There is quite a lot to say about this marvelous book (the tale) and about the nicely-bound "Everyman's Library" hardcover edition in particular, noting just a few caveats. If my review seems overly wordy it's only on account of my personal enthusiasm for the work. Here are my thoughts about both the story and the edition, (including the translation by Vladimir and Dmitri Nabokov), in that order.
The account is a fairly simple one, a fact which engenders much of its appeal -- here we have an exceptional novel of historical fiction: A Russian Army officer (Pechorin) is assigned to the Caucasus Mountain region military forces where the Russians and their often tenuous Cossack allies are engaged in a partisan conflict against their Islamic adversaries, principally the Chechens. Pechorin's saga is at times conveyed directly and sometimes by either of two specific narrators, (which has yielded a shrewd literary conveyance by Lermontov.)
The reader learns little of the actual war but of Pechorin's unusual personal experiences and of period Caucasus societies' cultural proclivities we reap a bountiful harvest. Love, duels, corruption, robbery, murder, treachery, gambling, voyages, heroics, and social gala are all facets of this arresting tale. An environment of festive social events, such as dances, especially at the region's medicinal spring resorts but still at the nucleus of a brutal military campaign, might surprise some readers. But these episodes lend a notable enhancement and backdrop to the overall story, much as they do in Tolstoy's
War and Peace
or in Dostoyevsky's
The Brothers Karamazov
.
Lermontov abruptly kills off key principal characters in the joyful spirit of John O'Hara, (
Appointment In Samarra Butterfield 8 Hope Of Heaven
) if I might be permitted that anachronism... or perhaps the reverse is more likely true. And Lermontov's wry and darkly witty dialogues will appeal mightily to contemporary readers of this 1840 work:
"'Carefully we carried the wounded girl to Pechorin's quarters and sent for the doctor. Although he was drunk, he came, examined the wound, and announced that she could not live more than one day; only he was......'
'She recovered?' I asked the junior captain, grasping him by the arm and involuntarily feeling glad.
'No,' he answered, 'the doctor's mistake was that she lived two days.'"
(Page 51.)
While the account is told from a sequence of diverging perspectives, the entirety of the tale has been fit together from five mini-stories, (much as one encounters in Wilke Collins'
The Moonstone (Modern Library Classics)
, or in Sara Jeanette Duncan's
The Pool in the Desert
.) This is also the same sort of Russian literary journey as we joyfully read in
Enchanted Wanderer
(Lyeskov),
Fathers and Sons
(Turgenev), and
The Cossacks
(Tolstoy.) In Lermontov's book, truth is stranger than fiction and there are scores of underlying truths found throughout this extraordinary fictional work. It's certainly no fairy tale but a magical sort of atmosphere does covertly blossom from Lermontov's praiseworthy locution.
The notion of Pechorin being "a hero of our time" achieves a dual end: it lauds this purely satirical book title, and this proclamation (in the context of the story) serves to illustrate a great deal about the era, the region, and the singular societies in which Pechorin existed and subsequently embarked upon during his remarkable and sundry pursuits.
I did wish to point out to prospective buyers just a few unusual peculiarities regarding the "Everyman's Library" edition (© 1992) of this book.
First and foremost, this translation by Vladimir and Dmitri Nabokov is artfully conveyed -- the reader will find it smooth sailing. However, and I make this comment in some bewilderment coupled with all personal humility, it appears to me that the Nabokovs failed to fully grasp the more diminutive nuances of the very book that they were translating!
How did I arrive at this conclusion? The foreword by the Nabokovs expresses a less-than-lukewarm enthusiasm for this outstanding literary work. And to compound this anomaly, their confused and long-winded commentary, which casts Lermontov's writing style and delivery in a negative light, is in itself as inarticulate as it is unjustifiably reproachful of the author. We encounter a pernicious crescendo to all this as the Nabokovs apparently regard their own (subjective) assessments of the work as absolute - they go along further in perceptibly degrading the views of other critics which, from their lofty view, ostensibly amounts to nothing at all worthwhile. This clumsy assertion in the Translator's Foreword [the reader is not actually informed which translator wrote it] exemplifies a number of similarly inelegant entries:
"In the worst story of the book, `Taman' (deemed by some Russian critics the greatest, for reasons incomprehensible to me), Yanko is saved from utter banality when we notice that the connection between him and the blind lad is a pleasing echo of he [sic] scene between hero and hero-worshipper in `Maksim Maksimych'."
