A Hero of Our Time

by Mikhail Lermontov

the pleasure of watching the Russian novel take shape is akin to the cinéaste’s delight in watching the carriage bump down the Odessa steps for the first time in Eisenstein’s Battleship Potemkin. But for the lay reader the answer is even more satisfying. A Hero of Our Time is one of the most exciting, innovative, and engrossing novels ever written. It is a sensual pleasure, elegantly proportioned, cleverly structured, and, despite its easy categorization as both an adventure and a romance, crowned with an existential question in its final pages—“[I]f predestination truly does exist, then why were we given free will and reason? Why must we account for our deeds?” (this page)—that magnifies the entire work, unites it, and bestows upon it the immortality it deserves. Lermontov leads us to this question with striking ingenuity, through time shifts, flashbacks, and multiple narrators. In many ways, Lermontov’s narrative style anticipates the world of cinema; its influence, direct or not, can be found not only in the work of early Soviet filmmakers such as Sergei Eisenstein but also in more recent postmodern films, most notably in the fractured narrative of Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction, a work equally concerned with questions of predestination and accountability.

Rather than taking Lermontov to task for loose ends, I can only marvel at the delicate narrative structure and interweaving of voices. In short, I take the positive view. The beauty of A Hero of Our Time lies in how effortlessly the intricate pieces of this puzzle work together. The trick is to polish this many-faceted jewel of Russian—and world—literature to a shine comparable to its original luster. My job has been to convince you, the English reader, that it is indeed a masterpiece.

Our audience is still so young and ingenuous that it does not understand a fairy tale unless it finds a moral for it at the end. It cannot guess the jokes or sense the irony; it is simply badly educated. It still does not know that in a proper society and a proper book, outright abuse has no place; that modern education has invented a much keener weapon which is almost invisible and nonetheless deadly, and which, under the cloak of flattery, can deliver an irresistible and accurate blow. Our audience is like the country bumpkin who listens to a conversation between two diplomats serving enemy courts and is left confident that each is deceiving his own government in favor of the fondest mutual friendship.

I was traveling post1 from Tiflis. My cart’s entire load consisted of one small valise, which was half filled with travel notes about Georgia. Of these, the greater part, fortunately for you, have been lost, and the valise containing my remaining possessions, fortunately for me, is intact.

I could not help but be amazed at the ability of a Russian man to adapt to the customs of those nations among whom he chances to live; I don’t know whether this quality of mind is worthy of censure or praise, but it proves his incredible flexibility and the presence of this clear common sense which forgives evil everywhere he sees its necessity or the impossibility of its elimination.

actually disenchantment, like all fashions, having begun with the highest tiers of society, had descended to the lowest, which carried them to term, and that nowadays those who more than anyone else were in fact suffering from boredom tried to conceal this misfortune as if it were a sin. The captain did not appreciate these fine points; he shook his head and smiled slyly: “Still, the French must have introduced the fashion of being bored, right?” “No, the English.” “Aha! There you have it!” he replied. “They’ve always been inveterate drunkards, haven’t they?” I couldn’t help but recall a certain young Muscovite lady who had maintained that Byron was nothing more than a drunkard. Actually, the captain’s remark was more excusable; in order to abstain from wine, he naturally tried to assure himself that all the world’s misfortunes stemmed from drink.

While rereading these notes, I became convinced of the sincerity of the man who so pitilessly displayed his own weaknesses and vices. The story of a human soul, even the meanest of souls, is perhaps more curious and useful than the story of an entire nation, especially when it is the result of self-examination by a mature mind and when it is written without the vain desire to arouse sympathy or amazement. Rousseau’s Confessions have the failing that he read them to his friends.

Perhaps some readers will want to learn my opinion of Pechorin’s character. My answer is the title of this book. “But that is malicious irony!” they will say. I don’t know.

Can it really be, I thought, that my sole purpose on earth is to dash other people’s hopes? Ever since I’ve been alive and active, fate has always seemed to lead me into the dénouements of other people’s dramas, as if without me no one could be brought to death or despair. I’ve been the essential character of the fifth act; without meaning to, I have played the wretched part of executioner or traitor. What has been fate’s purpose? Has it not destined me to be the composer of vulgar tragedies and domestic novels—or an associate of those purveyors of tales, for instance, for the Reading Library? How should I know? How many people, in starting out in life, dream of ending it as Alexander the Great, or Lord Byron, but meanwhile all their life remain titular councilors? Walking up the stairs to the ballroom, I hid in a crowd of men and began to make my observations.

walked home through the deserted lanes of the village; the moon, full and red, like a fire’s glow, began to show itself behind the jagged line of buildings; the stars shone calmly in the dark blue vault, and I was amused to recall that there were once very wise men who thought that the heavenly bodies played a part in our trivial disputes over a scrap of land or invented rights. And now? These lamps, lit, according to them, for the sole purpose of illuminating their battles and festivals, burn with the same gleam, but their passions and hopes were extinguished long ago, along with them, like a fire lit on the edge of a forest by a carefree wanderer! But then what fortitude people were given by their confidence that the entire sky, with its numberless inhabitants, was looking down upon them with sympathy, albeit mute, but unfailing nonetheless! Whereas we, their pitiful heirs, straying over this earth without conviction or pride, without pleasure or fear, other than the unwitting fear that squeezes the heart at the thought of the inevitable end, we are incapable of great sacrifices either for the good of mankind or even for our own happiness, because we know its impossibility and move indifferently from doubt to doubt, as our ancestors rushed from delusion to delusion, not having, as they did, either hope or even that vague, albeit powerful, satisfaction which the soul finds in any struggle with men or destiny. Many other similar thoughts came to mind as well; I made no eff...