A Hero of Our Time (Penguin Classics) - Softcover

Lermontov, Mikhail

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0143105639 ISBN 13: 9780143105633

Publisher: Penguin Classics, 2009

Synopsis

A masterpiece of Russian prose, Mikhail Lermontov's A Hero of Our Time is translated with an introduction and notes by Natasha Randall, and a foreword by Neil LaBute, author of reasons to be pretty, in Penguin Modern Classics.

The first major Russian novel, A Hero of Our Time was both lauded and reviled on publication. Its Byronic 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. In five linked episodes, Lermontov builds up a portrait of a man caught in and expressing the sickness of his times. Chronicling his unforgettable adventures in the Caucasus involving brigands, smugglers, soldiers, rivals, and lovers, this classic tale of alienation influenced Leo Tolstoy, Fyodor Dostoyevsky and Anton Chekhov, holding up a mirror not only to Lermontov's time but also to our own.

Mikhail Lermontov (1814-41) was a Russian Romantic writer and poet. As a young man Lermontov was an officer in the guards, and was sent to fight in the Caucasus after insulting the Tsar. His dramatic life ended after being shot down in a duel.

Ifyou enjoyed A Hero of Our Time, you might like Andrei Bely's Petersburg, also available in Penguin Clasics.

'One of the most vivid and persuasive portraits of the male ego ever put down on paper'
Neil LaBute, from the Foreword

About this title

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

From the Author

When this novel appeared in Russia in 1840 there was shock, there was horror. It was a slander and a libel and a slur on the younger generation. This often happens when a novel or play touches to the quick, but we do have to admit to our appetite for shock and horror. The equivalent in our time was The Angry Young Men, and while the fuss and noise was largely the creation of the Media, nevertheless it all went on for about ten years, and that couldn’t have happened if people hadn’t wanted to be shocked. There were actually reports of fathers trying to horsewhip their daughters’ impudent suitors. Splendidly anaphronistic stuff.
The emotions A Hero of Our Time evoked went rather deeper. Lermontov, unpleasantly attacked, said the book was indeed a portrait, not of himself, but of a generation. He was far from apologetic and spoke out of that sense of responsibility and authority then possessed by Russian writers. They saw themselves, and were generally regarded, as a public conscience. The writers of no other country have ever enjoyed this role.
So when Lermontov said he had diagnosed the illness but it was not his business to prescribe the cure, he disappointed.

Edition details

• Publisher: Penguin Classics
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 0143105639
• ISBN 13: 9780143105633
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 208