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20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Short, Reaslistic, Powerful, February 27, 2001
Turgenev's novella, "First Love" is a compact, but intense, fiction whose realism blends with its literary allusions, dream-like qualities, and point of view to create a work of undeniable power. This is a novella which questions the boundaries between life and art, asking us all the while where love resides in self, family, and society. "First Love" begins in a style reminiscent of Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales." Following a long dinner party, three men are in the middle of a calm conversation, when the unnamed host proposes that they all share the stories of their first loves. Two men's stories are quickly dismissed, leaving Vladimir Petrovich, a pensive middle aged man, who offers to give his story after having a chance to write it out. Vladimir's story concerns a summer when he was 16. Living in the country with a dissatisfied mother and an agonizingly Byronic father, Vladimir happens upon a dispossessed 21-year-old princess, Zinaida. From her shabby home, the beautiful and mysterious Zinaida commands a court of six men of varying ages and backgrounds - a poet, a doctor, a minor nobleman, a soldier, and Vladimir - each of whom is desperate to win her affection at any cost. For his own part, Vladimir attempts throughout the story to discover the roots of his own fascination with Zinaida. Part of the appeal of "First Love" is its point of view. It is a true first person narrative - we only ever know Vladimir's experience - the effect is a realistic account of the infatuation, love, doubt, and inner turmoil of a young man told through the hindsight of age and experience. Perhaps I've grown too accustomed to omniscient narration recently, but the desire that Turgenev evokes to know the minds of others, which of course in reality, we cannot, is both appealing and frustrating. Turgenev's literary background is broad and multicultural - he evinces knowledge of Russian, British, German, and French, Classic and Romantic traditions - all of which give us the sense that the tale being told is at once extremely personal and terribly universal. "First Love" is well-worth the investment of the short time it takes to read.
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21 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Chitaite kogda pianii!, July 22, 2000
I read this book one very, very cold winter's night in St.Petersburg, sitting at a sleazy 24-hour bar by the Gulf of Finland, where I was the only guest. I sat there drinking numerous beers, reading this novella - and was practically in tears by the time I had finished it. By then I'd gotten unreasonably buzzed, so I stumbled over to the barlady (who, needless to say, was called Natasha), and congratulated her on being Russian, for that meant that she'd been born in the same country where Turgenev wrote this lovely, tragic, wonderfully sentimental story. I felt stupid the next morning, but was still overwhelmed with the beauty of what I'd read. I am uncertain how much the setting I read this book in had to do with how much I liked it, and I wonder what it'd be like to read it now, sober, at home, but I suspect it of being pretty damn brilliant no matter where you read it. Well, maybe except if you're from California or something. At any rate - "First Love" rocks.
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Amazing piece of literature, September 24, 2001
At the risk of not sounding manly, I must admit I love Russian literature! And, Turgenev is one of my favorites. I've also felt that he has never been fully appreciated to the degree he should be. When most people think of Russian literature obvisously authors like Dostoevsky (my favorite author), Tolstoy, and Chekhov come to mind but one rarely hears someone speak highly of Turgenev, or maybe it's merely the people whom I hang around with. "First Love" is so wonderfully written, it's so full of charm, wit, humor, and basic human emotions that as one goes on reading we almost relive our own first love experience. We think back to when we were young and how we felt when we had that crush on someone. How the whole world seemed different and exciting. Well, Turgenev managed to recapture those feelings we may have put aside. The story is about Vladimir Petrovichand he tells how he has fallen for Zinaida, the daughter of a Princess. He takes us along with him as he recalls his memories of what it was like when he first met her. And how he also was able to grow up and learn from this experience. I can't praise this book highly enough. A wonderful read! Very good translation by Isaiah Berlin. If after reading this you want to read more by Turgenev try "A Month In The Country" and "Spring Torrents".
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