exacerbado, a história inicial desta colectânea entediou-me um pouco. O jovem Vladimiro apaixona-se por Zinaida, poucos anos mais velha mas muito requisitada, a qual alimenta as esperanças de um verdadeiro séquito de pretendentes. São todos eles retratados de forma quase caricatural, mas o adolescente é descrito com alguma benevolência pela sua inocência, ou não fosse “Primeiro Amor” contado por ele mesmo muitos anos depois.
A “Estalagem da Estrada Imperial”, com as suas reviravoltas, foi o conto mais empolgante. Mais uma história de amor unilateral, desta vez de um servo por uma criada, cujo final anti-climático deitou tudo a perder.
“Um Recanto Tranquilo” redime, sem dúvida, Turgueniev a meus olhos. Ainda que tenha um início algo lento e continuem a ser acrescentados novos intervenientes até meio da narrativa, destaca-se pelo contraste entre as personagens inconsequentes e as personagens melancólicas, com mais um amor infeliz e verdadeiramente dramático.
Como quem os meus escritores ama, a minha boca adoça, adorei as referências que faz a Pushkine em dois dos seus contos.
- Não aprecio versos-respondeu a jovem.
- Talvez porque tem lido poucos...
- Nunca li nenhuns. Os que conheço têm-me sido lidos.
- Nem sequer lhe agradam os de Pushkine?
- Nem mesmo esses.
(...) – Mas há versos que não são doces! – exclamou Astakov. (...) – Aqui tem uns- disse por fim. – Conhece o “Antchar, a Árvore da Morte”?
- Um Recanto Tranquilo
- Tudo isso foi há tanto tempo que me parece um sonho.
- Um sonho...- repetiu Veretiev, cujas faces pálidas coraram. – Não, para mim não foi um sonho. Foram tempos de juventude, de alegria, de felicidade, tempos de esperanças infinitas e de forças indomáveis. Que ambos nos nos tenham tornado velhos, tristes e tolos; que pintemos o bigode; que percamos tempo a vaguear nos passeios da Avenida do Neva; que já não prestemos para nada como uns cavalos aguados (...) – isso sim, é que é um sonho, um sonho hediondo, abominável!
- Um Recanto Tranquilo
A escrita de Ivan Turgueniev é cativante, com diálogos muito bem executados e uma boa percentagem de humor a preceder a tragédia, mas nem sempre imprime um ritmo constante à sua narração que, ao continuar para lá do zénite, perde o ímpeto.
Primeiro Amor-3,5*
Estalagem da Estrada Imperial-3*
Um Recanto Tranquilo-4,5*
Talvez por que viesse de um livro de romantismo exacerbado, a história inicial desta colectânea entediou-me um pouco. O jovem Vladimiro apaixona-se por Zinaida, poucos anos mais velha mas muito requisitada, a qual alimenta as esperanças de um verdadeiro séquito de pretendentes. São todos eles retratados de forma quase caricatural, mas o adolescente é descrito com alguma benevolência pela sua inocência, ou não fosse “Primeiro Amor” contado por ele mesmo muitos anos depois.
A “Estalagem da Estrada Imperial”, com as suas reviravoltas, foi o conto mais empolgante. Mais uma história de amor unilateral, desta vez de um servo por uma criada, cujo final anti-climático deitou tudo a perder.
“Um Recanto Tranquilo” redime, sem dúvida, Turgueniev a meus olhos. Ainda que tenha um início algo lento e continuem a ser acrescentados novos intervenientes até meio da narrativa, destaca-se pelo contraste entre as personagens inconsequentes e as personagens melancólicas, com mais um amor infeliz e verdadeiramente dramático.
Como quem os meus escritores ama, a minha boca adoça, adorei as referências que faz a Pushkine em dois dos seus contos.
- Não aprecio versos-respondeu a jovem.
- Talvez porque tem lido poucos...
- Nunca li nenhuns. Os que conheço têm-me sido lidos.
- Nem sequer lhe agradam os de Pushkine?
- Nem mesmo esses.
(...) – Mas há versos que não são doces! – exclamou Astakov. (...) – Aqui tem uns- disse por fim. – Conhece o “Antchar, a Árvore da Morte”?
- Um Recanto Tranquilo
March 14, 2023
First love - crazy stupid love
September 24, 2018
لم تعجبني ابدا والحمد لله انها لم تكن أطول، وصف تراجيدي مأساوي مطول لقصة المفروض انها قصة حب ووصف مكرر و زائد عن الحد "لفتاة لعوب" لم أجد فيها صدقا اي شيء يمكن أن يعشق وما حصل كان طبيعي جداً اما الغير طبيعي هو أن فتى بالسادس عشرة يمكن أن تمر في ذهنه كل تلك الخواطر والمشاعر وكأنه رجل في الأربعين
القصة قاتمة ومبالغ فيها ولم تكملها إلا لتوهمي لإمكانية حدوث "مفاجأة #ما فينهاية القصة ولكن مع الأسف لم يحصل 😒😔
القصة قاتمة ومبالغ فيها ولم تكملها إلا لتوهمي لإمكانية حدوث "مفاجأة #ما فينهاية القصة ولكن مع الأسف لم يحصل 😒😔
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