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Title: First Love
Series:
(The Russians)
Author: Ivan Turgenev
Translator:
Constance
Garnett
Rating: 2.5 of 5 Stars
Genre:
Classic
Pages: 110
Words:
30K
Publish: 1860
Wow, just wow. This was as horribly Russian as you can get! I was equally horrified AND mesmerized as I read this. Turgenev makes sure that the readers understand what is going on while the main character, a 16 year old boy, is obviously oblivious. It is almost funny, right up until the part when you realize the young woman he is in love with is having an affair with his own father. And by the books end, almost everybody but the young man (no longer a young man, but a middle aged man retelling this story) is dead.
All I could think of while reading this was “How can a people who think like this survive?” I’m giving Turgenev one more chance at bat and if that story is just as depressing and wretched as this, I’ll be giving up on him too.
★★✬☆☆
From Bookstooge
A 16 year old boy falls in love with a neighbor girl, who is a 21 year old impoverished princess. She has a flock of suitors that she uses mercilessly for her own pleasure, including the protagonist. It is obvious to the reader that she views the protagonist more as a younger brother than as a real suitor, but he is too young to realize it.
Then it comes to light that she has been carrying on an affair with the protagonist’s father. One of her other suitors sends an “anonymous” letter to the man’s wife and this causes a family rupture that is only kept from exploding by the whole family moving back to Moscow. Our protagonist loses all contact with the princess. She keeps up a secret correspondence with the father until the wife finds out and the father dies of apoplexy. The princess eventually marries someone else and dies giving birth to her child, which then also dies.
The novella ends with the protagonist pondering the inscrutable ways of love.
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