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The Master and Margarita

by Mikhail Bulgakov, Richard Pevear (Translator), Larissa Volokhonsky (Translator)

4.32 of 5 stars 4.32 · rating details · 60,389 ratings · 3,681 reviews

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...more 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Meanwhile, a few doors down in the hospital lives the true object of Woland's visit: the author of an unpublished novel about Pontius Pilate.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 master work 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 re-attach heads or produce 10-ruble notes from the air, but Bulgakov proves to be the true magician here. The Master and Margarita is a different book each time it is opened. — Mary Park

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Paperback, 412 pages

Published January 1st 2001 by Penguin Classics (first published 1966)

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Sep 29, 2012 Nataliya rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites, awesome-kickass-heroines, russian-classics, my-childhood-bookshelves, excellent-reads, i-also-saw-the-film, stalinism-and-such, doctor-wrote-it, 2012-reads, soviet-and-modern-russian

EXTRA! EXTRA! This review has now been immortalized in audio format. Authentic Russian accent and Russian quotes are provided free of charge :) http://soundcloud.com/nataliyac/the-m...
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I'm staying home from work today, sick to the extreme, and it's only in that unique feverish clarity that comes with illness that I dare to even try to write about this book.

This is THE book. The one that all the other books are measured against. The one that I've read more times since I was twe...more
EXTRA! EXTRA! This review has now been immortalized in audio format. Authentic Russian accent and Russian quotes are provided free of charge :) http://soundcloud.com/nataliyac/the-m...
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I'm staying home from work today, sick to the extreme, and it's only in that unique feverish clarity that comes with illness that I dare to even try to write about this book.

This is THE book. The one that all the other books are measured against. The one that I've read more times since I was twelve than the number of books some people I know have read in their entire lives. The one from which I've memorized entire passages. This is it, the golden standard, the masterpiece, the unattainable perfection of literature. I'm not even being sarcastic; I mean every single word of this praise.

"What would your good be doing if there were no evil, and what would the earth look like if shadows disappeared from it? After all, shadows are cast by objects and people. There is the shadow of my sword. But there are also shadows of trees and living creatures. Would you like to denude the earth of all the trees and all the living beings in order to satisfy your fantasy of rejoicing in the naked light? You are a fool."

What is this book about? I wish it were easy to tell in one smartly constructed sentence, but luckily it's not. It is a story of Woland, the Satan, coming to Moscow with his retinue and wrecking absolute havoc over three long and oppressively hot summer days. It is a story of Pontius Pilate (the equestrian, the son of the astrologist-king, the last fifth Procurator of Judea) who has achieved the dreaded immortality due to a single action (or rather INaction) and wishes nothing more than for it to not have happened. It is a story of love between two very lonely people. It is a scaldingly witty story about the oppressive nature of early Stalin days and the rampant Soviet bureaucracy. It is a phantasmagorical story of the supernatural and the mythical. It has elements of humorous realism, romanticism, and mysticism. It is all of the above and much more. As doctors (the same profession that Bulgakov belonged to, by the way!), we are taught to look for the bigger picture, the synthesis of facts, the overall impression, the so-called 'gestalt'. Well, the gestalt here is - it's a true masterpiece.

"Manuscripts do not burn.""

Bulgakov wrote this book over a period of 11-12 years, frequently abandoning it, coming back to it, destroying the manuscripts, rewriting it, abandoning it, coming back to it. He wrote it during the times when the reaction to such novels would have been the same as Woland has when hearing Master say he wrote a novel about Pontius Pilate:

"About what, about what? About whom?" - said Woland, having stopped laughing. - "In these times? It's amazing! And you couldn't find a different subject?"

In these times... 1930s were the time of Stalin's rule, the waves of Purges, the paranoia of one powerful man sweeping the country, the denunciations, the lies, the terror, the fear, the accusations, the senseless arrests, the nondescript black cars pulling up to the apartment buildings in the middle of the night and leaving with people who would not be heard from ever again. This was a suffocating atmosphere, and the only way Bulgakov survived it was that he for reasons unknown enjoyed the whimsical favor of the tyrant. This fear is everywhere, on every single page. From the poor unfortunate Berlioz in the early chapters, who without much hesitation is about to contact the authorities to report about a suspicious 'foreigner' to the unnamed people conducting the investigation of the strange Moscow events and puling the victims in for questioning to Rimskiy sending Varenukha with a packet of information for the 'right people' to Master's terrifying and unheard story starting with 'them' knocking on his window and ending with him broken in the mental institution... The fear is everywhere, thinly veiled. And yet it is never named, even once - the name of those causing the fear, never alluded to - no need for it, it's obvious anyway, and besides there's that age-long superstition about not naming the name of evil, which, funnily, in this novel is definitely NOT the Devil. Only Margarita has the guts to ultimately ask, "Do you want to arrest me?"

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"You're not Dostoevsky,' said the citizeness, who was getting muddled by Koroviev.
'Well, who knows, who knows,' he replied.
'Dostoevsky's dead,' said the citizeness, but somehow not very confidently.
'I protest!' Behemoth exclaimed hotly. 'Dostoevsky is immortal!"

The sharp satire of the contemporary to Bulgakov Soviet life of 1930s is wonderful, ranging from deadpan observations to witty remarks to absolute and utter slapstick (that, of course, involving the pair of Korovyev and Behemoth). It can be sidesplittingly funny one second, and in the next moment become painfully sad and very depressing. Not surprisingly - in the Russian tradition humor and sadness have always walked hand in hand; therefore, for instance, Russian clowns are the saddest clowns in the entire universe, trust me. This funny sadness manages to evoke the widest spectrum of emotional responses from me every single time I read this book, never ever failing at this.

"The only thing that he said was that he considers cowardice to be among the worst human vices."

This book is not only the hilariously sad commentary on the realities of Bulgakov's contemporary society; it is also a shrewd commentary on the never-changing nature of humanity itself. The humanity that Woland wanted to observe in the Variety theatre, until he came to the sad but true conclusion that not much changed in them. The cowardice - the vice that Pilate feels Yeshua Ha-Nozri was implicitly accusing him of. The greed and love of money, leading to heinous crimes like treason and deceit and treachery. The egoism and vanity and self-absorption (just think of the talentless poet Ryukhin's anger at the seemingly lucky circumstances of Pushkin's fame!), the close-mindedness and complacency, the hate and bickering. This is all there, sadly exposed and gently (or sometimes not that gently) condemned. The consequences of this humanity shown in their extreme - think of Ryukhin's craving for immortality and Pilate's terror at facing it.

And yet we see one bright light of a redeeming quality in the mankind, the one that makes even Woland cringe - mercy. Just think of people's reactions in the scene with George Bengalsky's head, Master freeing Pilate from centuries of doom, and - most touchingly of all - Margarita's unforgettable and selfless act of mercy towards Frieda. All that makes us not ashamed of being human. All that makes us worthy not of the light, the naked light that Woland so derisively talked about, but of peace. Just peace.

"The one who loves must share the fate of the one he loves."

I love this book, love it more than I could ever hope to express in words. I can write endless essays about each chapter, approach it from each imaginable angle, analyze each one precisely and masterfully crafted phrase. I could do it for days - and yet still not pay due respect to this incredible work of art. Because it has the best kind of immortality. Because its depth is unrivaled. Because it is the work of an incredible genius. And so I will stop my feeble attempts to do it justice and instead will remain behind, like the needled memory of poor Professor Ponyrev, formerly Ivanushka Bezdomny, Master's last and only pupil, left to remember the unbelievable that he once witnessed and that broke his heart and soul.