(Page 11 -- The parenthetical jab above comes directly from the Nabokovs, not me.)
The translators also launch into some tactlessly chosen comments in their Endnotes, (which, by the way, are only intermittently helpful), which more or less fall into a vague category which might be adequately characterized as "condescending remarks." Some of these observations have little or nothing whatever to do with Lermontov's text and can only serve to stroke the translators' egos - here are two clear examples:
"[Endnote] 124. `Otdelyayushchei,' `otdelyayushcheisya'. It is just like Lermontov and his casual style to let this long and limp word appear twice in the same, final, sentence."
(Page 186 -- Only the English equivalents of these words actually appear in the text.),
and,
"[Endnote] 54. The allusion is to `La Femme de Trente Ans' in `Scènes de la Vie Privèe 1828-44,' a vulgar novelette, ending in ridiculous melodrama, by the overrated French writer, Balzac."
(Page 180.)
Is Balzac overrated? I could not begin to judge this contention one way or another but the Endnote comment in this instance clearly has no relevance to Lermontov directly or to his writings and was thus unnecessary and unfortunate at the least.
But these semi-elitist remarks and unmerited criticisms do not actually embody my chief concern: the translators infer in their Foreword and/or in the Endnotes that Lermontov occasionally made locution mistakes and errors of either logic or fact. They additionally insinuate that he plagiarized here and there which is entirely untrue. Awarding credit where it is due, it's providential that the Nabokovs translated Lermontov's work literally enough that I entirely understood what the author was (alternatively) obliquely, symbolically, metaphorically, and shrewdly imparting in each of these instances, even if the translators apparently did not.
This edition also includes an Introduction by T.J. Binyon. Other than the biographical background on Lermontov which it provides I did not find this digest to be particularly coherent either. For some unaccountable reason, the instant critiques of this work, (which was Lermontov's Magnum opus), seem to have inspired an exaggeration of perceived "mistakes," and/or "shoddy writing." Based upon my own encounter in reading the story, nothing could be further from the truth.
So to summarize this facet of my review, I most emphatically recommend that folks skip past the Translator's Foreword, the Endnotes, and Binyon's Introduction until after they have concluded their reading of Lermontov's story, all of which I feel that most booklovers will find to be as lucid an account as it is delightful. But do not fail to read the "Author's Introduction" which is the very antithesis of the other commentaries, delivering a witty bulwark of charm in its merciful brevity!
In Lermontov's wonderful tale we glean an insight into a region, an era, and into cultures about which, regrettably, so little has been written. This is a straightforward read that almost anyone can enjoy. You'll also find, as they exist in all post-1991 "Everyman's Library" editions, a mini-biography, a chronology of historical events, and a literary context outline, as it applies (in this case) to Mikhail Lermontov. Even given my tepid critique of both the Nabokovs' and T.J. Binyon's contributions (the Nabokovs' artful translation into English from the Russian excepted) I can still favorably recommend this nicely-bound edition.
