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A Hero of Our Time (Modern Library Classics)
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Review
"Natasha Randall's English, in her new translation, has exactly the right degree of loose velocity. . . . (Nabokov's version, the best-known older translation, is a bit more demure than Randall's, less savage.)"
-James Wood, "London Review of Books"
"[A] smart, spirited new translation."
-"The Boston Globe"
"One of the most vivid and persuasive portraits of the male ego ever put down on paper."
-Neil LaBute, from the Foreword
-James Wood, "London Review of Books"
"[A] smart, spirited new translation."
-"The Boston Globe"
"One of the most vivid and persuasive portraits of the male ego ever put down on paper."
-Neil LaBute, from the Foreword
The Evening Standard
'A hero for our times, too, perhaps.'
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
20 of 22 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Lermontov's book is a brilliant precursor to the great Russian novels of the 19th century. It is principally the story of Pechorin, the hero of the title, a Russian officer posted to the Caucasus. He is, however, not a hero in the classical sense, but rather an ambiguous character. Where traditional heroes are motivated by the desire to do good, Pechorin is motivated by the desire to avoid boredom. When he chases women it is not for love, but to give himself a project, regardless of the effects he has on his targets. Although, he arouses the admiration of his fellow officers, they are also repelled by his callousness and lack of morals. He is a great antihero, beginning a tradition that was later followed by Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky and other Russian authors, with their morally ambiguous protagonists. Lermontov's hero is more classically romantic than those of the other author, but Lermontov stops short of making Pechorin into some sort of Boy's Own hero. The distaste with which the other characters view Pechorin constantly remind the reader that at the heart of his rogueish exterior is a really selfish man, one who we both admire and pity. Although later books have achieved characters like Pechorin with more subtlety, he remains the archetype . I enjoyed reading this book immensely, and, if any of the above intrigues you, suggest that you will as well.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Lermontov is in the line of outsider poets who also wrote novels like Pushkin whom he wrote a poem on,"Death of a Poet",an outspoken denunciation of Russian society,that scorns genius and drove it to its death.The theme of the great individualist who lives by his own codes,amoral,reckless,daring,unable to settle down,a wanderer. Lermontov was arrested and as punishment was posted to a lesser regiment serving in the Caucasus.He was to return to St.Petersburg,celebrated as Pushkin's heir.He wrote this new form of novel involving 5 tales,interlinked and set in the Caucasus.The personal motifs are Perchorin's relationship with women,who fall in love with him and whom he rejects,the social motifs take in his conflicts with a pretentious junior who he kills in a duel and the fact that all people seem to hate him,want him to fall or fail.Above the mediocre herd,a misfit,he is conscious of his superflousness.Byronic,superior,proud and energetic,life is unable to fulfil his expectations.He scorns emotions and his intellect is dominant over his feelings.He rides roughshod over the feelings of other people.His victims, women and men ,are strewn along the way.His predatory instinct,persecutes and destroys people,plays with their affections,people are food to nourish his ego."Bitter medicines and harsh truths are needed now" (Preface).His whole life,he says,has been an attempt to go against heart or reason.Although free from illusions about life,he is subject to the power of emotions,seen in Bela's death,his love for Vera,his pity for Princess Mary and his self-pity.The book set in the Caucasus, a landscape of breath-taking beauty and wild nature, torrents, mountains, ravines, exotic tribes,sea coasts,seem to reflect for him an ideal purity and beauty lacking in human society:'The air is pure,as the kiss of a child,the sun is bright,the sky is blue-what more does one want?What need have we here of passions,desires,regrets?'There are changes of location for each tale and each centres on one main character affected by Pechorin,narrated by himself or by others.He often feels he's the'axe in the hands of fate',but he also claims to act of his own free will.There is a swiftness and economy in the prose,action- packed adventures with no longeurs,a multi-prespectival narrative and the exoticism of the Caucasus to marvel at.He inspired Tolstoy,Turgenev,Chekov and Dostoevsky.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
As stated in the excellent introduction this book is a portrait not a story: so don't bother reading it if you want a beginning, middle and an end or for that matter any sense of chronology. Nevertheless the engrossing narrative consists of numerous adventures accompanied by painterly descriptions of the landscape, revealed by several narrators. The Byronic hero of the title (Pechorin/Lermontov) offers the reader a nihilistic, possibly misogynistic, Romantic, whose objective narcissisms infects those around him with often devastating consequences (emotional, physical and spiritual). Pechorin often refers to fate, possession, evil and death. His women are submitted to emotional abuse and all around him he only sees mediocrity. Pechorin is bored, aimless, spiteful and fatalistic. He appears to think he is a victim but his actions dictate otherwise. For example, the `frightened' Princess Mary refers to Pechorin as `a dangerous man' and he responds with surprise, `Am I really like a murderer, then?' Princess Mary replies `No, you're worse.' Of course Pechorin, the victim, justifies his behaviour, explaining in a revealing passage (p.106), that since a boy `everyone saw evil traits that I didn't possess.' Cue hatred for a world he wanted to love, manifesting in a confession laced with resentment, jealousy, despair and deceit eventually referring to himself as `a moral cripple.' Similarly Pechorin's emotional coldness and self imposed objectivism are clearly evident at the start of a particularly exciting section (p.134), where he states that `For a long time now I've lived by intellect, not feeling.'
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
which translation
I haven't read this yet, I am just trying to identify the best translation and having seen that Amazon has appended the same 11 reviews to at least three different translations, I... Read more
Published 4 months ago by jd
This is more like it
This is, quite simply, the way a novel should be written, in my opinion. Not that the structure should be a goal in itself, because it is rather unorthodox, but this book has... Read more
Published 19 months ago by Blackbeard
I Was Ready To Love The World But Learned To Hate
Perhaps not a novel in the traditional sense with exposition, rising action, climax and resolution using Freytag's structural analysis but more a journal of five events in the life... Read more
Published on 14 Jun 2009 by demola
A pleasure to read
Having bought this book mainly as something to read while travelling I found it to be not only a wonderful read but a gold mine of information. Read more
Published on 13 July 2008 by Gogol
Mostly low key, but a dramatic last 40 pages
Much of this short novel was quite amusing but pretty unremarkable, but it stepped up a gear or two during the duel scene at the end of the Princess Mary section, uncannily... Read more
Published on 30 Aug 2007 by John Hopper
my favourite book
This is my favourite book. I first read it when I was heli-skiing in the Caucasus. The book works a bit like a Tarantino film, the non-chronological order of the stories helps... Read more
Published on 16 Feb 2006
A superb story
a hero of our time is one of the memorable stories I have ever read and it still haunts me with its beauty. Read more
Published on 31 Aug 2005 by Piervy Sto
A Hero of OUR Time
I first read this book as a 'set text' at Uni but have reread it many times since. It struck me when I first read it that this book reflects a great deal of the apathy and... Read more
Published on 9 Jan 2004 by S. Scard
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On one level this is a fantastic piece of travel writing detailing a young officer's journey from the elegant drawing rooms of Russia's heartland to the wild and lawless Southern... Read more
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