And I will finish with the lines from this novel that I had memorized back when I was twelve, just as awed by this book as I am now (the words that seem to pale when translated from their native Russian into English, alas!):

"...And master's memory, the restless, needled memory, began to fade. Someone was setting master free, just like he himself set free the hero he created. This hero left into the abyss, left irrevocably, forgiven on the eve of Sunday son of astrologer-king, the cruel fifth Procurator of Judea, equestrian Pontius Pilate."

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Sep 25, 2012 Jason rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: groupthink, 2012, reviewed, flames-on-the-side-of-my-face

The Chicago Tribune wrote: “The book is by turns hilarious, mysterious, contemplative and poignant, and everywhere full of rich descriptive passages.”

Hilarious and contemplative my ass, CT. This book is an interminable slog.

Look, here’s the deal. I get that this book satirizes 1930s Stalinist Russia, and I get that—for some—this earns The Master and Margarita a place on their “works-of-historical-importance” shelves. But for me, it earns nothing. I mean, let’s just call a spade a spade, shall we...more The Chicago Tribune wrote: “The book is by turns hilarious, mysterious, contemplative and poignant, and everywhere full of rich descriptive passages.”

Hilarious and contemplative my ass, CT. This book is an interminable slog.

Look, here’s the deal. I get that this book satirizes 1930s Stalinist Russia, and I get that—for some—this earns The Master and Margarita a place on their “works-of-historical-importance” shelves. But for me, it earns nothing. I mean, let’s just call a spade a spade, shall we? There are articles in the Journal of Biological Chemistry that have more successfully held my attention than this Bulgakovian bore. (Exhibit A)

To start, the characterization in this book is near zero. Although there is a point where some barely discernable personality traits become apparent in one or two of the characters, by the time the reader makes it this far the show is nearly over. And if by curtain call the reader discovers Woland and his retinue to be even remotely interesting, it is not because of careful character construction. It’s more like the end of a really stuffy dinner party when you begin making your parting rounds. The thrill is in the palpability of finally being free of these people. Toodle-oo!

And what is the author’s intent here, to single out the literary bureaucrats and the nouveaux riche? If so, the demographic is not effectively targeted. The Faustian demon who comes to wreak havoc across Moscow does so seemingly at random, with little adherence to agenda. Bartenders, ticket sellers, poets, little old ladies—they are all ambushed. It is clear someone needs to take a lesson from Omar Little, who “ain’t never put no gun on no citizen.”

Whatever. I’m tired of even writing about this book. Before we part, though, I’ll leave you with several examples of yet another unworthy aspect of this novel: its ridiculous sentences. Here are some of my favorites.

To tell the truth, it took Arkady Apollonovich not a second, not a minute, but a quarter of a minute to get to the phone.

I ask this question in complete earnestness: is this supposed to be funny? I have absolutely no idea.

Quite naturally there was speculation that he had escaped abroad, but he never showed up there either.

Huh?

The bartender drew his head into his shoulders, so that it would become obvious that he was a poor man.

Yeah, I give. I don’t even pretend to understand what this means. Anyhoo, hey—it’s been a pleasure meeting you all; we should do this again soon. Toodle-oo!(less)

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Oct 14, 2012 Kris rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 1001, classics, fiction, russia, favorites

This review is dedicated to Mary, the very model of a perfect co-moderator and GR friend.

Unlocking the Meaning of The Master and Margarita

Mikhail Bulgakov

In the decades following the publication of The Master and Margarita, myriad critics have attempted to find a key to unlock the meaning of Bulgakov’s unfinished masterwork. Some viewed the novel as a political roman à clef, laboriously substituting historical figures from Stalinist Moscow for Bulgakov’s characters. Others posited a religious fo...more

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Jun 13, 2012 s.penkevich rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: You, Citizen!

Recommended to s.penkevich by: The Devil knows who!

Shelves: russia, magical-realism, too_cool_for_school

Manuscripts don’t burn…
Mikhail Bulgakov, who is no stranger to the pale fire of a burning manuscript, has created a masterpiece of fiction that truly cannot be burned. Having been completed, but not fully edited, by the time of Bulgakov’s demise, this novel survived Soviet censorship and the test of time to remain one of the foremost Russian novels of the 20th century, and still holds relevance in today’s world. From political intrigue and scathing social satire to religious commentary and witch...more

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Sep 28, 2012 B0nnie rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The first time I read The Master and Margarita many years ago I saw it as a diamond in the rough. Rereading it now, I can see how brilliant that diamond really is.

Jubilee edition

It's difficult to explain the effect of this book. There is such a wild oscillation in it that swings us back and forth between two worlds: the world of Moscow - a wild circus with the devil Woland as ringmaster - and the world of Yershalaim (Jerusalem). These are fictional reinventions that retain a basic truth.

But...more

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Apr 14, 2013 Megan Baxter rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I am not quite sure what I think about this book. I enjoyed it, but I didn't love it. The sudden twists and turns in tone didn't throw me off, but they did leave me a bit discombobulated. I wonder if I was trying to read it too closely, if I should have just let it wash over me the first time, and then gone back to think about it some more.

People talk about this as a comic novel, and most of the time, I didn't get that impression. Maybe not my type of humour? But the events that were supposed t...more I am not quite sure what I think about this book. I enjoyed it, but I didn't love it. The sudden twists and turns in tone didn't throw me off, but they did leave me a bit discombobulated. I wonder if I was trying to read it too closely, if I should have just let it wash over me the first time, and then gone back to think about it some more.

People talk about this as a comic novel, and most of the time, I didn't get that impression. Maybe not my type of humour? But the events that were supposed to be comic read as horrifying little vignettes, and so affected me that way.

In The Master and Margarita, the Devil (Woland) comes to Moscow, minor devils in tow. They upend many people's lives. A few deaths are caused (more about that later), many people are taken into custody by the secret police, most of those remanded to an insane asylum, thousands more embarrassed and revealed. Human nature, in all its weakness and pettiness, is fully on display, and so much of the evil Woland uncovers is of the petty kind, people acting from fear or weakness or greed or frustration, performing small unkindnesses that cause greater evils.

Against these smaller evils looms the greater evil of the state, fostering a world in which these petty small acts are magnified, taken to be indicative of corruption, and punished harshly. In a world where blowing off steam could be heard by the wrong person and bring down the eyes of the government, the potential of these small unkindnesses is way out of proportion to their intent.

Acts of truth can be punished as harshly as those of lies. While the Devil and his minions (including Behemoth, a huge black cat with a penchant for violence) lay bare some of these hypocrisies and sins, what they are doing is making them more public.

Margarita is the lover of the Master, an institutionalized author, reported on by a neighbour for possessing subversive literature (his own novel, about Pontius Pilate.) When Woland enters her life, she is ready to seize the chance, although not above petty cruelties of her own. The Master is broken by the response to his book, and Margarita would do anything to reclaim him.

The actions of Woland and his entourage were frequently traumatizing, and sometimes out of proportion, but they always seem to have had their point. There is little Woland can do to the citizens of Moscow that hasn't already been done (except, perhaps, drive a few of them mad.) But if the existence of the Devil is true, in a society that forbids religion, then so is his opposite, who mostly enters through the chapters on Pontius Pilate.

But Woland is not only there to punish. Two deaths occur, true, but (view spoiler)

I need to reread this book at some point, and see what a second reading would do. For now, I'm going to let it sit and ferment. This book is definitely worth a read, but it challenged me at every point. There was no place to sit and get comfortable - and after all, that might be the point.

