First Love And Other Stories (Everyman's Library CLASSICS)

Might evoke reminiscence of the long lost innocent days of your fist unrequited love. It was a rollercoaster ride of emotions for me. Haven't come across anything so poignant and intense on limerence.

This is a really brilliant read, shorter than the last one I read (The Enchanted Wanderer) but also I found it more engaging and read it more rapidly. It really is one of those books that I wish I'd read when I was much younger, although I'm pretty sure my less mature self would not have been interested in Russian writers or reading about the topic of love so much as experiencing directly.The book begins with an assembled group who are telling stories one to the other, which is a great opener for a story such as this one and the Enchanted Wanderer begins in a similar fashion, however, I also think this is great in itself, evoking memories or associations with any good time that's been had doing the same sort of thing,sitting with others and listening or having them listen to you in turn, confident of the friendship or, at the very least, mutual regard for the speaker. Great books do this. Really good books do it with an economy of words and establish a good pace and style while they are doing it, drawing the reader in and stimulating a new appreciation for the ordinary or everyday.Turgenev is definitely one of those authors who is a kind of close observer and chronicler of human experience, when the circle of friends all exchange all too brief sentiments about their first loves and then one of them says they must first commit it all to paper in order to read it back you know that something good and worth reading (and even rereading to be honest) is on its way. As I have said I wish that I'd have read this much, much earlier in my life, and been able to properly appreciate as I am now, because there is so much in this which strongly resonates with my experience but I think also would resonate with anyone and everyone, although it is love as experienced by the male, enamoured with an older female, who is perhaps more self-aware or aware of what the attentions of men mean. That isnt to say that female readership wouldnt appreciate it, not for an instant, I believe anyone would appreciate it.The closely chronicled account of feeling and sentiments, almost every state and stage I associate with love (both at its best and worst I would suggest) is here and there is something about books like this which hark to a time of closer reflection and perhaps self-understanding which I in particular like. While there are myriad attempts to commercialise experience, appropriate it, co-opt it and sell it back to people who didnt realise they could experience it all for free in the first place, essentially experiencing and reflecting on how you feel, feeling deeply, but not giving over to some sort of disturbed, overwhelmed mindset is to be truly and more completely alive. Books giving and account like this one, a "storied" life, kind of an autobiographical tale, operate in some senses as a guide (or a vicarious adventure maybe) allowing readers an expanded, more appreciative, understanding of what everyone goes through in life.Recommended. Heartily so.

Here is Turgenev at his most masterful, telling the story of a teenager's infatuation with a flirtatious young woman, who unknown to him is conducting an affair of her own, in a way that allows the reader to sympathize with both characters, even though each is clearly flawed or making mistakes. Wonderful.

This is a little masterpiece impeccably translated from the Russian with a good introduction. There is not a superfluous word in Turgenev's depiction of adolescent passion in a narrative with a twist.

Turgenev two famuos stories - or they may well be called dramas where this doubble "state of mind" take hold ofboth young and mature victims. The truth: It is for all of us to take care - if it is not already too late. Hemingway, asyoung, prfered Turgenev the Sportsman. Love and passion came later.

I have this in another edition. The EL edition was given as a gift. It was very much appreciated.