This is my first Turgenev, and what a glorious one at that! Vivid, impressive, and complex, ‘First Love’ is about 16-year-old Vladimir’s conviction that he has found the girl of his dreams in 21-year-old Zinaida. He first espies her in a garden surrounded by a gaggle of besotted young men all waiting to do her bidding, and Vladimir’s heart becomes hers.
Vladimir is sensitive and quick to notice things. He nails Zinaida’s layered personality when he says that she is a blend of, “cunning and carelessness, artificiality and simplicity, calmness and vivacity.” He pines for her while she plays with him, leading him to believe that he is her favourite amongst all the other suitors. But he notices over a period that her coquettish acts begin to fade away, and she becomes more withdrawn. He realizes that she too is in love but just not with him.
Writing a novella about themes as vast as nostalgia, love, and growing up is not easy. But Turgenev does it with amazing dexterity. He makes Vladimir the wheels of the novel by tying the story’s progression to Vladimir’s thoughts, his silent observations, and his eventual realizations, and less to dialogue. Through him, Turgenev gives us some enduring truths about human psychology. Sample this.
“There is a sweetness in being the sole source, the autocratic and irresponsible cause of the greatest joy and profoundest pain to another…”
We all still nod our heads in silent agreement at that, am sure, just as people in the 19th century would have.
Eventually, in this book, Turgenev explores themes that have been much written about. But it’s getting to the heart of it all without the tortured darkness of a Dostoyevsky or the woeful despondency of a Tolstoy that makes him stand a class apart. I am looking forward to my next Turgenev.