Crossposted at Smorgasbook (less)

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Sep 08, 2012 Ian Graye rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: reviews, read-2012, reviews-5-stars

Swimming Against the Stream

This was my second reading of “The Master and Margarita”, although the first must have been in the mid-70’s.

I had vivid memories of the first reading, although if you had asked me to describe them, I wouldn’t have been able to. All I can recall is something fluid and magical.

I hesitate to use the term “Magical Realism”, because I wasn’t aware of it at the time and, besides, I dispute whether the term applies to Bulgakov’s work.

My experience this time was quite differen...more

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Sep 01, 2012 Kat Lowe rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: being-human, classic-lit, fantasy, humor, historical

This book challenged me...

After reading Nataliya's review, which I highly recommend, I expected to learn about the Russian perspective on the human condition. I expected to smile at Bulgakov's dark sense of humor. And I surely did experience those things. But this book had unexpected side effects on me:

I felt ignorant. I had believed that a brave person is always free, because we can choose the direction to paddle our personal life canoe. But this author made me wonder what my life would be like...more

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Sep 06, 2012 Terry rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fantasy

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. 3 - 3.5 stars

I find myself a little conflicted about this book. On the one hand it is full of scenes and ideas that are unquestionably intriguing and thought-provoking, on the other there were significant parts of it that I found, not bad, but certainly less than compelling and these latter segments made up the bulk of the first part of the novel. It wasn't until the commencement of Part Two that I felt as though things were beginning to gel and the ultimate story began to show its head. Prior t...more 3 - 3.5 stars

I find myself a little conflicted about this book. On the one hand it is full of scenes and ideas that are unquestionably intriguing and thought-provoking, on the other there were significant parts of it that I found, not bad, but certainly less than compelling and these latter segments made up the bulk of the first part of the novel. It wasn't until the commencement of Part Two that I felt as though things were beginning to gel and the ultimate story began to show its head. Prior to that we have three excellent introductory chapters that set up the context of the ‘main’ story: the arrival of the mysterious “Professor, Magician, and Consultant” Woland and his retinue of oddballs in 1930’s Moscow; this then shifts to an intriguing excerpt from a historical novel (written, we discover, by the titular ‘Master’) about Pontius Pilate and a decidedly un-biblical Christ. These introductory chapters are followed by a return to Moscow and, for me at least, things started to fall apart a bit as the bulk of Part One ended up being a litany of 'set-up' segments wherein Soviet intelligentsia get their comeuppances at the hands of Woland’s demonic entourage. I think my main problems with these scenes lay in the fact that I didn’t find the concentration on the internal politics of the early Soviet literary world compelling, not to mention the fact that the humour that pervades these scenes is strongly in the realm of farce, an area of comedy that really isn’t my cuppa. That being said I don’t want to knock on Bulgakov too much given that this was an unfinished novel that he apparently didn’t even expect to ever reach publication. There’s a heck of a lot going on in this book and it is a shame that we are unable to see what Bulgakov might have produced as a finished and fully polished work. What we do have is still very compelling as three main plotlines interweave and ultimately come together: the depredations made against Moscow and its tyrannical regime by Woland, who is also a very interesting version of the devil; the continuing story of Pontius Pilate, a man convinced of the evil of both himself and the world yet who desperately wants to believe in its goodness and who finds the turning point, and apparent tragedy, of his life in his meeting with the strange Yeshua Ha-Notsri (Jesus); finally we have the love story of the titular Master and Margarita, the former a writer languishing in an insane asylum after his great work is rejected and denounced by the bureaucracy of Soviet Russia and the latter his bereaved lover whose only hope is to save him.

Woland and his retinue are easily the most colourful characters in the story and include a giant talking black cat, a checker-suited comic sorcerer, a red-haired and fanged assassin-butler, and a sultry vampiress-witch. One of the most intriguing aspects of this devil as presented by Bulgakov is that in many ways he is analogous to the totalitarian State, for who else can make people vanish without a trace, plant 'evidence' to frame the innocent (and not so innocent), and instill in all and sundry an instinctual hatred mingled with terror? At the same time, though, Woland undermines everything the State does and stands for, his victims are the petty members of its bureaucracy and he ends up doing good even if he is willing evil (see the epigram from Goethe’s _Faust_ that begins the book). Ultimately Woland comes across much more as a force of chaos than of pure evil and he even seems to have some kind of relationship with the powers of light that goes beyond the adversarial. This duality continues into Bulgakov’s presentation of the Christ-figure Yeshua Ha-Notsri: on the one hand he at first appears to be what one might expect from a novel written under the anti-religious Soviet regime: at best just a well-meaning random man from first century Palestine who was killed by the powers that be for offending the wrong people…certainly not a messiah. Yet enough hints are dropped to imply that there really is something to this strange man, though we are never told exactly what that is. In the end the only supernatural force evident in the story is the diabolic (or at least chaotic) and one is left wondering where is God? No easy answer is provided, though Bulgakov does not seem to imply a nihilistic answer to this and goes so far as to provide Woland with some distinctly un-Satanic things to say about the world that are meant to provide hope even in the face of suffering and adversity: "But what can be done, the one who loves must share the fate of the one he loves." and "But in this case, Margarita, you need not upset yourself. Everything will be made right, that is what the world is built on."

I found the ‘main’ characters of the Master and Margarita to be a mixed bag. The unnamed Master is interesting in the way he displays both elements of power (he is very self-possessed and knowledgeable as opposed to his asylum-mate Ivan's almost manic temperament and complete lack of understanding), but he also seems strangely passive at the same time. I like him, but I'm not quite sure why and I felt that he more or less remained something of a cipher throughout the novel. Margarita, on the other hand, is vivid and full of life. Her main concern may be to find her lover, but she is very active in pursuing this end and lets nothing stand in her way. She also displays a touching humanity in the face of the suffering of others. Still at times it felt like the novel should have been entitled _Woland and his Retinue_ as opposed to _The Master & Margarita_ especially since we see little enough of the Master himself throughout the book (and what we do see ends up being quite passive) and Margarita does not gain a significant presence until the second half of the book. One other character, the poet Ivan Nikolayevich Ponyryov, seems poised to play a major role in the story when we first meet him and shares many thematic commonalities with other characters in the text, but little seems to come of this, though this may again have been the result of the unfinished nature of the text.

As I mentioned most of the segments of satire worked less well, or were less interesting, for me than the moments of pathos and romance that characterized the stories of Pilate and M&M (with the notable exception of the cat Behemoth's ludicrous battle with the police in Apt. 50 which was great) and thus I found myself gravitating towards the Pilate chapters and the second half of the novel where the M&M romance story began to merge with that of Woland and his retinue. In the end I was left with a heck of a lot of questions. Why did Woland really come to Moscow in the first place? Why did he gravitate to the personal story of the Master and Margarita? How is first century Jerusalem like early 20th century Moscow? How is Woland like Pilate? What is Woland’s relationship to Yeshua Ha-Notsri? What is the meaning behind the ultimate fate of the Master and Margarita, the fact that they have "not earned light, [they have] earned peace”? Some of these questions get answers of a kind, while others are left purely to our imagination. In the end this novel certainly leaves one with much food for thought.
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Apr 21, 2009 Logan rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: The bizarrely mad

Shelves: 1001-list, classics, fiction, russia, i_am_in_love

I knew that this was going to be a book that I loved the moment I learned that Satan was the main character. This is not due to any particular affinity for devil worship on my part, but because I love Tricksters in literature and in Western civilization you don't get a better trickster than the devil. Watching him turn Stalinist Moscow on its head proved to be one of the most amusing and engrossing things I've read all year.

