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author, in the sense of a guiding point of view, is a fundamental—and distinctly modern—feature of A Hero of Our Time. Instead, the values of the text are nicely balanced, leaving the reader free to be primarily repelled by the immorality of Pechorin, or fascinated by his personality . . .” There are two inroads for the reader into Pechorin’s character—the first is this narrative movement, which becomes increasingly intimate, culminating in Pechorin’s diary. The second is through the perceptions of the characters surrounding Pechorin. Each begins with admiration for him and eventually feels betrayed. Maxim Maximych describes him as “a wonderful fellow, I dare say,” only to feel snubbed by him afterward. Grushnitsky is his friend, and later his adversary. Princess Mary falls in love with him, and sheds many tears as time goes on. Meanwhile, his journals show a sense of poetry, evidence of higher education, and a love of nature. He is self-reflective and sometimes contrite. In a review in 1840, Belinsky wrote that, “In his very vices, a certain greatness shines through, like lightning through black storm-clouds, and he is beautiful and full of poetry, even at those moments when our human feeling is roused against him . . .”4 A simple reading has the reader looking for redemption in Pechorin but experiencing a cycle of hopes and disappointments along the way. Some adore his roguishness and derring-do. Others find him repellent and exhausting.

In the preface to Pechorin’s diaries, which is written by the book’s first narrator, a nameless travel writer, we are given the contradiction of the work: “Perhaps several readers will want to know my opinion of Pechorin’s character? My reply is the title of this book. ‘What vicious irony!’ they will say. I don’t know.” A lot has been written about the ironic content of A Hero of Our Time. Pechorin’s remarks are often ironic and indeed sarcastic. The title might be both of these. The reader is constantly invited to reject a literal interpretation of the text. But the beauty of this fiction, and all fiction, is that literal and ironic readings can coexist. Things seem to be one thing and turn out to be another—a novel is a long and nuanced answer to a question. As Roland Barthes wrote, “the essence of writing is to prevent any reply to the question—who is speaking?”5 And in the author’s preface, which was added to the second edition of the book, Lermontov does warn against simplemindedness when considering his book with a swipe at Russian readers: “Our audience is still so young and simple-hearted, it wouldn’t recognize a fable if there weren’t a moral at the end of the story. It doesn’t anticipate jokes, it doesn’t have a feel for irony; it is simply badly educated. It doesn’t yet know that overt abuse has neither a place in proper society, nor in a proper book; that the contemporary intellect has devised sharper weapons, almost invisible, but nonetheless deathly, which, under the clothing of flattery, deliver an irresistible and decisive blow.”

What is abundantly clear is that, irony or no irony, the tsar wasn’t pleased with either the hero or the “hero.” When A Hero of Our Time was published, the tsar famously disparaged the work in a letter to his wife, dated June 1840:

I have now read and finished the “Hero.” I find the second volume odious and quite worthy to be fashionable [à la mode] as it is the same gallery of despicable, exaggerated characters that one finds in fashionable foreign novels. It is such novels that debauch morals and distort characters, and whilst one hears such caterwauling with disgust, it always leaves one painfully half-convinced that the world is only composed of such people whose best actions apparently are inspired only by abominable or impure motives. What then is the result? Contempt or hatred of humanity. Is that the aim of our life on earth? One is only too disposed to be hypochondriac or misanthropic. So what is the use, by painting such portraits, of encouraging these tendencies? I therefore repeat my view that the author suffers from a most depraved