'First Love' by Ivan Turgenev (24th Sep 06, Sun)

Being a crazy romantic (who believes in 'a knight in shining armour'), it wasn't very surprising to note that I picked this book off the shelf, as soon as I saw its name. Something in the back page summary made me borrow this. A 107 page - book was nothing other than a 107 page letter written by a man about his first love. The book opens with 3 gentlemen meeting over a meal and finding a common topic to discuss - their first loves. The host and the 1st gentleman, having an awfully normal experience, request the 3rd gentleman to narrate his. This gentleman, being more fluent in writing stories, tells that he would write the story to them. True to his word, in a couple weeks, the letter reaches them and the story of the 'author's' first love unfolds. A sixteen - year old lad falling in love with a poor, 21 - year old, ex - princess neighbour; after a few meetings, discovering that she is in love and then discovering that the lover is none other than his own father. Torn between the love for his father and love for the lady and his mother's agony over such an act of his father's, was most well put. After he matures into a young man, having a brush of his father's clandestine meeting with his first love and then finding that she is married, through one of his old common friends, was shocking and elevating. Yet, in the end, when he visits her after much delay and learns that she had already passed away during, gives us a feeling of tragedy, yet the innocent sweet love, that all of us must have had when we were younger. Sweet and quick book to read...