Mikhail I͡Urʹevich Lermontov

Five linked adventures portray Pechorin, a man with very little social decency who acts only in accord with his own convictions and whose main drive is staving off boredom by any means possible.

A Hero of Our Time

Mikhail Yurievich Lermontov

In its adventurous happenings, its abductions, duels, and sexual intrigues, A Hero of Our Time looks backward to the tales of Sir Walter Scott and Lord Byron, so beloved by Russian society in the 1820s and '30s. In the character of its protagonist, Pechorin, the archetypal Russian antihero, Lermontov's novel looks forward to the subsequent glories and passion of Russian literature that it helped, in great measure, to make possible.

Nica Rhiana

 It was a bitter realization. But my love had become a part of my very soul; it grew dimmer, but did not die. Our parting is for ever; but you may be sure that I shall never love another. My soul has spent all its treasures on you, all its tears and hopes.

 That was when despair entered my soul. Not the despair that’s cured by a pistol-barrel, but cold, impotent despair, hiding behind a charming manner and a friendly smile. I became a moral cripple — one half of my soul had ceased to exist, had dried out, evaporated, died, and I had amputated and discarded it; while the other half lived and moved, at the service of everyone. And no one noticed, because no one knew of the existence of the half that had perished.

Some beautiful writing. Did not fully understand. I kept wanting it to be funny, is it funny? Could sense the building blocks of what was to come in Russian Lit. 

Adam Scharf

Rowena Wiseman

So my GP recommended this book to me in between taking my blood pressure and peering in my son's ears. 60 pages in, and I was thinking I'm better off sticking to specialist referrals than book recommendations from my doctor. But I persisted and finally I got to Pechorin's diary and suddenly I was completely hooked ... my doctor was right, it is a marvellous book (someone just should have taken a red pen to that first section ... rather unnecessary, in my humble opinion ...)

What I had initially expected to be a gritty wartime story, turned into a complicated love story of the highest order. Pechorin is a spiky character, full of contradictions; he's full of passion, full of spite, full of love. He himself admits that perhaps his 'sole mission on earth is to destroy the hopes of others' ... he knows that he is a 'moral cripple'. Yet, he pursues Princess Mary because 'To arouse the feeling of love, devotion and awe towards oneself - is not that the first sign, and the greatest triumph, of power?' The games he plays in love and power don't end well, but I enjoyed being a spectator ...

Jesse Morley

"The witticisms of the local dandies didn’t make her laugh."

"I am very pleased. I love enemies, though not in the Christian way. They amuse me, excite my blood. Being always on one’s guard, catching every glance, the significance of every word, guessing at intentions, frustrating their plots, pretending to be tricked, and suddenly, with a shove, upturning the whole enormous and arduously built edifice of their cunning and schemes—that’s what I call life."
 
"At that moment, he raised his eyes—I was standing in the doorway opposite him. He blushed horribly. I walked up to him and said slowly and distinctly: “I am very sorry to have come in after you have already given your honest word in the confirmation of this disgusting slander. My presence saves you from further depravity.""

"It is a gate formed by nature; it rises up on a high hill, and through it the setting sun throws its last flaming glance to the world."

----------

"It is a pivotal book that sits on the cusp between Romanticism and Realism, at a moment when Russian literature was forging its path from poetry to the novel."

"A Hero of Our Time possesses three of the most central characteristics of the Russian novel: 1) psychological analysis; 2) concern with ideas; 3) sociopolitical and ethical awareness. None of these features is the exclusive property of the novel in Russia, but the intensity with which they are engaged does help define the Russian novel and differentiate it from the novel elsewhere."

"Pechorin is a literary prototype of the “superfluous man” of Russian literature; he is another version of the Byronic antihero; and he is an early model of what would later become a nihilist."

"The absence of the author, in the sense of a guiding point of view, is a fundamental—and distinctly modern—feature of A Hero of Our Time. Instead, the values of the text are nicely balanced, leaving the reader free to be primarily repelled by the immorality of Pechorin, or fascinated by his personality . . .” 

"... duels were meant to be the stuff of honor and heroics, and yet so many duels in Russia at the time were fought over petty disagreements—if not out of sheer boredom. More heroes doing unheroic things in an age of cynicism."

Cams Campbell

Lermontov essay, 2nd Arts Russian Lit, St Andrews Uni

Evasive, inconsistent and ultimately incomprehensible. Pechorin is in no way an admirable man. Discuss.

60/80

Q good, after over assertive introductory page.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/qhz1811ltsk...

suspiria

"insan sevinçlerini unutur da, acılarını asla unutmaz."

Maria

любила очень в подростковости, но перечитывать не буду

Анастасия Розова

*Read for class.

3.5/5


  “I was ready to love the whole world, but no one understood me, and I learned to hate.”
"Я был готов любить весь мир, - меня никто не понял: и я выучился ненавидеть."


So. I thought I'd LOVE this novel, unfortunately, it wasn't the case. Lermontov is a great writer, of course, but my enjoyment of the book is highly influenced by how much I love the characters. 

And Pechorin was very hard to love... I know he was supposed to be an antihero, but he was just plain bad in some cases. And used the quote above as an excuse. A lot of people are not understood. Yet they choose love and compassion, not hate and arrogance. Playing with people's lives, manipulating them... Not a favourite type of hero in a classic novel. Fantasy is usually different like that, I can forgive a lot. But this? Every time I've read about Pechorin trying to seduce and use women, manipulate them, kidnap them and almost sexually harass them, I was repulsed. 

Say what you like, he is NOT my hero. 

But I do understand appeal of the story, it was rather fast-paced (took me a while cause I was busy) and easy to read. So I'm glad I've read it. I'm just not happy about the way this book is taught in schools. Maybe I don't understand something I should as a philologist, but as a woman I want to tell children that he is not a role model, like they sometimes see him. 

I know he's not literary a HERO, more of an embodiment of people of his time. And that's the whole point of this book, Lermontov basically says so himself in a foreword. But I want to pay more attention to this in school if I become a teacher.

A Hero of Our Time

Reviews

Highlights