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A Hero of Our Time

Mikhail Lermontov

Start date: December 1, 2020

Finish date: December 31, 2020

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Jan 19, 2021 Chrissie rated it liked it

Shelves: soviet-union, audible-uk, 2021-read, shorts, fiction, classics, hf, georgia

A Russian classic written when Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy were still just kids. This was reason enough to try A Hero of Our Time.

The title’s “hero of our time” is an anti-hero by the name of Grigory Alexandrovich Pechorin. It is about him the story is written. While traveling in the Caucasus, an unnamed narrator meets up with Maxim Maximytch, an army official. Maxim relates stories about Pechorin. They split ways only to meet up again, by pure chance. At the second meeting, the unnamed narrator al A Russian classic written when Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy were still just kids. This was reason enough to try A Hero of Our Time.

The title’s “hero of our time” is an anti-hero by the name of Grigory Alexandrovich Pechorin. It is about him the story is written. While traveling in the Caucasus, an unnamed narrator meets up with Maxim Maximytch, an army official. Maxim relates stories about Pechorin. They split ways only to meet up again, by pure chance. At the second meeting, the unnamed narrator also encounters Pechorin and receives Pechorin’s diary papers from Maxim. Pechorin states his papers can be burned, as far as he’s concerned! Intrigued by the stories told him and with the diary entries in his possession, the unnamed narrator has the diaries and his transcribed stories published. It is this that we have in our hands—a string of first person narrative romance and adventure tales. The stories are connected only in that all are about events in Pechorin’s life, from his own diary entries or from the tales told by Maxim.

That all of the stories are written in the first person narrative is confusing because the “I”s are different characters--sometimes Pechorin, sometimes Maxim and at other times the unnamed narrator. When you put down the book and then pick it up again later, you must backtrack to remind yourself who is speaking.

Pechorin is modelled on the “Byronic anti-hero”. Byron died in 1824. Lermontov’s book came out in 1840, when he was twenty-six. He died the following year, shot dead in a duel. I found it interesting to read this simply to better understand the concept of the Byronic anti-hero, to see a character portrayed in this fashion.

Pechorin is a disillusioned romantic. He is cynical. He is arrogant and yet also melancholic at times. He is a fatalist. He is looking for meaning in life. He analyzes himself: he dissects his own behavior. He is an egoist, stating outright that he is. He thinks only of himself and says so and does nothing to hide the fact. He is honest! One must give him credit where it is due. All of this we observe through the events related.

If you are looking for a nice guy, he is not here. Pechorin's behavior circles back to his belief that we are mere pawns arbitrarily moved around by fate. I can sort of see Pechorin’s attitude if one believes a person has no control over his / her own life!

One more thing is to be added. The characters' behavior may be dated, but not the prose. The prose is not difficult to follow, despite that it was written almost two centuries ago. The description of the Caucasus, its people ad its landscape, is particularly well done. The mountains are drawn beautifully!

The audiobook is very well narrated by Nicholas Boulton. I did reduce the speed to 90 percent. The words are clear; nothing is mumbled. There is quite a bit of French, and this is properly pronounced. Anyhow, most of the French is translated. Four stars for the audio narration. ...more

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Mar 28, 2020 Brenda rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: on-my-shelf, russian

I enjoyed the book a lot. It was an interesting tale of a Russian man with some character traits that are generally more self serving than not. I liked the depiction of the time period in Russia, his antics and the philosophical writings interspersed.

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Jan 21, 2021 Karen rated it really liked it

Shelves: country-study-russia, 1001, translation-2021

It's been said that Pushkin is Russia's greatest poet and Lermontov is the second greatest. Personally, I like both of their novels, but if I were to choose which one I thought was the best, it would be Pushkin, his stories are sublime.

A Hero of Our Time begins with an unnamed narrator (a Russian soldier)that is traveling through the Georgian mountains, meets up with an old soldier named Maxim Maximych. Maxim tells the story of Pechorin a young officer, that so intrigues the unnamed narrator th ...more

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