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bonnieg's review against another edition
5.0
The woman is wild, a she-cat tamed by the purr of a Jaguar
Money's the matter
If you're in it for love
You ain't gonna get too far
Watch out boy she'll chew you up
(Oh here she comes)
She's a maneater
~Hall and Oates
What a sly little novella Turgenev has given us here! Ivan took a lot of crap for not writing, in 1860, about important societal changes that began after the end of the Crimean war. I am terrible with Russian history, but this would have been around the time that serfs stated agitating in their own defense. One of the czars (Alexander II maybe?) in response to the agitation finally allowed commoners to purchase land. It might have taken until 1917 for the revolution to finally end the monarchy, but their end was on a giant countdown clock the moment serfs were given self-determination. So at this hinge moment people were scandalized when Turgenev chose to write about adolescent passion! Or was he only writing about adolescents passion? This story is a scream in favor of the end of the aristocracy. To say the people in the book are subtly cruel, absurdly melodramatic, and entirely ridiculous is to grossly understate the case.
The comically manipulative and conceited Princess Zinaida has men dancing around her doing things like drawing lots for the honor of kissing her hand. The amount of time spent in these sorts of activities gave me a new respect for the efficiencies of Tinder. Many men appear superficially besotted with the beautiful princess, but most seem to be engaging in this dance because it is expected. Our narrator (telling the story years later), Vladimir, is Zinaida's next door neighbor, a 16-year old boy (Zinaida is 21) who seems to be "in love" in the sense that his hormones are kicking in, she is beautiful, and she has been identified as desirable by older and more experienced courtiers. This feels so authentic to 16 year old love, so straightforward, that I found Vladimir irresistible and honestly lamented the end of his innocence which was clearly coming. Unsurprisingly, Zinaida falls not for one if her suitors, but for someone who is not in the room, The identity of that man is somewhat surprising. I don't want to spoil this but I will say that Zinaida says early on she needs a man who will "master her" despite knowing that will be bad for her in the end and she finds that man. It seems like Zinaida is the only one other than Vladimir who loves operatically, and like Vladimir she has chosen badly.
The whole novella is beautifully crafted. Spare prose and a structure that takes the reader step-by-step from idealism to disillusionment to dust.
You love her
But she loves him
And he loves somebody else
You just can't win
And so it goes
'Til the day you die
This thing they call love
It's gonna make you cry
I've had the blues
The reds and the pinks
One thing for sure
(Love stinks)
~The J. Geils Band
Money's the matter
If you're in it for love
You ain't gonna get too far
Watch out boy she'll chew you up
(Oh here she comes)
She's a maneater
~Hall and Oates
What a sly little novella Turgenev has given us here! Ivan took a lot of crap for not writing, in 1860, about important societal changes that began after the end of the Crimean war. I am terrible with Russian history, but this would have been around the time that serfs stated agitating in their own defense. One of the czars (Alexander II maybe?) in response to the agitation finally allowed commoners to purchase land. It might have taken until 1917 for the revolution to finally end the monarchy, but their end was on a giant countdown clock the moment serfs were given self-determination. So at this hinge moment people were scandalized when Turgenev chose to write about adolescent passion! Or was he only writing about adolescents passion? This story is a scream in favor of the end of the aristocracy. To say the people in the book are subtly cruel, absurdly melodramatic, and entirely ridiculous is to grossly understate the case.
The comically manipulative and conceited Princess Zinaida has men dancing around her doing things like drawing lots for the honor of kissing her hand. The amount of time spent in these sorts of activities gave me a new respect for the efficiencies of Tinder. Many men appear superficially besotted with the beautiful princess, but most seem to be engaging in this dance because it is expected. Our narrator (telling the story years later), Vladimir, is Zinaida's next door neighbor, a 16-year old boy (Zinaida is 21) who seems to be "in love" in the sense that his hormones are kicking in, she is beautiful, and she has been identified as desirable by older and more experienced courtiers. This feels so authentic to 16 year old love, so straightforward, that I found Vladimir irresistible and honestly lamented the end of his innocence which was clearly coming. Unsurprisingly, Zinaida falls not for one if her suitors, but for someone who is not in the room, The identity of that man is somewhat surprising. I don't want to spoil this but I will say that Zinaida says early on she needs a man who will "master her" despite knowing that will be bad for her in the end and she finds that man. It seems like Zinaida is the only one other than Vladimir who loves operatically, and like Vladimir she has chosen badly.
The whole novella is beautifully crafted. Spare prose and a structure that takes the reader step-by-step from idealism to disillusionment to dust.
You love her
But she loves him
And he loves somebody else
You just can't win
And so it goes
'Til the day you die
This thing they call love
It's gonna make you cry
I've had the blues
The reds and the pinks
One thing for sure
(Love stinks)
~The J. Geils Band
kaponei's review against another edition
3.0
Algumas anotações, só para constar. (Livro lido há meses).
Simples e bela novela. trata com precisão o sentimento confuso e novo que é o primeiro amor. O capítulo final dialoga perfeitamente com o sujeito crescido lembrando dos absurdos sentimentalistas da juventude.
