A Hero of Our Time is the story of Pechorin, a Byronic Russian military officer serving in the Caucuses and later recuperating in a mountain town. Pechorin is intelligent, handsome, and magnetic but acts arbitrarily and without understanding his own decisions. He is frequently violent, scorns those who seek his affection or approval, and seems incapable of connecting with those closest to him. Eventually Pechorin kills his friend Grushnitsky in a meaningless duel and, his spirit broken, dies several uneventful years later.
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