Voland ends up punishing the bad Muscovites while rewarding the good, echoing his most famous literary counterpart who’s “part of that power which eternally wills evil and eternally works well.”īulgakov was active during the rise of the artistically wild Russian avant-garde movement that peaked between 1917 (Russian Revolution) and 1930s (beginning of Stalin’s tyranny). In one storyline Devil, who presents as a middle-aged man named Voland (transliterated also as Woland) with his grotesque entourage of demons-in-disguise visit Moscow and instigate a form of organised chaos. Here we have two interacting plots: one of passionate love and the other a strained encounter between Jesus and Pontius Pilate. I, on the other hand, get a big kick out of Tolstoy, considering War And Peace to be in the top five of my all-time faves, but I failed to get much out of Dostoyevsky's most celebrated novel, Crime and Punishment.Having read and reread “The Master and Margarita” by the great Russian writer Mihail Bulgakov – a blend of fantasy and reality (known also as magical realism) – you might glean that my heart is seduced by this diabolical novel ‘par excellence’. ![]() For instance, Russians seem to be extremely fond of Dostoyevsky, while being lukewarm on Tolstoy. But discussions with actual Russians who, unlike myself, have read these books in their original tongue, reveal that the Russian books I like aren't the same ones they do. Quite honestly, without trying to strut about like some snooty, pipe-smoking pseudo-intellectual, I have enjoyed most of them. On my half-hour postal lunch break through the years, I have probably read at least a half-dozen books by Russian authors. Patrick Correa via Wikimedia Commons Still Buttless After All These Yearsįive decades after its delayed launch, The Master and Margarita now receives glowing praise from just about everybody, which leads to the question- What is wrong with me? What the hell, Mel? "Manuscripts don't burn." - Mikhail Bulgakov Magicians, talking black cats, naked flying witches, and a host of other oddities are part of the retinue that make the journey to the capital city of the Soviet Empire, where they shake up and expose the city's corrupt, godless, self-serving bureaucracy. In this novel, the devil does not go down to Georgia to participate in a fiddling contest, as celebrated in the Charlie Daniels song, but rears his dapper, rather articulate head 5,400 miles away in Moscow, USSR. The depiction makes perfect sense and is quite hilarious to those who lived it but is somewhat of a head-scratcher to those who did not. Rather, they exist as part of some crazy allegorical artist's rendering of life under the Soviet regime. The Master and Margarita Mysterious MeaningsĪlthough "The Master and Margarita" is populated by fantastical, other-worldly characters that appear to be hybrids between some warped children's book and a horror movie, I don't think they are intended to be taken literally. Barring another one of life's train wrecks this list may someday be current, but don't hold your breath. ***If the dates are lagging, it is because I am still slogging along, trying to catch up after a prolonged sabbatical from reviewing. When the book is available on a word count website, I rely on that total. **Word counts are estimated by hand-counting a statistically significant 23 pages, then extrapolating this average page count across the entire book. * Eight other titles, with a total estimated word count of 1,993,200 and 266 lunchtimes consumed, have been reviewed under the guidelines of this series. Therefore, I grabbed the novel, tiptoed out of his room without waking him, and absconded it off to work with me, where I read it as part of my Lunchtime Lit book review series. Since he still lives in my home, in my own mind I exercise certain proprietary rights to his belongings. Fast forward to 2017, when I found the tale I abandoned decades ago floating on top of my son's substantial literary library. I gave it up after a couple of chapters, or maybe paragraphs, my attention span not being then what it is now.Īt any rate, through the intervening years I simply assumed I was too immature for The Master and Margarita at age 17, and fully intended to give it another shot someday. Inspired by their enthusiasm for the book I took it home and gave it a whirl, but I confess that it was completely over my head. One of the titles the sisters raved to me about was The Master and Magarita, by Mikhail Bulgakov. A Russian major, she had introduced Little Sis to a variety of Russian authors and their works. ![]() This young lady had a big sister who positively adored me, recognizing my adorableness even with my lack of a pleasing posterior.
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