Simples e bela novela. trata com precisão o sentimento confuso e novo que é o primeiro amor. O capítulo final dialoga perfeitamente com o sujeito crescido lembrando dos absurdos sentimentalistas da juventude.
djred's review against another edition
dark
emotional
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
laurenjoy's review against another edition
A book that was pretty good, but which lacked some substance.
jasperverfaillie's review against another edition
4.0
Uitgelezen in 9 toiletbezoekjes te Oudegem. Mijn excuses aan iedereen die telkens op mij zat te wachten.
lukewarmacid's review against another edition
fast-paced
4.0
** sort of vague spoilers, doesnt explicitly say stuff but id still be cautious haha **
this little 102 pgs long book was actually quite fantastic. i took quite a bit of notes in comparison to its length haha
this book essentially details this irrevocable love that consumes, an experience that situates deep within your soul. this is a novella where a man details his first love experience to a group of other people, showing his perspective of when he first fell in love with the princess next door at the age of 16.
my initial notes of this novella is comical to read back on considering the twist we find out later on, that i correctly predicted at around 70 pgs in.
anyways, what i enjoyed was the experience of trying to gauge whether this instance of love is good for the guy, woldemar. he’s just 16 yrs old, but hes so deeply enamored with the princess, zinaida, knowing deep down in his gut that this treatment isn’t proper but he willfully allows himself to remain stagnant in this negative atmosphere nonetheless because the blissful love is soooo addictive.
i think this novella served me well because i can relate to how deeply love roots into my soul!!!! but this is also a tale of figuring out love and passion at a young age but also identifying abuse and mistreatment. a little key message i picked up on was “know when to leave.”
but it was lowkey an insane book, where this princess plays around and has games with all these men who are obsessed with her, yet she doesn’t prioritize love, more so prioritizing herself above all but then she does. she does love. i remember feeling surreal about one of the nights where she played a bunch of games with the men (including our woldemar); i genuinely felt like i should’ve been high n it vaguely reminded me of the drugged up midsommar scene.
i also was in awe with some of woldemar’s thoughts, this idea of doing anything for zinaida, but for some reason he wouldn’t imagine himself a happily ever after with her? i think he knew it was a fleeting experience… trust ur gut…
quite a fantastic piece of literature! now here are some quotes i enjoyed:
“i never wish to experience [the feelings with which i left her] again, but i should count it a misfortune never to have had them at all.”
“evidently to sacrifice oneself is the height of bliss — for some people.”
- honestly, there was more to this quote, but this portion made me think of how one maintains the illusion of seeing and finding more within a person to justify the self sacrifice.
“take what you can yourself, and don’t let others get you into their hands; to belong to oneself, that is the whole thing in life…”
this little 102 pgs long book was actually quite fantastic. i took quite a bit of notes in comparison to its length haha
this book essentially details this irrevocable love that consumes, an experience that situates deep within your soul. this is a novella where a man details his first love experience to a group of other people, showing his perspective of when he first fell in love with the princess next door at the age of 16.
my initial notes of this novella is comical to read back on considering the twist we find out later on, that i correctly predicted at around 70 pgs in.
anyways, what i enjoyed was the experience of trying to gauge whether this instance of love is good for the guy, woldemar. he’s just 16 yrs old, but hes so deeply enamored with the princess, zinaida, knowing deep down in his gut that this treatment isn’t proper but he willfully allows himself to remain stagnant in this negative atmosphere nonetheless because the blissful love is soooo addictive.
i think this novella served me well because i can relate to how deeply love roots into my soul!!!! but this is also a tale of figuring out love and passion at a young age but also identifying abuse and mistreatment. a little key message i picked up on was “know when to leave.”
but it was lowkey an insane book, where this princess plays around and has games with all these men who are obsessed with her, yet she doesn’t prioritize love, more so prioritizing herself above all but then she does. she does love. i remember feeling surreal about one of the nights where she played a bunch of games with the men (including our woldemar); i genuinely felt like i should’ve been high n it vaguely reminded me of the drugged up midsommar scene.
i also was in awe with some of woldemar’s thoughts, this idea of doing anything for zinaida, but for some reason he wouldn’t imagine himself a happily ever after with her? i think he knew it was a fleeting experience… trust ur gut…
quite a fantastic piece of literature! now here are some quotes i enjoyed:
“i never wish to experience [the feelings with which i left her] again, but i should count it a misfortune never to have had them at all.”
“evidently to sacrifice oneself is the height of bliss — for some people.”
- honestly, there was more to this quote, but this portion made me think of how one maintains the illusion of seeing and finding more within a person to justify the self sacrifice.
“take what you can yourself, and don’t let others get you into their hands; to belong to oneself, that is the whole thing in life…”
diaswuri's review against another edition
5.0
This is one of my favorite Russian classics of all time. Read it in Russian when I was still in college for my literature class, and now I have the eBook in English. Both versions are achingly good.
athend's review against another edition
3.0
A flirtatious young girl flirts and leads on a crowd of sex starved pervs who worship her for no particular reason than her virtues of being young, pretty and a tease. Protagonist, like any other 16 year olds, has a lot of enthusiasm but zero knowledge of how any of it works, so he's just following her caprices like a dummy.
Girl proceeds to ignore all her wannabe-boyfriends and jumps into an affair with an older guy who actually knows what's up (such shock!). Of course, the guy is married (big scandal!), such drama!
And at the end, as in has to be with any self-respecting Russian book (or any story, for that matter), we have DEATH, a surprising amount of it!
There, at the final, we read the protagonist's sobering retrospective on love, youth, feelings and how fleeting and precious life is. It's actually worth to go through the entirety of this book and suffer all the delusional oh's and ah's of youth, just to read the last few musings. If it wasn't for that part, this review would have been 2 stars less.
Girl proceeds to ignore all her wannabe-boyfriends and jumps into an affair with an older guy who actually knows what's up (such shock!). Of course, the guy is married (big scandal!), such drama!
And at the end, as in has to be with any self-respecting Russian book (or any story, for that matter), we have DEATH, a surprising amount of it!
There, at the final, we read the protagonist's sobering retrospective on love, youth, feelings and how fleeting and precious life is. It's actually worth to go through the entirety of this book and suffer all the delusional oh's and ah's of youth, just to read the last few musings. If it wasn't for that part, this review would have been 2 stars less.