Vladimir Petrovich tells his friends “my heart was full of longing, sweetly and foolishly I was all expectancy and wonder” and oh, God, yes, it’s phrased beautifully – but he uses these overblown description to poke fun at his teenage daydreams very subtly. The dinner party as a framing device allows our narrator (Vladimir Petrovich) that necessary distance from his teenage years to look back and recount what he experienced with the same touch of irony I think we all employ when we try and explain as adults how it felt when we were 16. And while it isn’t a comedy, there are some moments which strike me as genuinely very funny. The cast of characters who all flutter around Zinaida, like moths to a flame, are each well sketched out with distinct personalities, all of them serving their own purpose. He doesn’t shy away from all the excruciatingly embarrassing moments of being 16 and almost old enough to ‘count’ as an adult but not yet confident enough to be properly included in their social circles, that acute longing and intensity of emotion and desperation not just to be loved but to be respected and acknowledged as something more than just a child. I loved it! Our narrator has a clear-eyed, self-deprecating charm as the adult Vladimir Petrovich recounts his memories of his teenage crush on his neighbour to his friends. Suffice to say, this book looked like a lot of things I would find boring. I’m not convinced that’s what I would have taken from the novella, but more on that later. The lesson ‘First Love’ teaches us, if you’re wondering, is “Love can be torture“. Penguin also added a little caption on the back cover, explaining the particular lesson about love this book illustrates. Here Penguin brings you the most sedutive, inspiring and surprising writing on love in all its infinite variety before featuring zero lesbians and only one gay couple in twenty books. The third strike is the blurb from Penguin which breathlessly declares (of the collection): Love is strange. It’s not the sort of thing I would usually choose – being about a) romance, and b) a teenage boy with a crush on an older woman, which are two strikes against it.

This edition of ‘First Love’ was published as part of Penguin’s ‘Great Loves’ boxset – a collection that I have no recollection of ever buying or being given.

#TBRChallenge hosted by Wendy The Misadventures of Super Librarian

First love ivan