A Hero of Our Time

By: Mikhail Lermontov

Narrated by: Clive Chafer

Length: 6 hrs and 11 mins

Publisher's summary

First published in Russia as Geroy Nashego Vremeni, A Hero of Our Time is set in the Russian Caucasus in the 1830s.

In A Hero of Our Time, Grigory Pechorin is a bored, self-centered, and cynical young army officer who believes in nothing. With impunity he toys with the love of women and the goodwill of men. He is brave, determined, and willful, but his wasted energy and potential ultimately result in tragedy.

This psychologically probing portrait of a disillusioned 19th-century aristocrat and its use of a nonchronological and multifaceted narrative structure influenced such later Russian authors as Fyodor Dostoevsky and Leo Tolstoy and presaged the antiheroes and antinovels of 20th-century fiction.

Public Domain (P)2016 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Begay! GT Human … all human

Great and deep social and psychological observations. An emotional journey in human mind, interaction and motivation. Pure, at times even cruel realism.

A must read.

One of the best books I’ve ever read. Hard to believe it was written in 1839. Highly recommend.

Likeable bastard

The story of a dashing anti-hero, Grigory Alexandrovich Pechorin told from multiple perspectives. Captures the spirit of the times - especially in regard to personal honour lost and gained - but just as relevant today concerning our personal choices and their consequences. Once you've finished, look up Mikhail Lermontov's bio for a hard-to-match bitter irony.

Genius Presentation of Ywtsaxt fas

genius writing. interesting main character. great description of the soul and inner struggle. well performed and provocative. a hidden gem

Good

Good solid k k k k k k k k j k k
Gfg hhh yeez what

Rising inflection

I had to get use to Clive Chafer's voice. At first it sounded as if he was reading it with the tone of sarcasm. But as the novel progressed I got use to his voice and it did not chafe me as badly. That is not to say I would pick him to narrate any other book I chose. One particular thing he does is end many of his interrogatory sentences with a rising inflection. And so it sounds like a BBC reporter narrating the story. This is very irritating. His voice never got out of the way of the story. It lacked sensitivity. However, it did add a better appreciation to the simultaneous reading of the novel.

An overlooked great literary work

Hard to imagine that this book was written when the author was only 23 and he died at the tender age of 26. Anyway, a compelling story that only gets better as it goes on. I thought the narrator was annoying at 1st but later realised that his delivery fit that of a bored jaded young man thus nicely fitting the narrator of the book.

An interesting book, better speed up a little

I did like this book very much. If this author hadn't been killed in a duel at age 26 then I can imagine he would have become one of the greatest Russian writers. I really would like to give this a little over 4 stars, but it's not quite 5 stars for me. Still I would recommend this because it's unusual and interesting. Its structure is different, being in 5 sections, so don't expect a regular plot line. I got this book after seeing it in my Audible suggestions. They know me well - I do like a good Russian novel.

I thought the narration good, but I usually listen a little faster. I listened to a little at regular speed and it's way too slow. I suggest going in at 1.10 to 1.25 speed. He's great with voices at least.

I listened to Novels in Translation all summer and a little beyond. I am late delivering my review.

Can't Understand Why I Enjoyed This One

The hero is a self-absorbed Byronic mess of contradictions, so much so that, near the end of the novel he opines that after his death some will say he was a good fellow while others will say he was a rogue, and that neither will be right. And he's right.

Maybe its the fascination of a bad sort who looks (at times) as if he's about to do the right thing. Maybe it's the morbid charm of a dissolute life. Certainly a man who cannot see the point of being alive (and therefore has no motivation more vital than the pursuit of pleasure) has its voyeuristic attractions. But I think it's the complex, tragic irony of the plot and its denouement that kept me going.

Clive Chaffer does a fine job, but he needs to be sped up a little. 1.1x worked for me.

Not great

So, this is supposed to be about a mysterious antihero or whatever, but he mainly came across as what every pickup artist would like to see themselves as. I can generally set aside my own cultural relativism when engaging is older works of literature, but when you start out with the "hero" kidnapping and sexually assaulting a teenager, inadvertently getting her father murdered in the process, then keeping her imprisoned for months using all of his manipulation skills to get her to care about him, only to then get bored of her and then accidently get her killed too... I don't love it. The two main sections are this storyline and one where he literally plays with a woman's feelings and breaks her heart just because. I guess I'm just done with people trying to build up admiration and mystique around selfish womanizers, which was very much what this book was doing.

That being said, I enjoyed the sections that weren't part of the womanizer stories. There were stories about creepy cabins, spooky predestination, and fatal duels that were very good, but, unfortunately, much shorter than the two main stories about how using and discarding women makes somebody super deep and complex and interesting.

I think that it's important, when you're reading a book or studying a person from the past to be able to see past your own, modern sense of morality to try to understand the world the person lived or the book was written in. I think that the value of this comes in our shared humanity. A person who lived in a different society with different values was still a person, and they probably had brilliant insights on the nature of being human and of being alive that stretch far beyond a particular place or a particular time, and that we shouldn't let a different worldview blind us to the insight they can provide. The problem with this book, is that almost the entire thing is a solid block of "things you need to understand in their historical context and look past" with no story underneath.

The truth of the matter is, I did not dislike this book. It was full of distasteful elements that I hated, but I could separate those from my own modern sense of morality. The issue is, when the book was stripped of those elements, there wasn't enough left over to really form an opinion on. Ultimately, the story felt hollow.