From the moment he first materializes as the black magician Woland at a...more I knew that this was going to be a book that I loved the moment I learned that Satan was the main character. This is not due to any particular affinity for devil worship on my part, but because I love Tricksters in literature and in Western civilization you don't get a better trickster than the devil. Watching him turn Stalinist Moscow on its head proved to be one of the most amusing and engrossing things I've read all year.

From the moment he first materializes as the black magician Woland at a pond and predicts the impending death of the renowned writer he meets there (after listening to the writer's various proofs as to why there can not be an actual god), the devil inspires a plague of madness as increasingly odd and impossible events occur to shock the strictly rational, science-based, citizens. Whether hosting a seance that leaves the ladies of Moscow in the street wearing nothing but their undergarments, teleporting hapless theatre owners to Yalta or haunting telephone lines, Woland and his retinue of demonic cohorts know exactly how to play upon the foibles of human nature and prove rather easily that, regardless of what the Soviets may claim about their forced evolution of humanity, humans are just as greedy, gullible, and ridiculous as they ever were.

The heart of the book, however, belongs to the titular Master. An author hounded to the madhouse by the rabid criticisms leveled on his masterpiece by the Moscow literati, his book within the book about the Crucifixion from the point of view of Pontius Pilate is what I've found sticking with me in the days since finishing. It's no easy feat to make a sympathetic character of a bureaucrat who has been so forcefully demonized over the past two millennia but Bulgakov (and through him, the Master) performs an excellent bit of magic and you find yourself really feeling for Pilate as he is manipulated by forces outside of his control into killing Christ, who is sad that his apostle, Matthew, is twisting his words while recording them.

While there are definitely a handful of moments where I wish I would have known more about Stalinist Russia, the state-approved entertainer's guilds and the ever-present fear of the police in order to better understand Bulgakov's satire, I still had a rollicking good time while reading this and it stands up next to Crime & Punishment as one of my favorite works of Russian literature.(less)

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Sep 21, 2012 Madeleine rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: peer-pressure, head-in-the-clouds-nose-in-a-book, our-libeary, maybe-it-s-time-to-live, there-s-no-i-in-group-read, mmxii

The Devil went down to Georgia
He was lookin’ for a soul to steal --

Er, no. Different story. Sorry. The Prince of Darkness in this tale is not an egomaniacal fiddler but a ringleader whose retinue (and, let’s be honest here, good ol’ garden-variety greed, pride and other stone-inscribed sins peculiar to human beans) wreak havoc on an unsuspecting Muscovite population one hot spring. The ensuing chaos and its key players had me wondering how Bulgakov was yet another writer (like Milton before him...more The Devil went down to Georgia
He was lookin’ for a soul to steal --

Er, no. Different story. Sorry. The Prince of Darkness in this tale is not an egomaniacal fiddler but a ringleader whose retinue (and, let’s be honest here, good ol’ garden-variety greed, pride and other stone-inscribed sins peculiar to human beans) wreak havoc on an unsuspecting Muscovite population one hot spring. The ensuing chaos and its key players had me wondering how Bulgakov was yet another writer (like Milton before him and Duncan many years later) who made His Dark Majesty less hateful to me than, say, the gargantuan manchild stumbling through “Confederacy of Dunces.”

I had to build a bookshelf to remove this novel from my line of sight so I’d not be tempted to dig into it before my first group-read adventure kicked off. After doing a little bit of background research to stave off the mounting excitement, I finally dug into the first few chapters of TM&M and... uh, was less than immediately smitten. I started wondering what I’d gotten myself into: What in the sweet hell is going on with these names? Why a cat? And what, exactly, does Pontius Pilate have to do with Russia in the 1930s, anyway? Thankfully, my (sometimes awkwardly worded) translation had a commentary at the end to demystify some of the more obscure and alien references that would have eluded me otherwise, which absolutely helped me get through the initial lukewarm feelings I had for this book while offering up some of the richest symbolism I've ever had the delight to roll around in.

Once I gave myself over to the bountiful allusions, veiled jabs at outdated and oppressive institutions, dark and downright vaudevillian humor, and surprising warmth (and not always of the hellfire variety) weaving through the story, I started looking for any excuse to return to this book. Once the titular characters arrived nearly halfway through the novel, I had as much success resisting this book as one does fighting the inevitable future, as their tale combined with the thoroughly modern concerns and warnings within TM&M positively dazzled me.

As much as I deeply enjoyed The Master and Margarita’s story and eventual reunion, it was the push-and-pull of duality -- and, ultimately the realization that one polar extreme can neither exist nor possess meaning without an exact opposite -- that charmed me the most, especially in the religious sense. Any sense of spirituality I’ve ever had has been mutable for years (I do believe in a higher power of some sort but lack the pride and presumption to assume that I'm right and everyone else is damned, which is one of the reasons I align myself with the Gnostic way of thought more than anything else) so what springs to mind when I'm confronted with the Judeo-Christian "God" ideal is not a fag-hating, insecure Old Testament bully who's got armfuls of lightning bolts at the ready for prompt smiting in hypocritical negation of the free will with which He Himself has blessed His earthly children: The God (-ish figure) I choose to accept has bigger problems than picking sides in American political affairs. He has, like, the rest of the universe that isn't a country in its infancy to worry about. I also embrace a hands-off perception of God, an all-knowing and relatively benign entity who rarely interferes with our dealings because He sees the bigger picture and how each thread has its place in the greater tapestry of human existence.

Similarly, I believe that whatever counterforce exists has about as much immediate effect on all of us meat puppets shuffling around the mortal coil and relies on basic human failings to influence an individual's hellward saunter, which was embodied beautifully here. The lone magic show that Woland performed was rendered scandalous simply because he placed temptation within his audience's grasp and let them do what came naturally to them -- that is, acting out on the greedy desire for better things and free money (because that's all that matters, right?) fueling their belief that they deserved the opportunity to get something more for the price of admission. Woland's motives aside, his part in reuniting the tortured Master and his beloved Margarita only reinforced my belief that he's equally as just as his heavenly equivalent -- c'mon, the guy let Margarita ask for a second favor after her selfless first demand. Does that sound at all like modern Christianity's cloven-hooved demon?

As for Lady M.... the Devil's Ball was clearly not the best of times for her but she kept her eyes on the prize because she could imagine no greater suffering than life without her beloved Master. The redemptive power of love was an unexpected undercurrent rushing through the latter half of this book, as was the message that it is an unpardonable sin to let one's nigh unequaled skills as a writer fester as self-doubt and defeat consume the human vessel in which these conflicting forces reside. The Master earning peace without light hit me like a speeding trolley: Love may be the greatest salvation of all but denying one's place in the world as dictated by immense talent is a special kind of damnation.

The narrative leaves Russian matters with select locations going up in flames, echoing God's promise to never again annihilate life with a flood; as such, the Devil below ensures that the story (and, for some, their world) ends in flame. Fire in Moscow: Run, boys, run.(less)

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May 28, 2007 Robert rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

It is difficult to read the Master and Margarita without an uncomfortable awareness of one’s lack of understanding and ability to viscerally relate to the 1920’s Soviet Russia Bulgakov was enthusiastically eviscerating, and therefore easy (and maybe more enjoyable) to read it from a purely acontextual, Formalistic point of view. That being said, it is precisely those times where Bulgakov allows himself to overtly attack his enemies and speechify slightly on the stultifying nature of bureaucratic...more It is difficult to read the Master and Margarita without an uncomfortable awareness of one’s lack of understanding and ability to viscerally relate to the 1920’s Soviet Russia Bulgakov was enthusiastically eviscerating, and therefore easy (and maybe more enjoyable) to read it from a purely acontextual, Formalistic point of view. That being said, it is precisely those times where Bulgakov allows himself to overtly attack his enemies and speechify slightly on the stultifying nature of bureaucratic involvement in literature and creation which are least involving and intoxicating. And whatever else, The Master and Margarita is intoxicating and best enjoyed through a full surrender to its experience and the multiple, intersecting, complimenting, and possibly contradictory worlds it creates and presents.

