A Hero Of Our Time (World's classics)
by Mikhail Lermontov

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Book Reviews of A Hero Of Our Time (World's classics)

Book Review: The beauty of a poet's prose
Summary: 4 Stars

The setting for this novel (which is really a loosely connected string of short stories) is the wild Caucasian mountains, to which Lermontov himself had been "exiled" to fight against the fierce Chechens. After the death of Pushkin, Lermontov took it upon himself to keep the great poet's legacy alive. The authorities did not take kindly to Lermontov's endeavour, and transferred the young officer to the war zone.

To 19th centrury Russian writers, the experience of the Caucasus and of 'Asiatics' in general was of tremendous value as a gauge of the value of Russian civilization. Juxtaposing Russian high society with the people of the steppes and the mountains became a familiar device in Russian literature, just like American Indians were used to symbolize the natural/unadulterated or the uncivilized/savage in American literature.

However, in "A Hero of Our Time" the officer Pechorin transcends the boundaries between culture and nature. In the early chapters of the book, Pechorin's adventures are described from outside, and seem extraordinary, bizzare, yet captivating. Later on, other stories are recounted in Pechorin's diary, and they draw a different picture of the modern hero: disillusioned, hateful, and profoundly unhappy. Life is a game which he has long mastered, he knows exactly how to play into people's pride, vanity and passion. Yet, at unlikely moments, a stir of long-forgotten emotion briefly produces a vulnerable, human hero with whom we, despite ourselves, are forced to identify...

Summary of A Hero Of Our Time (World's classics)

A brilliant new translation of a perennial favorite of Russian Literature

The first major Russian novel, A Hero of Our Time was both lauded and reviled upon publication. Its dissipated hero, twenty-five-year-old Pechorin, is a beautiful and magnetic but nihilistic young army officer, bored by life and indifferent to his many sexual conquests. Chronicling his unforgettable adventures in the Caucasus involving brigands, smugglers, soldiers, rivals, and lovers, this classic tale of alienation influenced Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, and Chekhov in Lermontov?s own century, and finds its modern-day counterparts in Anthony Burgess?s A Clockwork Orange, the novels of Chuck Palahniuk, and the films and plays of Neil LaBute.

@BAMF Who is that sublime woman? She is perfect. Oh, excellent: Grushinsky seems to like her. I?m going to cock-block him. How typically me.

My plan to seduce her is simple: act like I always have better things to do, insult her, and act as though I have nothing left to live for.

Apparently she?s begging for an introduction? I wonder if this kind of thing works in real life?

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