‘First Love’ by Isaac Babel

First Love by Isaac Babel, 1925

The magic trick:

A coming-of-age contrast that is so stark and so violent, it’s more than the young protagonist can bear

“First Love” is a continuation of Babel’s famed “The Story Of My Dovecote,” picking right up in the immediate aftermath of that story’s tragic events. Essentially, this is where Babel’s young narrator goes after getting the birds smashed against his face in the pogrom that kills his grandfather.

It’s a very intense mix of intense feelings – sex and death. He says he is in love with the neighbor woman who shelters his family after the raid. It’s puppy love, childish, naïve. So it stands in stark contrast to the other things he is processing in the story: death, hate, seeing his father left simultaneously brave and broken by these events.

It’s a contrast for the reader to observe in the story, of course, but it’s also one the character feels. In fact, by the end of the story he’s crumbling beneath the weight of such a violent coming-of-age moment.

And that’s quite a trick on Babel’s part.

The selection:

“We’re going to have to wash our face,” Galina said to me. “We’re going to have to wash it, my little rabbi. Our whole little face is covered in feathers, and the feathers are all bloody.”

She hugged me and led me along the corridor with its sharp aroma. My head was leaning against Galina’s hip, and her hip moved and breathed.

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