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A review by drjreads
First Love by Ivan Turgenev
3.0
This is the second book I have read by Ivan Turgenev and mostly I feel the same way about it as with his previous book, "Fathers and Sons".
The story is rather simple, even though a bit preposterous... At a gentlemen's club our narrator and a few men are sitting around, speaking about first love. Attention is then turned towards our narrator who has a rather particular stipulation: that he be allowed to leave and write down what he wishes to say, and that he may, uninterrupted, read it to the other men. They agree, and he proceeds to leave, write over one hundred pages, and then returns and tells his story. Although we never return to this framing device, I couldn't help but think about these other men who were just making fun conversation only for this other dude to go and write out a novella which they must now listen to quietly as he pontificates on notions of first love. What a buzzkill!
Anywho, the story is about a teenage lovelorn Russian rich boy who falls in love with the daughter of the princess who just moved in next door. He desires her, is overwhelmed by her beauty and wit (a wit that only a beautiful aristocrat of marrying age could get away with), but there are impediments, scandalous ones at that.
The book, much like Turgenev's other novel I read, is also an opportunity for the author to reflect on philosophy and the changes occurring in Russia during the nineteenth century. It's efficiently written, though quite boring and mundane, and it's quite hard to give a damn about people who simply sit around as unseen servants cater to them, playing idiotic games and having the most inane conversations. If this is a love story, it is the most pedantic, immature, and dispassionate one I have read in quite some time.
Turgenev may just not be for me.
The story is rather simple, even though a bit preposterous... At a gentlemen's club our narrator and a few men are sitting around, speaking about first love. Attention is then turned towards our narrator who has a rather particular stipulation: that he be allowed to leave and write down what he wishes to say, and that he may, uninterrupted, read it to the other men. They agree, and he proceeds to leave, write over one hundred pages, and then returns and tells his story. Although we never return to this framing device, I couldn't help but think about these other men who were just making fun conversation only for this other dude to go and write out a novella which they must now listen to quietly as he pontificates on notions of first love. What a buzzkill!
Anywho, the story is about a teenage lovelorn Russian rich boy who falls in love with the daughter of the princess who just moved in next door. He desires her, is overwhelmed by her beauty and wit (a wit that only a beautiful aristocrat of marrying age could get away with), but there are impediments, scandalous ones at that.
The book, much like Turgenev's other novel I read, is also an opportunity for the author to reflect on philosophy and the changes occurring in Russia during the nineteenth century. It's efficiently written, though quite boring and mundane, and it's quite hard to give a damn about people who simply sit around as unseen servants cater to them, playing idiotic games and having the most inane conversations. If this is a love story, it is the most pedantic, immature, and dispassionate one I have read in quite some time.
Turgenev may just not be for me.