Mikhail Bulgakov: The Master And Margarita

[Bjorn]

We've got a thread for him, but none for this book. And I had this sort-of review thingy sitting somewhere that I hadn't posted here, so...

Pleased to meet you, hope you guess my name

Jerusalem, good Friday 33 AD, around tea time. Three men are nailed to one cross each. None of them is named Bar-Abba; he's been released at the expense of the third.

Moscow, May 193X AD, dusk. Three men meet at a park bench. None of them is named Lucifer, that doesn't mean he's not around.

London, June 1968 AD, probably not very early in the morning. Three men enter a recording studio to record a new song. None of them is named Brian Jones; he's on his way to a swimming pool.

Somehow all of that happens here. And more. Bulgakov writes in two worlds at the same time; he describes how... yeah, you know who, the guy with the pointy beard and the firey eyes, turns up in Moscow.

Please allow me to introduce myself
I'm a man of wealth and taste

"Professor Woland", that's what he calls himself - his real name having been abolished by the party, which of course means he doesn't exist - and his more or less mad aides turn the well-ordered socialist paradise upside down. The result is one of the funniest and most vicious pieces of satire ever written; the forces of evil are loosed upon a society that believes that it's gotten rid of them. Lines form outside the mental hospitals, the cops don't know whom to arrest anymore and no one's safe. Every hypocrite is pulled up, roots and all, and hung out to dry. And it becomes very hard not to sympathize with... you know, the guy who's supposed to be on the wrong side.

But at the same time, Bulgakov weaves in the other story as well. The story of a lone, scrawny Hebrew with no following, no ambition to lead anyone or anything, sentenced to die by a reluctant judge at the insistance of a mysterious guest. A revolution founded on a misunderstanding, much too zealous followers and a shadow figure with a plan. And while Jeshua dies on the cross with no famous last words, Moscow descends into mass hysteria and Mick Jagger works himself all the way up into a falsettoed frenzy

Tell me baby, what's my name?
Tell me honey, can you guess my name?
Tell you one thing, you're to blame!

the boundaries between Bulgakov's worlds become undone and we meet the storyteller. The Master. The one who's behind it all - and he's just a man, like the rest of us. The book describes how it itself is burned because no one wants to publish it (it wasn't published in the Soviet union until 33 years after Bulgakov's death) but manuscripts don't burn.

No rest for the wicked. "The Master And Margarita" hasn't had an easy life. In the Soviet of the 30s the mere mention of... you know, the one on the cross and the one with the pitchfork, was too controversial. As I write this, the Russian church has condemned the new movie adaptation on the book for the same, except opposite, reasons. The book has always been fired upon from both sides.

But Bulgakov had seen trenches and purges. He knew full well that we don't need anyone with cloven hooves to excuse the evil that men do.

I shouted out "Who killed the Kennedys?!?"
When after all it was you and me...

Shortly after "The Master And Margarita" was as finished as it would ever be, Europe imploded. Somehow Bulgakov manages to capture in 376 pages everything that went and would go wrong with the 20th century; madness, paranoia, xenophobia, holier-than-thou attitudes - and he does it with equal parts poison and love. I don't know if Bulgakov himself meant that we're alone here or that we're not, and which would be the most frightening alternative. But there's some solace in the fact that in the novel, everyone lives happily ever after. Well, OK, except for the ones who die or go insane, but they never have an easy time.

Whoo Whoo! Whoo Whoo!

[nnyhav]

Wonderful book. Issues with the Englishing, though (I think I linked previously in one of the translation threads):
The Valve - A Literary Organ | Translation Wars. Once More Into the Breach Edition.

(btw Stewart, The Writer's Index misdirects to Solzhenitsyn rather than to http://www.worldliteratureforum.com/...-bulgakov.html ... pls fix when u can)

[Stewart]

(btw Stewart, The Writer's Index misdirects to Solzhenitsyn rather than to http://www.worldliteratureforum.com/...-bulgakov.html ... pls fix when u can)

Good spot. It's done.

[Eric]

Thanks, Nnyhav, for the URL from the Valve. I've printed it out to read at leisure.

[Jayaprakash]

Another fantastic review.

I first tried to read this book in the Diana Burgin and Katherine Tiernan O'Connor translation. Wikipedia will have you know that 'Several literary critics have hailed the Burgin/O?Connor translation as the most accurate and complete English translation'.

I didn't like it much. I felt I was reading an incredibly ponderous and unsubtle book, the literary equivalent of an aged uncle, dignified in appearance but already quite senile, attempting to share the potty jokes of his long gone school days, despite having forgotten most of the set-ups and punchlines. I gave up just a quarter of the way in.

However, several friends assured me that it was, in fact, a superb book. I've finally started reading the earlier Michael Glenny translation. While it may indeed miss out on nuances of language for all I know, it is still a much more readable version.

[Miriam]

Firstly I managed to read this book when I was at school, at 10th form. I was amazed. I liked it so much, that later I read it againg, then I watched the film on it two times. Now I'm reading it once again. Some mystery, good jokes and a lot of great ideas (Bulgakov managed to describe the whole russian life of that time so... bright and truely, that...) make this book wonderful. Woland... You know, I like this charachter more thant other ecause he shows everything, which happens. My favourite quotes of the book are:
"Yes, the man is mortal, but it could be jst a half of mosfortune. bad is that sometimes he is suddenly mortal, that's the joke! And he can't say, what he will do today in the evening"
"The truth is that you have a headache"
and so on...
I can say, that Bulgakov is a real hero, cuz he knew, that he was wrighting this book "into the table" (that means, it couldn't be published), but he finished it.
"Master and Margarita" takes the first place in my list of the most favourite books.

And I strongly recommend to read such his stories as "The Heart of a Dog", feuilletons, essays, "The White Guard" and ""Notes of a Young Doctor""