A Hero Of Our Time (Penguin Classics)

Proud, willful and charismatic, Pechorin is Byronic in his wasted gifts and bored by his stifling world. With a predatory energy for any activity that will relieve his ennui, he embarks on a series of exciting adventures, involving smugglers, brigands, soldiers, rivals and lovers, and leaves a trail of broken hearts behind him. A Hero of Our Time is a literary landmark, the first example of the psychological novel in Russia. Its five linked episodes, using different narrators and Pechorin's own diaries, act as a series of snapshots which form a complex portrait of this fascinating character.