About this audiobook
A schoolboy named Tonya approaches first love with an imagination already shaped by the books he reads. Everyday encounters take on the significance of scenes in a romance, and affection becomes difficult to distinguish from the wish to experience an extraordinary feeling. The people he admires do not necessarily match the roles he assigns them.
Ivan Shmelyov follows the changes in a young person's attention as idealisation meets the complexity of actual relationships. Humour accompanies emotional uncertainty, giving the reader a view of impulses that the protagonist takes with complete seriousness. His feelings are sincere even when his interpretations remain incomplete.
The novel explores adolescence, desire and the difficult passage from imagined experience to responsibility towards another person. Its interest lies in the difference between loving an image and attending to a life outside oneself, showing how reading, expectation and conscience can all influence the beginnings of emotional understanding.
