• First Love by Ivan Turgenev (1818 - 1883)

  • By: breek
  • Podcast

First Love by Ivan Turgenev (1818 - 1883) By cover art

First Love by Ivan Turgenev (1818 - 1883)

By: breek
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  • Summary

  • The title of the novella is almost an adequate summary in itself. The "boy-meets-girl-then-loses-her" story is universal but not, I think, banal - despite a surprise ending which notoriously turns out to be very little of a surprise. First Love is given its originality and poignancy by Turgenev's mastery of the piercing turning-point (akin to Joyce's "epiphanies") that transforms the character's whole being, making a tragic outcome inevitable. Even the nature symbolism is rescued from triteness by lovely poetic similes - e.g. "but at that point my attention was arrested by the appearance of a speckled woodpecker who busily climbed up the slender stem of a birch-tree and peeped out uneasily from behind it, first to the right, then to the left, like a musician behind the bass-viol." (Summary by Martin Geeson)
    Copyright breek
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Episodes
  • 5 - Chapters XVIII - XXII

    5 - Chapters XVIII - XXII
    Nov 28 2023
    37 mins
  • 4 - Chapters XV - XVII

    4 - Chapters XV - XVII
    Nov 28 2023
    34 mins
  • 3 - Chapters X - XIV

    3 - Chapters X - XIV
    Nov 28 2023
    30 mins
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