Sometimes I despise myself. Is that why I despise others too?

A Hero of Our Time | Book Review

I can’t remember why I had this on my reading list. I was probably interested on seeing a pioneering work as this is one of the first Russian prose novel, psychological fiction novel, and stars a Byronic hero which predates Dostoevsky’s Raskolnikov and Turgenev’s Bazarov.

A Hero of Our Time is about a young man named Pechorin. He’s from high society and grows increasingly bored with it so he makes things interesting by constantly living on the edge. He almost does not have a redeemable quality except that he gets his part of human suffering and he’s also incredibly honest with himself.

A Hero of Our Time is composed of 5 mini-stories that are almost standalone with Pechorin as the common character in each of them. The narrative structure is somewhat unorganized with the mixing of chronological order and having three narrators. The chapters I liked from most are Princess Mary and The Fatalist. These two alone makes reading the novel worth it.

Several interesting elements in the novel for me includes: a Byronic Hero, Russian roulette, Russian duels, debate on predetermination, and deep insights into the dark side of human nature like envy, pride, vampirism, and prejudice. If you can’t understand why most women love bad guys, you’d have a clue from this book.

This edition also includes Lermontov’s Princess Ligovskaya which he had written before A Hero of Our Time but later abandoned. This was later published several decades after his death. Princess Ligoskaya is quite different and is narrated in third person perspective. It’s about Pechorin’s life before the events in A Hero of Our Time. I didn’t enjoy this as much due to its incomplete nature but it did have some intriguing characters.

Overall, I’m giving this 4 stars for its pioneering aspect and its deep exploration of human nature. I didn’t enjoy reading this novel as much with some stories not as fleshed out as the others and its lack of transitions between the stories and conclusion.

My Favorite Quotes

Bela

He caused me plenty of trouble, God forgive him! But after all, there are people who are fated from birth to have all sorts of odd things happen to them!
p. 12, Maximych talking to the unnamed narrator about Pechorin

I was struck by the ability of this Russian to reconcile himself to the custom of the peoples among whom he happens to live. I do not know whether this mental quality is a virtue or a vice, but it does reveal a remarkable flexibility and that sober common sense which forgives evil wherever it feels it to be necessary, or impossible to eradicate.
p. 24, The unnamed traveller about Maximych

I continually felt the blood rushing to my head, yet a feeling of elation coursed through my being and somehow it felt good to be so far above the world – a childish feeling, I admit, but as we drift further away from the conventions of society and draw close to nature we become children again, whether we want to or not: the soul is unburdened of whatever it has acquired and it becomes what it once was and what it will surely be again. Anyone who has had occasion, as I have, to roam in the desolate mountains, feasting his eyes upon their fantastic shapes and drinking in the invigorating air of the gorges, will understand my urge to describe, to portray, to paint these magic canvases.
p. 25, The unnamed traveller while traveling along Mount Gud

I have an unfortunate character; whether it is my upbringing that made me like that or God who created me so, I do not know. I know only that if I cause unhappiness to others, I myself am no less unhappy. I realize this is poor consolation for them – but the fact remains that it is so.
p. 32, Pechorin to Maximych

I replied that there are many who speak in the same way, and that most likely some of them are speaking the truth, but that disillusionment, having begun like all vogues in the upper strata of society, had descended to the lower, which wear it threadbare, and that nowadays those who are really the most bored endeavour to conceal that misfortune as if it were a vice.
p. 33, Pechorin to Maximych about the young people in Moscow

Maxim Maximych

… about his eyes I must say a few more words. Firstly, they did not laugh when he did. Have you ever had occassion to observe this peculiarity in some people? It is a sign either of evil nature or of deep constant sadness.
p. 45, The unnamed traveller on Pechorin

For we nearly always forgive that which we understand.
p. 51, The unnamed traveller on Pechorin’s Journal

Princess Mary

I must also admit that at that moment an unpleasant but familiar sensation lightly crept over my heart; that sensation was envy. I say “envy” frankly, because I am accustomed to being honest with myself. And it is unlikely that any young man (a man of the world accustomed to indulging his vanities, of course), who, having met a woman who attracted his idle fancy, would not be unpleasantly impressed upon seeing her favor another man no less a stranger than he.
p. 73, Pechorin thinking about Grushnitsky and Princess Mary

Between two friends on is always the slave of the other, though frequently neither will admit it; the slave I cannot be, and to dominate is an arduous task, since one must employ deception as well;
p. 74, Pechorin on Werner

Have you ever heard of heroes being formally presented? They make the acquaintance of their beloved by rescuing her from certain death…
p. 77, Pechorin to Werner

Perhaps that is why you loved me, for joy is forgotten, but sorrow never…
p. 83, Pechorin to Vera

I really do not know why she loves me so. Especially since she is the only woman who has ever completely understood me with all my petty frailties and evil passions… Can evil indeed be so attractive?
p. 94, Pechorin about Vera

I sense in myself that insatiable avidity that devours everything in its path, and I regard the sufferings and joys of others merely in relation to myself, as food to sustain my spiritual strength.
p. 96, Pechorin’s vampirism

And what is happiness? Pride gratified.
p. 96, Pechorin’s musings

Evil begets evil; one’s first suffering awakens a realization of the pleasure of tormenting another; the idea of evil cannot take root in the mind of man without his desiring to apply it in practice.
p. 96, Pechorin’s musings

Someone has said that ideas are organic entities: their very birth imparts them form, and this form is action. He in whose brain the most ideas are born is more active than others, and because of this a genius shackled to an office desk must either die or lose his mind, just as a man of powerful physique who leads a modest, sedentary life dies of an apoplectic stroke.
p. 96, Pechorin’s musings

Passions are nothing more than ideas at the first stage of their development; they belong to the heart’s youth, and he is foolish who thinks they will stir him all his life. Many a placid river begins as a roaring waterfall, but not a single stream leaps and froths all the way to the sea. Frequently this placidity is a symptom of great though latent force. The fullness and depth of emotions and thought precludes furious impulses, for the soul in its suffering or rejoicing is fully alive to what is taking place and conscious that so it must be; it know that, were there no tempest the constant heat of the sun would shrivel it; it is imbued with its own life, fostering and chastising itself as a mother does her beloved child. Only in this state of supreme self-cognition can a man appreciate divine judgement.
p. 96, Pechorin’s musings

Sometimes I despise myself; is that why I despise others too? I am no longer capable of noble impulses; I am afraid of appearing ridiculous to myself.
p. 113, Pechorin’s musings

As I immersed myself in the cold Narzan water, I felt my physical and spiritual strength returning. I left the baths as refreshed and vigorous as if about to attend a ball. After this, no one can tell me that the soul is not dependent on the body!
p. 121, Pechorin’s musings

For a long time now I have been living by my reason, not my heart. I weigh and analyse my own emotions and actions with stern curiosity, but without sympathy. There are two men in me; one lives in the full sense of the word, the other reasons and passes judgement on the first.
p. 123, Pechorin to Werner

That is just like human beings! They are all alike; though fully aware in advance of all the evil aspects of a deed, they aid and abet and even give their approbation to it when they see there is no other way out – and then they wash their hands of it and turn away with disapproval from him who dared assume the full burden of responsibility. They are all alike, even the kindest and wisest of them!
p. 133, Pechorin on Werner