Pechorin is certainly a dangerous man - Byronic in his wasted gifts, his cynicism, his predatory and flamboyant energy for any kind of action that will stave off boredom. In five linked episodes, Mikhail Lermontov builds up the portrait of a man caught in and expressing the sickness of his times.
Set in the Caucasus, the scene of Russia's military campaigns in the 19th century, this is both an adventure story and a sardonic look at the heroic ideals of the author's contemporaries - which makes it all the more ironic that the main character, Pushkin, (like the author) was killed in a duel.
This is a new translation of one of the most important works of Russian Romanticism, 'A Hero of Our Time'. Lermontov's only novel examines a weary and cynical man trapped in the futility of his age.