Although the realities of the Master and Margarita as, in part, an anti-Stalinist statement, are undeniable, it is truly limiting to read it primarily as such. Maybe the most fruitful thing to keep in mind as a reader about the act of the book’s creation (as, has been said time and again, it is on one level a book about itself) and its historical context is that Bulgakov surely knew that there was absolutely no way that even a word of such a nutty, anarchic, stubborn, and anti-dogmatic book would ever be published while the Stalinist system survived. But he wrote it anyway. As readers we get to chew over the question, as is also explored and played with in the narrative, "Why?"

We expect Russian authors of certain generations to be moralists, and Bulgakov certainly falls within that sphere, but he is obstinate in both his determination to shrug at and even playfully celebrate behavior that would certainly have been viewed contemporarily as immoral, as well as to unflinchingly and determinedly state that there are, if not behaviors, than certainly states or stances, which are worthy of both redemption and praise, as well as damnation and ridicule. His Satan, in the form of Woland, is not really all that evil, and is more in partnership with Bulgakov’s Jesus, in the form of Yeshua, than he is in opposition, which the linear, moralistic (and in the novel, inaccurate) Matthew of the gospels, cannot grasp, but the uncompromising and obsessed artist (the Master) and lover of authenticity over doctrinaire comfort (Margarita) can.

In the end it is probably best to recognize one’s limitations as a contemporary, post-Soviet reader, give it a nod, and move on and simply enjoy the ride as an inspired, gleeful, and sometimes sophomoric attack on cowardice, inauthenticity, mediocrity, dogma (be it of the state or the spirit) and bourgeois comfort-seeking and morality while celebrating passion, love, lack of compromise, creativity, and the unfettered seeking of truth even while knowing that it is unlikely that such a search will result in definitive answers.

Regarding the translation: I originally read the Mirra Ginsburg translation, but at the strong recommendation of an Ukranian friend just read the Michael Glenny translation, which she said was better and more definitive. Although, as I am unable to read Russian, I can’t speak to the comparatively definitive nature of the two, after having compared several passages I can certainly say that the Glenny translation is more poetic and elicitous of Bulgakov’s gleefully whacked out vision.
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Oct 12, 2012 Ian Graye rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: reviews

Review

My review following a re-reading is here:

http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...

I originally rated the novel as four stars on the basis of my first reading.

Earlier Place Holder

This novel inspired Mick Jagger to write "Sympathy for the Devil" from the album "Beggars Banquet".

Jagger's lyrics adopt the character of the Satanic Professor Woland.

My recollection of the novel is that its tone is much more diverse, almost magic realist in parts.

October 24, 2011

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Aug 14, 2012 Michael rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: classics, russian, classics-club, 1001-books-to-read-before-you-die, magical-realism, book-club-literary-exploration, post-modernism, 1960s, satire

I’m going to be honest; I have no idea how to review about like The Master and Margarita. I was looking forward to reading another Russian classic but I don’t think anyone can be fully prepared for a book like this. The whole book is based around a visit by the Devil to two passionately atheistic Russians. While this is an overly simplified synopsis it really is basis of the entire book; if I really want to write a fully detailed overview of this book it would include a black cat, an assassin, a...more I’m going to be honest; I have no idea how to review about like The Master and Margarita. I was looking forward to reading another Russian classic but I don’t think anyone can be fully prepared for a book like this. The whole book is based around a visit by the Devil to two passionately atheistic Russians. While this is an overly simplified synopsis it really is basis of the entire book; if I really want to write a fully detailed overview of this book it would include a black cat, an assassin, a naked witch, Jesus and Pontius Pilate in one very bizarre novel. I read this book about a week ago but I’m still trying to wrap my head around it, there is a lot going on within the book to really be able to give this a review that would give it justice.

To simplify this book I’m going to break down the book into three different elements; the Professor’s talk with the Berlioz and Bezdomny, the section involving the Master and his lover Margarita and lastly the novel about Pontius Pilate. At first glance all these sections may seems like they don’t link together, but when the Professor or the devil challenges the two’s concepts of atheism the conversation leads to the book about Pilate which happens to be a novel written by the Master and the book comes together in a weird, philosophical novel with shades of slapstick comedy.

I tend to write short reviews because I don’t want to spoil novels and want to write easy, accessible reviews; so if I write anything more about the plot I would have to read a lot, too much for a short review so I’m going to stop talking about the book and start talking about my opinions of it. While reading this novel I was completely absorbed in the writing, but this meant I continued reading without stopping to really think about the book. In the end my head was swimming with so many thoughts of this book I wasn’t sure how I felt. Now that I’ve sorted my thoughts all I really can say it’s one of those books you just have to read to fully understand the effect of it.

While it took me a while to fully sort my thoughts of this book, I really did enjoy it. It’s one of those books like Slaughterhouse-Five where you can’t really rate or review it until you have had a good long think about all the concepts this book is trying to get across. I highly recommend experiencing this novel; it is like nothing I’ve ever read before. The wacky nature of this book will keep you reading but the philosophical ideas will help you enjoy this novel. I don’t think any review will ever do justice to this classic; especially not mine so my only advised and the only thing you really need to know about this book is ‘Just read it.’ (less)

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Oct 16, 2012 Steve rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

There once was a book praised as boff
That caused others to pan it and scoff
So who wrote this thing
Whence sentiments swing?
T’was a Russian they called Bulgakov.

The culture was smothered by Stalin
He purged those he felt failed to fall in.
So how to respond
Sans magical wand?
With satire, to show it’s appallin’.

The book has been said to have layers
With multiple plotlines and players.
There’s good and there’s bad
And witches unclad.
Can naked truth sate the naysayers?

The Devil’s own minions had power.
Blin...more

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Nov 16, 2012 Henry Avila rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

A poet "Homeless" and a magazine editor,Berlioz, are having a conversation, in a Moscow park,just before the start of the second world war. Drinking sodas,discussing business, ordinary right? That's the last time in the novel.An apparition appears and a seven foot transparent man, is seen floating above their heads.But only Berlioz spots it.He's obviously sick... Later a foreign stranger, joins them on the next bench.They start a conversation about Jesus, if he really existed.The newcomer,a self...more

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Apr 30, 2013 Jeremy rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: translated-from-russian, literary, review, humour

"‘I’m to follow him there?’ the master asked anxiously, holding the bridle.
‘No,’ replied Woland, ‘why run after what is already finished.’"