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Customer reviews
Like the distinct, pleasant, pervasive presence of the smell of sandalwood, the aroma of Mikhail Yur’evich Lermontov’s only novel, A Hero Of Our Time, with its distinct prose, poetic descriptions of the salubrious, mountainous Caucasus and its gripping narrative in the unraveling of its narcissistic, manipulative, anti-hero Grigory Alexandrovich Pechorin, stays with this reader even after putting down the novel.Well, this tome is acclaimed as the “first example of the psychological novel in Russia.” But, I found it to be a beautiful, cohesive, rendition of 5 distinct novellas:1. Bella2. Maxim Maximych3. Taman4. Pricess Mary5. The FatalistCuriously, while Taman, Princess Mary, and The Fatalist are chronologically antecedents to Bella and Maxim Maximych, the former trifecta constituting the so-called “Journal entries of Pechorin” has been organized as a cohesive unit of journal entries that follows the latter duo of Bella and Maxim Maximych. This kind of organization, presented itself as a unique style of narrative prose, that was new to me and seemed to be more efficacious to cotton on to the mindless, purposeless, aimless superfluous machinations of our antihero Pechorin.Throughout my reading, I just could not stop marveling over the irony between the dual lives lost to senseless duels of the time, namely the contemporary heroes of Russian Literature – Alexander Pushkin and Mikhail Lermontov – both of whom were:* great poets, who turned to prose* were killed in duels within 4 years apart* Pushkin was 37 and Lermontov was barely 26, when they died* Unlike in this novel where Pechorin wins a duel and gets to be alive, Lermontov was not lucky to be alive, the same way we have Onegin in Pushkin’s work win a duel, while he was not lucky to be alive himself, either.Which brings me to the final chapter of this work that talks about predestination. Talk of cruel irony here!Albeit Lermontov shellacks, his readers and the intelligentsia (of his time) of not being able to differentiate the creator from his created work, I just could not see myself not being able to see the Byronic Lermontov, with his own excesses, cynicism, and fatalism accurately reflected and portrayed in Pechorin. "Russia seems to be made in such a way that everything can change, except absurdities like this, and even the most fantastic fairy-tale can hardly escape being criticized for attempted libel. The Hero of Our Time is certainly a portrait, but, not of a single person. It is a portrait of the vices of our whole generation in their ultimate development. You will say that no man can be so bad, and I will ask you why, after accepting all the villains of tragedy and romance, you refuse to believe in Pechorin. You have admired far more terrible and monstrous characters than he is, so why are you so merciless towards him, even as a fictitious character? Perhaps he comes too close to the bone?"At one point, when Pechorin writes of himself, I could not stop from wondering, whether this could have also been the senseless attitude of Lermontov, of his own life as well: "What if it does? If I die, I die. It will be small loss to the world, and I’ve had about enough of it myself. I’m like a man yawning at a ball, who doesn’t go home to bed because his carriage hasn’t come. But when it arrives – farewell!"For Mikhail Lermontov, this precise moment came in the form of challenging his acquaintance to a duel, in which he was killed instantaneously. Just 26 years of age. The place was Pyatigorsk, which ironically is the same place for a duel at this novel. Plain-chilling!Now, one does not get to see Pechorin as evil per se. He is not. He also prides himself as not being emotional, albeit, at several points in the novel, he definitely comes out to be so. But, we can all agree that he is an extremely complex character. The future Fyodor Dostoyevsky would go onto mine into the hearts and souls of such extremely complex characters as Lermontov’s Pechorin.So, I beg to differ with Lermontov’s own indifferent take on small loss to the world. “No, Lermontov! Yours was a big loss to all of us!” How many more of Pechorins, had the world lost, due to his tragic life cut short?There are so many wonderful passages I have underlined in my copy (multiple times), as they are just too good. Echoing his own troubled childhood, after losing his Mom and being isolated by his maternal grandmother so as to be extirpated from his father as well, Lermontov’s own melancholy with his ACE (Adverse Childhood Experiences) come out beautifully in this passage, when Pechorin narrates this soliloquy to Princess Mary. "Yes, that’s been my lot ever since I was a boy. Everyone saw in my face evil traits that I didn’t possess. But they assumed I did and so they developed. I was modest, and was accused of being deceitful, so I kept to myself. I had a strong sense of good and evil; instead of kindness I received nothing but insults, so I grew resentful. I was sullen, while other children were gay and talkative. I felt superior to them, and was set beneath them, so I became jealous. I was ready to love the whole world, but no one understood me, so I learned to hate. I spent my blighted youth in conflict with myself and the world. Fearing ridicule, I hid my best feelings deep within me, and there they died. I spoke the truth, but no one believed me, and so I took to deceit. Knowing the world and the mainsprings of society, I became adept at the art of living… I became a moral cripple. One half of my soul had ceased to exist. It had withered and died, so I cut it off and cast it away. But the other half was still active, living for the service of others. But no one noticed it, because no one knew of the dead half.”Without reflecting at some level, the naked truth in that, one cannot understand neither Pechorin nor his creator Mikhail Yur’evich Lermontov.I absolutely recommend his novel with a solid 5-star rating, as I loved it to the core.
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