Read this book in the fall of 2006 for a 19th-century Russian literature class. I remember liking this novel and wrote my paper for the class about it and the Byronic character.

Closer to a 3.5 really. It's an interesting book & an important piece in the evolution of Russian prose. Nicely written, structured in an interesting way, with a reasonable story too. Didn't engage me as much as I would like. Perhaps though, that reflects the louche, Byronic disinterest of the protagonist & is therefore a brilliant literary plot device. Nah, probably just me...

George Frances Bickers' hero.

Another book which many seem to have a high opinion of but which I found slightly underwhelming. I mean, it's well written and everything (as you'd expect from a 19th century novel since back then most people were uneducated but the educated were VERY educated) but it's all rather standard stuff for the time. There was nothing here that was especially ground breaking or new. It's just... a 19th century scoundrel does some stuff. The framing of the piece was potentially the most interesting aspect (starting with his last adventure, then having his stories recounted by an old friend, followed by his own diary entries). But like I said, the actual content of these stories is very basic.

So it starts with a narrator (a traveller) meeting a fellow traveller called Maxim Maximych who tells him a story about his old friend Pechorin. The story concerns him abducting a woman called Bela then, when she finally submits to him, realising that he's not that interested in her after all. What a cad and a bounder! The next story has Maxim and the narrator briefly meeting Pechorin. Then we have Pechorin's own diary entries before finally, a story about fatalism. The diary section involves Pechorin meeting yet another woman whom he pursues despite admitting that he doesn't actually want her after all. Then there's a duel with a friend who is a potential suitor to the same woman.

I have to say... none of these stories were especially interesting to me. I'm slightly bewildered by the book receiving such high praise from so many corners. It's well written but it's never anything truly magnificent. Sure, Pechorin is a great character, a proper Byronic scoundrel who treats 'em mean and keeps 'em keen, but I'm not sure there's much else to say here. He's a brooding ideal of a man which, by modern standards, most people would agree is a total dick! Yet there's something compelling about him and the narrator (perhaps meant to be Lermontov himself) admits his own bias by confirming that what he thinks of Pechorin can be found in the title he gave the book: A Hero of Our Time. But to me, he was never more than a mildly distracting man of 19th century flim-flam.

So yeah, the book is fine, completely fine.