Such a fascinating clash of narration and character, story and story-telling, a kind of collapse of Demons and Alice in Wonderland. I enjoyed its playfulness and its banal viciousness, in tandem, from the characters and from Bulgakov himself, but also the knife-like and capricious tenderness that emerges like a nervous blackguard hiding his ill-gotten gains s...more

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Jun 13, 2010 Jimmy rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction

Mikhail Bulgakov passed away shortly after Stalin's Great Purge; it occurred from about 1937 to 1938 and was intended to rid the Soviet Union of traitors, subversive elements, and most importantly, enemies of Stalin. The NKVD (the secret police organization of the Soviet Union) had executed over over 600,000 people, the most notable one being Bolshevik revolutionary Leon Trotsky. Bulgakov's relationship with Stalin, however, was more or less safe. Stalin enjoyed Bulgakov's early plays, even thou...more Mikhail Bulgakov passed away shortly after Stalin's Great Purge; it occurred from about 1937 to 1938 and was intended to rid the Soviet Union of traitors, subversive elements, and most importantly, enemies of Stalin. The NKVD (the secret police organization of the Soviet Union) had executed over over 600,000 people, the most notable one being Bolshevik revolutionary Leon Trotsky. Bulgakov's relationship with Stalin, however, was more or less safe. Stalin enjoyed Bulgakov's early plays, even though most of them were censored, and he found Bulgakov a job at the Moscow Art Theater. This position proved to be unpleasant and unfulfilling. In 1930 he asked Stalin for permission to emigrate, but was denied because Stalin felt that a Soviet writer should never leave his homeland. Of course, Stalin probably had sadistic reasons as well. Much like Joseph Goebbels, Stalin wanted to control Soviet art, ensuring that it all represented loyalty and favor to the State. Much of Bulgakov's unhappiness stemmed from his contempt for Stalin's regime, but if he tried to emigrate he would be murdered. With this in mind he lived his life as many did at that time, as a sort of free political prisoner, living a life of quiet desperation, hoping that in the end, literature or art would prove to be the final salvation in life.

Bulgakov's background invariably ties into the political satire to be found in The Master and Margarita. And sources indicate that he had been working on the book from 1928 up until his death, the entire time spent as a witness to the horrific political oppression of the Soviet Union. His novel imagines several fantastic characters working under Satan's command to terrorize Stalinist Moscow, the eponymous couple and their reunion, and it's also a frame narrative, including a fictionalized account of Pontius Pilate's role in the persecution of Jesus.

Two members of a writer's organization by the name MASSOLIT sit on a bench in Patriarch's Ponds, a mysterious professor by the name of Woland comes along, and they all discuss the existence of God. Both Berlioz (the organization's director) and Bezdomny (a local poet) refute his existence, while Woland argues that he does exist, by predicting Berlioz's absurdly tragic fate, he proves that he must exist because the two men have just had a conversation with the devil, or some sort of evil soul possessing a crafty knack for witchcraft or some strange variety of malevolent prestidigitation Woland's identity is subtle at the beginning of the novel, but as it unfolds, the reader is left with the task of wondering why he is there. Surely to torment characters such as Berlioz and Bezdomny. And these characters are followed by a laundry list of caricatures of Soviet greed, petty bureaucracy, and naive opportunism. The Pontius Pilate narrative infrequently trails alongside the one concerning Satan's gang, and eventually a failed novelist turned mad (the Master, a character that is clearly modeled after Bulgakov himself), and his lamentable wife Margarita, who, after the Master's departure from sanity, is now living a dissatisfied existence with a husband that she does not love.

Once these narrative threads blend together, which truly begins around the beginning of Book Two, a larger one reveals itself, albeit lacking a little tact. If it were not for the fantastic elements of The Master and Margarita, the novel would be virtually incapable of making these loose ends meet. In a sense, it is one of the first great science-fiction novels, one that is wholly reliant on impossible scenarios. What doesn't really seem to connect so effortlessly is the bond between Woland and Margarita. Basically, Satan needs a hostess for his ball who must be named Margarita and must be a native of the place where the ball is being held. Out of a hundred and twenty-one potential hostesses, Margarita is chosen. It just so happens that she, in turn, requires a favor that not only justifies the other part of this frame narrative, but brings the Master out of the psychiatric ward, so he can find peace in his complete masterpiece.

Throughout the book there are other vignettes, included as entertaining asides. Satan's gang is particularly interesting, especially Behemoth, the famous talking cat. These scenes provide comic relief from the otherwise dramatic narrative concerning the Master and his novel about Pontius Pilate. And satire prevails throughout the entire story, as ridiculous bureaucrats are confounded time and again by the mischievous, yet inconceivable activities of Satan's gang.

Once again, this is Bulgakov getting back at the Russia of his time. It's a sort of subtle revenge story, combined with a dreamer's knack for imaginative characterizations and descriptive historical fiction. This novel was his act of rebellion. It's well written, particularly Book Two, which includes much sharper dialogue (not realistic, but more effective in context), especially between Margarita and Woland, as well as some really poetic descriptions of Moscow. Unfortunately, The Master and Margarita is not a structurally sound novel. It seems to cut off certain disparate chapters abruptly, connect narratives that do not fit quite well, and it ultimate relies upon fantasy to get itself out of creative ruts.

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Aug 22, 2011 Nate D rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: cowardice is the worst of sins

Recommended to Nate D by: manuscripts don't burn

Shelves: russia, doomed-heretics-of-the-revolution, interwar-maladies, post-modernism, favorites

Re-reading can be a terribly useful practice. I enjoyed the book enough before I suppose, but not nearly so much as this time. Part of it is that I'm reading a better translation, funnier and more poetic, by Mirra Ginsberg, whose impeccable Zamyatin translations greatly impressed me back in June. Unfortunately, her 1967 translation was of the censored original Russian publication from which editors omitted some 60 typescript pages (!) from the final version prepared by Bulgakov's wife Elena Serg...more

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Jun 18, 2008 Libby rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Folklore fans, Lit buffs

Recommended to Libby by: My lovely sister

Shelves: summerreading08, year-of-only-good-books

Very little can prepare you for the wild ride that is Mikhail Bulgakov's "The Master and Margarita," especially if you've read other literature or folklore that have the devil as a character. What will be helpful, I suspect, is knowing a bit about the time and setting of the novel. Bulgakov wrote this book between 1930 and 1940 while living in Moscow under Stalin. The book is set in 1920, when everything was being taken under government control, from the distribution of food and beverages to cit...more Very little can prepare you for the wild ride that is Mikhail Bulgakov's "The Master and Margarita," especially if you've read other literature or folklore that have the devil as a character. What will be helpful, I suspect, is knowing a bit about the time and setting of the novel. Bulgakov wrote this book between 1930 and 1940 while living in Moscow under Stalin. The book is set in 1920, when everything was being taken under government control, from the distribution of food and beverages to city living quarters. Foreign nationals, literature, currency, and influence were tightly controlled, if not banned, and the secret police had eyes everywhere, locking up citizens on the barest of evidence and shipping them off to labor camps in Siberia. If this weren't bad enough, opportunists played the system for their own selfish benefit, such as reporting one's neighbor to the secret police in order to move into the neighbor's apartment. Religion went from being state-sanctioned to all but banned, and churches were vandalized and looted. All published literature was so scrutinized that only the most coded dissent could get through the censors. Bulgakov went from being an acclaimed playwright to an artist dependent on the unpredictable whims of the regime, having plays produced at theatres, but then shut down shortly after opening.

"The Master and Margarita," is in part a frustrated artist's reaction to all of this, as the devil appears in Moscow and wreaks merry havoc on those people whose mediocrity allowed them to thrive under Stalin, but it is also a great deal more. There are two other narratives entwined with the devil's mischief: a retelling of the Christian crucifixion with Pontius Pilate as the main character, whose story is told by several different narrators, and the story of a writer known simply as The Master and his married lover Margarita. Bulgakov has a great deal of structural fun with these three stories, leaping from one to the other with ease and weaving threads from each story into the others. But ultimately, this book is much more than the stories that comprise it. It's at turns winsome and grotesque, horrifying and hilarious, but at its core a book about hope and intellectual honesty. Though Bulgakov's masterpiece wasn't published until after his death (and Stalin's), the devil's reassurance that no truth can ever be truly lost feels simultaneously prophetic and poignant.

