A Hero of Our Time

I wish I had read this book when I was a little younger. The descriptions of the Caucasuses make this book fantastic for Slavophile in me - experiencing Russia as the Southern, confusing place of my childhood, that is not at all a European country. Parts of Act II appear to be the literary predecessor to Dostoevsky's Notes from Underground, except our protagonist here is a bit more philosophically consistent and not so pathetically pitiful.