This title is translated by Michael Glenny. The devil makes a personal appearance in Moscow accompanied by various demons, including a naked girl and a huge black cat. When he leaves, the asylums are full and the forces of law and order in disarray. Only the Master, a man devoted to truth, and Margarita, the woman he loves, can resist the devil's onslaught.
Surely no stranger work exists in the annals of protest literature than The Master and Margarita. Written during the Soviet crackdown of the 1930s, when Mikhail Bulgakov's works were effectively banned, it wraps its anti-Stalinist message in a complex allegory of good and evil. Or would that be the other way around? The book's chief character is Satan, who appears in the guise of a foreigner and self-proclaimed black magician named Woland. Accompanied by a talking black tomcat and a "translator" wearing a jockey's cap and cracked pince-nez, Woland wreaks havoc throughout literary Moscow. First he predicts that the head of noted editor Berlioz will be cut off; when it is, he appropriates Berlioz's apartment. (A puzzled relative receives the following telegram: "Have just been run over by streetcar at Patriarch's Ponds funeral Friday three afternoon come Berlioz.") Woland and his minions transport one bureaucrat to Yalta, make another one disappear entirely except for his suit, and frighten several others so badly that they end up in a psychiatric hospital. In fact, it seems half of Moscow shows up in the bin, demanding to be placed in a locked cell for protection.
Meanwhile, a few doors down in the hospital lives the true object of Woland's visit: the author of an unpublished novel about Pontius Pilate. This Master--as he calls himself--has been driven mad by rejection, broken not only by editors' harsh criticism of his novel but, Bulgakov suggests, by political persecution as well. Yet Pilate's story becomes a kind of parallel narrative, appearing in different forms throughout Bulgakov's novel: as a manuscript read by the Master's indefatigable love, Margarita, as a scene dreamed by the poet--and fellow lunatic--Ivan Homeless, and even as a story told by Woland himself. Since we see this narrative from so many different points of view, who is truly its author? Given that the Master's novel and this one end the same way, are they in fact the same book? These are only a few of the many questions Bulgakov provokes, in a novel that reads like a set of infinitely nested Russian dolls: inside one narrative there is another, and then another, and yet another. His devil is not only entertaining, he is necessary: "What would your good be doing if there were no evil, and what would the earth look like if shadows disappeared from it?"
Unsurprisingly--in view of its frequent, scarcely disguised references to interrogation and terror--Bulgakov's masterwork was not published until 1967, almost three decades after his death. Yet one wonders if the world was really ready for this book in the late 1930s, if, indeed, we are ready for it now. Shocking, touching, and scathingly funny, it is a novel like no other. Woland may reattach heads or produce 10-ruble notes from the air, but Bulgakov proves the true magician here. The Master and Margarita is a different book each time it is opened. --Mary Park
Customer Reviews:
Avg. Customer Rating: 4.5 / 5.0
"a liberating, exuberant social and political satire (Moscow) combined with a profound moral and political allegory (Jerusalem);:
a vindication and a celebration of the persecuted (metaphorically executed?) Russian intelligentsia clad in the revered garb of the Holy Fool; a hymn to the strength of the weak," writes Simon Franklin in the Michael Glenny translation Introduction. Hugh Aplin, in a newer translation, contends that, (p 433) "The novel demands several readings, such are the depths of interconnected details and implications." Following his advice, I've now read the book three times in as many months (Aplin's, then Glenny's,... more info
seductive masterpiece:
The Master and Margarita is permeated with so many characteristics of greatness-depth, humor, irony, tragedy, mystery- that it is hard to adequately convey my respect and admiration for this novel. Basically it reworks the time-honored theme of the individual of artistic or intellectual temperament trying to discover and attain to the fullest the possibilities of his own particular consciousness. Almost always, it seems, whatever regime is ascendant in the world is dedicated to dragging that consciousness... more info
The Devil Went Down to Moscow:
Over the years I've heard numerous people call "The Master and Margarita" their favorite book, so finally I decided to read it for myself and was not disappointed at all. Yet, despite my enjoyment of this book, I am at a loose for how best to describe or critique it. I could perhaps say (and I mean this as a compliment) this is the literary equivalent of an old and unsafe ride at a traveling carnival - that is, you're never sure what's going to happen next, so all you can do is hold on tight and enjoy the... more info
READ THIS!:
My boyfriend and read it toghether and i got addicted to it since page 1! what a book!
Its very funny, cause the characters are one of a kind, it is interesting because it reflects the Russian society, it is deep because you also get both of these features related to yes...Pontius Pilates and Christ! and it is easy to read, has many many helpful comments at the end so you dont get lost in history!
This is a must for everyone
