Essay: Mikhail Lermontov only wrote one novel, but, argues Literary Correspondent Eileen Battersby, it was a prelude to the works of Tolstoy, Turgenev and Dostoyevsky
Anti-heroes are often more interesting than heroes and invariably tend to be far more attractive. This fascination with Byronic badness tells us more about ourselves than it does about the individual. Pechorin, the central character of Lermontov's ironically named 19th-century classic, A Hero of Our Time, is an example, as Doris Lessing points out in a shrewd foreword to a timely new edition just published by Hesperus Classics, "not only of a certain type of Russian: the title fits well with heroes from other countries and even other times".
She is right. This is a novel that defies time because it is about human nature. Lermontov's book has endured and will continue to do so, such is the strength of its narrative voice. Pechorin is cold, unfeeling, restless, incapable of kindness, unnervingly candid and bored. Most disturbingly of all, he is well aware of his perverse character: "I have an innate passion for contradictions of the heart or the intellect. The presence of an enthusiast turns me stone cold, and I think frequent dealings with someone lethargic and phlegmatic would make a passionate dreamer of me." Pechorin is also aware that as soon as any man in his acquaintance shows an interest in a woman, he immediately becomes a rival and turns the first man's pursuit into a contest.
For Lermontov, the narrative which would prove his only novel was an important statement about his society. When attacked about the book, he argued in a foreword to the second edition that it was a study not of himself but of his generation: "It is a portrait compiled from the vices of our entire generation in their full development." In Pechorin, Lermontov encapsulates the essential languor of a self-obsessed, privileged type fuelled largely by his contempt for all who surround him.
The book is, as the translator of this new edition , Hugh Aplin, points out, "beguilingly straightforward, yet wonderfully complex". It begins as an account of a trip undertaken by a travel writer who meets an old soldier. The travel writer is the initial narrator and in the soldier he identifies a man with a collection of good stories. Among the memorable characters the old man has met was one "Grigory Alexandrovich Pechorin. He was a splendid fellow, I'll make so bold as to assure you - only a bit strange." Strange is an understatement. The opening sequence tells of Bela, a beautiful young Tartar princess who has the bad luck to attract Pechorin. Slowly he attempts to win her heart; once it is won, he is no longer interested.
Maxim Maximych the soldier recalls to the narrator the conversations he had had with Pechorin, who admitted to him: "I have an unfortunate character: whether it was my upbringing that made me so, or God that created me like this, I do not know, I know only the fact that if I am the cause of others' unhappiness, I am no less unhappy myself . . . I fell in love with society beauties, and I was loved - but their love only inflamed my imagination and vanity, while my heart remained empty."
Lermontov succeeds in making Pechorin believable and human without sentimentalising him. He seeks neither our sympathy nor affection, merely our interest, and therein lies the genius of this daring novel. It is obvious that the old soldier admires Pechorin. Although the travel writer/narrator and Maxim part, they are quickly reunited by a chance meeting after a travel delay. The scene is then set for the arrival of Pechorin. Maxim is as excited as a boy at the prospect of renewing his friendship, only to be humiliated by Pechorin's casual indifference, which is brilliantly handled by Lermontov.
The episode proves crucial. Rejected by his former friend, Maxim Maximych remembers he has been carrying Pechorin's papers: " . . . I lug them around with me . . . thought to find you in Georgia, but this is where God let us meet . . . What am I to do with them?" Pechorin's reply - "Whatever you like!" - then sets up what becomes the main body of the text. The old soldier, "trying to adopt an air of indifference", as the travel writer/narrator notes, to conceal his hurt, holds forth on his former friend: " What could he see in me? I'm not rich, not high-ranking, and no match at all for him in years either . . . See what a dandy he's become, now he's been in St Petersburg again . . . And I've always said there's no good in anyone who forgets old friends."
Behind the bravado lies an intense grief. The astute narrator asks the soldier about Pechorin's papers and is presented with them. Time passes. On hearing of Pechorin's death, the narrator decides to publish the papers under his own name. At this point the voice of Pechorin takes over. If uninterested in his fellow man, Pechorin has a poet's eye and admits to loving nature. A vivid sense of the landscape of the Caucasus emerges along with Lermontov's reading of the world of wealthy society people visiting the countryside in search of emotional as well as physical relief from the ailment of the rich - boredom.
However aloof and detached Pechorin proves, he is an intelligent observer. For all his self-disgust he is alert to the failings of others. Of a young cadet anxious to make his mark as a tragic lover, Pechorin notes: "He's quite sharp: his epigrams are often amusing, but never well-directed and spiteful: he'll not kill anyone with just a single word: he doesn't know people and their weak points, because all his life he's been preoccupied only with himself. His aim is to make himself the hero of a novel."
Elsewhere he asks of himself: "I often wonder why I'm so persistent about winning the love of a young girl I don't want to seduce and will never marry?" Self- assessments such as this run through the narrative. Lermontov set out to explore the nature of human discontent and its attendant destruction. Readers may not like Pechorin, but he is real. Lermontov explores the condition while avoiding the polemic contained in any rehabilitation. Society, the rich and the aimless military, as much as Pechorin, are exposed.
There is also the more romantic aspect to the book: that it was Lermontov's gesture towards Pushkin, who had died in 1837, aged 38, following a duel. By bizarre fate, Lermontov was also killed in a duel, shortly after A Hero of Our Time was published; he was only 27 years old.
His masterpiece, which appeared in 1840, was first translated into English in 1854. It has since intrigued many translators, including Nabokov, and is among the most sophisticated of 19th-century novels in that it makes plot, the mainstay of the Victorian novel, secondary to the psychological dimension. This is also true of the work of Dostoyevsky. The Russian masters took narrative beyond story and social history and placed it in a darker context, that of psychology.
Lermontov was born in 1814 to a retired officer and his wealthy wife. His mother's death when he was two resulted in the future writer being raised by his grandmother on her country estate. At 17, his love of nature well- developed, he went to Moscow and began writing Byronic poetry. On leaving university abruptly, he entered cadet school, and subversive behaviour caused him to be exiled in the Caucasus. It was not a hardship, and his grandmother organised his pardon.
Already an established Romantic poet - his Death of a Poet lamented Pushkin - and literary figure, he published A Hero of Our Time. But a further misdemeanour, this time for duelling, sent him back to the Caucasus. Having there won the approval of his military peers he went on leave, but, shortly after his return in 1841, he was killed in a duel. His seminal novel serves as a prelude for the respective achievements of Dostoyevsky, Turgenev and Tolstoy, all of whom looked to Lermontov almost as closely as they did to Pushkin.
A Hero of Our Time, by Mikhail Lermontov, new translation by Hugh Aplin, Hesperus Classics,169pp, £7.99