First Love: A Classic Novella (Paperback)

from dandelionroots

It's official, I need more Turgenev in my life. He could narrate the mundane and I'd be engrossed. His portraits and scenes are so vivid. A sixteen year old boy falls in love with the impoverished, capricious princess next door, so does a decent chunk of the neighborhood. Her heart, however, belo...

from greeniezona

Another Melville House novella I'd never heard of but bought mostly just because of the Melville House endorsement. I had very little in the way of expectations going in, but the book still managed to surprise me. Rather than being about a "first love" where two young people are breathlessly in l...

from AnnieMod

I had read "First Love" before - somewhere in my early teens, in Russian. I knew what the story was about, I knew the end (or so I thought) and I had always appreciated Turgenev. About 20 years later, I get the chance to read it again, in English this time. And the story is still as good as ever ...

from DRFP

I know this is usually regarded as one of, if not the best, short story Turgenev wrote. Yet while there are some wonderful elements here - such as Zinaida's character and the games she plays with her suitors - it always felt to me as if the heart were missing from this tale. Perhaps that is becau...

from Clara53

A whirlwind of feelings, rapture and intensity of first love at 16, the crush of abandonment, disappointment, and a twist of fate (albeit slightly predictable) in the end... And even though Turgenev is not the first writer to dwell on this theme, he certainly claims the reader's attention with hi...