I highly recommend this book for anybody seeking freedom from genre and cliche.(less)

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Oct 02, 2012 Arthur Graham rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Like so many stories, especially our stories about "the devil" - mankind's go-to scapegoat for all its foibles - this one is ultimately about human frailty. But unlike most stories about our dealings with the devil, The Master and Margarita doesn't end on a tragic note. It doesn't necessarily end on a happy note, either, but there's really no room for such dichotomous thinking here. Rather, it ends with something that everyone from Jesus to Pontius Pilate probably deserves, at least when viewed...more

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Dec 29, 2010 oriana rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: read-2010, too-smart-for-their-own-good

My birthday is always right next to Thanksgiving. Growing up, this pissed the shit out of me, because a) my birthday always got overshadowed by turkey and I had to sleep on the floor in the basement in a sleeping bag because a visiting grandma or aunt or someone got my bed, and b) all my friends were always either out of town or busy with family and couldn't come hang out and party with me.

Anyway, my parents always "consoled" me by saying that someday I'd be old enough to appreciate that I'd al...more

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Sep 11, 2007 Meri rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: magic-realism, russia

Satan goes to Moscow during Stalin's purges. Muscovites are relatively unimpressed, as Satan has nothing on Stalin. Brilliantly written, intricately designed, I could read this book ten times and still find subtle implications I had missed.

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Feb 12, 2008 Martine rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: modern-fiction, russian, fantasy, continental-european, magic-realism, modernism

What would happen if Satan were to alight on a modern metropolis like Moscow and wreak havoc in it? That's just one of the questions asked and answered in this twentieth-century Russian classic, which is said to have been the inspiration for the Rolling Stones song 'Sympathy for the Devil'.

You can see why Mick Jagger and his cronies would be intrigued by the devil as portrayed in The Master and Margarita. Bulgakov's Satan is not necessarily purely evil; he just punishes sceptics and greedy peop...more What would happen if Satan were to alight on a modern metropolis like Moscow and wreak havoc in it? That's just one of the questions asked and answered in this twentieth-century Russian classic, which is said to have been the inspiration for the Rolling Stones song 'Sympathy for the Devil'.

You can see why Mick Jagger and his cronies would be intrigued by the devil as portrayed in The Master and Margarita. Bulgakov's Satan is not necessarily purely evil; he just punishes sceptics and greedy people, and does so in extremely creative ways. He has a lot of personality, and if that weren't enough, he also has a fascinating retinue of demons and zombies who gleefully go about creating their own brand of creative mischief. The result, as you might expect, is an orgy of chaos in which people get killed, scared out of their wits, humiliated and spirited away, usually in fairly inventive ways. It's hard not to admire Bulgakov's imagination in these scenes; he really does come up with some outrageous stuff, and except for the one chapter in which one of the main characters flies over Moscow on a broomstick, you'll buy it -- even the gun-toting cat who cannot be killed. That's how good his writing is.

It's not all wicked mayhem, though. Interwoven with the main story are descriptions of the last days of Pilate and Christ, which seem a bit disjointed at first but have a strangely beautiful quality. These, it turns out, are chapters from a book written by 'the master', an author (surely an autobiographical representation of Bulgakov himself) whose career has been ruined by the authorities. Soviet Russia is never mentioned in the book (its Moscow has a distinctly timeless flavour), but The Master and Margarita is in fact a surreal parody on what was happening during Bulgakov's lifetime, with Satan carrying out the purges Stalin was carrying out in real life. Among other things, Bulgakov satirises literary life in the Soviet Union, which for him wasn't a tremendous lot of fun. He also defends Christianity (albeit in a way the Church did not really appreciate), which in the atheistic Soviet Union was enough of a no-no that he never even tried getting the book published during his lifetime.

While I greatly enjoyed the panache with which Bulgakov describes the demons' exploits and the various layers he seems to weave into the story, I do have a few quibbles with the book. One is that the author comes up with a tremendous cast of characters, many of whom he leaves just a tad too soon for the reader to care about them. As a result, many parts of the book feel rather episodic, especially in the middle. Furthermore, Bulgakov occasionally lets his imagination get the better of him. Margarita's flight over Moscow was one step too far for me, although I have a feeling it will make more sense to me when I reread the book, which I certainly will at some point.

These are minor quibbles, though. For the most part, The Master and Margarita is a very successful, terrifically original and occasionally funny venture into surrealism with many layers which will undoubtedly make for rewarding rereading. I definitely look forward to rereading it.
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Aug 13, 2010 Paquita Maria Sanchez rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: literature

This novel is:

1. Sinister yet slapstick
2. Dark yet light-hearted
3. Destructive yet redemptive
4. Straightforward yet intricate
5. Lengthy yet speedy
6. Critical yet sympathetic

Though Bulgakov masterfully crafts a feeling of creeping dread, his whimsical story-telling and satirical voice leave you feeling like you are riding the teacups at the state fair or bouncing around as a toddler on your papa's knee. The demons and devil he creates are multifaceted, rather than one-dimensional representations...more

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Sep 09, 2012 Mary rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction, russians-authors, 2012

I'm just going to let the sparrow take the wheel of this humble attempt to review a book that I cannot find the words to adequately define! The fox trotting sparrow that is. Haven't read this book yet? If you haven't, that isn't a spoiler, it's just a fantastical little paragraph and image that has stuck with me. Imagine...a sparrow dancing the foxtrot...and then pooping. Are you doing it? OK, now you're ready for this book.

I sure wasn't ready for what was in store for me. I struggled at first....more I'm just going to let the sparrow take the wheel of this humble attempt to review a book that I cannot find the words to adequately define! The fox trotting sparrow that is. Haven't read this book yet? If you haven't, that isn't a spoiler, it's just a fantastical little paragraph and image that has stuck with me. Imagine...a sparrow dancing the foxtrot...and then pooping. Are you doing it? OK, now you're ready for this book.

I sure wasn't ready for what was in store for me. I struggled at first. And it's not that this is an especially difficult book; it's not. What was my downfall initially was a combination of my tendency to read too fast and eagerly and my complete ignorance of biblical characters and events. I stopped at around page 50 and did some background reading then started over. This time it was better. Not only better, but insanely mind bending head scratchingly WEIRD. I am so glad I read this in a group discussion. With so many intelligent minds swapping ideas and insights I was able to better grasp what I was reading and appreciate this book for the rich and complex masterpiece that it is.

This book is unlike anything I've ever read. Gold star for uniqueness, creativity and strangeness.

It very quickly, within the first few pages, successfully creates the atmosphere which remains throughout. An unnerving, foreboding, dreamlike, fuzzy, paranoid, off-kilter, eye squinting, confusing, lonely and chaotic feeling that never goes away. You never know what's coming next, and it keeps coming and doesn't let up.

To me, the nucleus of the story was the satire and rebellion against the oppression that was present in Bulgakov's time. In a nutshell this was a farcical and hilarious romp through a world of delicious absurdity, a distorted fun-house mirror reflection of Stalinist Russia. But gosh, it is so much more than that. To write a proper review of this is beyond me. How to even explain what it's like to read this? I mean, there's (view spoiler) and...and...all this is long after a walking talking gun toting cat strolls around wreaking havoc every couple of chapters. And there's this ball scene that is an insane mishmash of things that reminded me of a pool party (Cognac anyone?), a Masquerade ball and the orgy scene from Eyes Wide Shut, and I really don't appreciate anything reminding me of Tom Cruise's existence. It's really saying something when the least odd thing about that chapter was that the walking talking cat wasn't just a walking talking cat but that he was wearing a bow tie with no pants - because of course it would be weird for a cat to wear pants (Maybe Bulgakov always wondered, like I do, why Donald Duck wears no pants but in scenes where he comes out of the shower he has a towel wrapped around his waist?).

The female characters are naked most of the time. The character of Margarita occasionally has a black cloak thrown over her shoulders, but she's mostly nuddy too. Apart from the visual, obviously Bulgakov was giving a big fat middle finger to the restraints of the Soviet regime. Or he was just a perv. You decide.

The Master - He initially appears as a powerful and mysterious person, a writer and a strong presence. He's in love with Margarita and is full of passion and longing for her. Perhaps Bulgakov's death before he could finish editing this book explains the unevenness I noticed with his character. Towards the end he is merely a shell of his former self, he seemed dull and faded and barely there. Or maybe this was what happens to people. They get worn out and disillusioned. Maybe the Master is a representation of a once prosperous and lively society who dwindles and crumbles under Soviet rule. Maybe the Master is the people and Margarita is what happens when "the devil" gets involved. It's dazzling initially, those early stages of attraction and infatuation, the promise, the butterflies and pheromones, and then the cracks are revealed and suddenly it's not so bright and you were blindsided. And life as you know it is gone.

Margarita - Such a strong presence in the book. She doesn't appear until part two but she was involved in some of the wackiest plots and left such a lasting impression on me (again, that's saying a lot when there's a walking talking gut toting cat around!). Margarita was in no way an admirable or strong character. Her actions are motivated by love, sure, but once she gets that love back she becomes this desperate and needy person who seemed to me to be far more in love with the Master than he was with her. She's like that one friend who can't take the hint and I wanted to shake her and yell "Girl, he's just not that into you!". Their relationship starts of believably romantic and passionate and yet, by the end it feels off. The cat (devil/Margarita) goes after it's prey (the people/The Master) and the prey ( the people/The Master ) can't sustain (his)itself under the suffocating pressure of the rulers ( devil/Margarita ). See how it all just brilliantly ties together?!

Speaking of Margarita, the role of women in the book intrigues me. Nudity aside, they played roles that I noticed were violent and/or weak. (view spoiler)

Honorary mention to Behemoth, the shadiest feline in literature and also a constant source of delight throughout the book. I freakin' adored every sentence involving him.

The pages of this book are abundant with stunning imagery. We are constantly bathed in moonlight and silhouettes, burnt orange sunsets and blaring glares. The atmospheric nature of Bulgalov's writing really won me over, as well providing symbols of light and dark, day and night, good and evil. The book speaks to human weakness, human strength, sheep mentality, mind control, over powering forces, resistance and it's utterly entertaining, intriguing and thought-provoking. I know I'll pull this out in 5 years and read it again and discover dozens of things I missed. It's sadly still relevant today and probably will be in another 50 years. Though we like to think we're more enlightened as each generation passes, humanity seems to be on a infinite hamster wheel, learning very little and still blinded by the suns and the moons that shone over the characters in The Master and Margarita. And yet as dark and serious as Bulgakov's central message was I felt he carried with him hope. For the future of his country, his people and for mankind. Woland, the "evil force", the darkness, leaves us with the parting words "Everything will turn out right, the world is built on that" (p.382)

Well, we can only hope.(less)

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Jan 16, 2013 Laura Huben rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I have been reading this book for years. After a few chapters, I always have to put it down, and then start over a few months (years) later because there is something so disturbing and sinister that it takes over my senses and I need a reprieve...I always go back for more though.

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May 08, 2013 Yona rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: classics

That was one truly great book.

description

- The burning book of the Master, but later it is given back to him by Voland with the saying that "manuscripts don't burn"

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- The Master and Margarita

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- Margarita flying on her broom over Moscow

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- This character doesn't even need an introduction - Behemoth

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- Azazello

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The witch Hella

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- Koroviev, Behemoth, and Voland

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- The ball organized by Satan every year, where Margarita is hostess.

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- The characters leaving Moscow and going to their next adventure maybe...

The...more

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Feb 04, 2009 Nate D rated it 3 of 5 stars

Recommended to Nate D by: everyone

Shelves: russia, interwar-maladies, doomed-heretics-of-the-revolution

Dislcaimer: I wrote this after my first reading of the book, three years ago, before developing a special interest in this era. I've grown to appreciate it more, especially in re-reading in August 2011. But my initial reaction will stay here, anyway:

An enjoyable foray through the dark days of Stalinist Russia, but one that may be somewhat undercut by its increasing reliance on the magical to move the plot. Political references abound, but usually not in any manner central to the story, and I fou...more

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May 28, 2007 علی rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: great-ones, novels

شاید بشود گفت که سرزمین روسیه پیش از آمریکای لاتین، مولد رئالیسم جادویی باشد. ابتدا باید گوگول را با داستان هایی نظیر "بینی" و "بالاپوش"، مبداء این مکتب دانست و سپس و پیش از آن که بورخس و مارکز قدم در این مکتب بگذارند، "مرشد و مارگریتا" نوشته شده است. بولگاکف که به عنوان یک نمایش نامه نویس، مشهور بود، تنها بیست و هفت سال پس از مرگش در 1940، معلوم شد چهار رمان، از جمله مرشد و مارگریتا را در سال های میان 1928 تا 1940 نوشته است، زمانی که هنوز هم همه ی آثارش اجازه ی چاپ نداشت. و مرشد و مارگریتا ابتد...more شاید بشود گفت که سرزمین روسیه پیش از آمریکای لاتین، مولد رئالیسم جادویی باشد. ابتدا باید گوگول را با داستان هایی نظیر "بینی" و "بالاپوش"، مبداء این مکتب دانست و سپس و پیش از آن که بورخس و مارکز قدم در این مکتب بگذارند، "مرشد و مارگریتا" نوشته شده است. بولگاکف که به عنوان یک نمایش نامه نویس، مشهور بود، تنها بیست و هفت سال پس از مرگش در 1940، معلوم شد چهار رمان، از جمله مرشد و مارگریتا را در سال های میان 1928 تا 1940 نوشته است، زمانی که هنوز هم همه ی آثارش اجازه ی چاپ نداشت. و مرشد و مارگریتا ابتدا در 1967 چاپ و منتشر شد. بسیاری از منتقدین این رمان را یکی از بهترین رمان های قرن بیستم می شناسند. ترجمه ی شکیل "مرشد و مارگریتا" به فارسی را مدیون عباس میلانی هستیم.
هسته ی اصلی مرشد و مارگریتا، دیدار حضرت شیطان از سرزمین بی خدای شوروی ست. اولین بخش در 1930 در شهر مسکو اتفاق می افتد، و شیطان در هیات پروفسور ولاند، شعبده بازی مرموز از سرزمینی نامعلوم، با خدم و حشم وارد می شود. شخصیت های همراه پروفسور ولاند (شیطان)، همه تمثیلی از شخصیت های کتاب مقدس اند؛ عزازیل، با نگاهی مرگ آور، عجوزه ای به نام هلا و... بخش دوم رمان در اورشلیم و در زمان پونتیوس پیلات، در محاکمه ی "یهوا هانوتسری" (عیسای ناصری) می گذرد. در این بخش است که شخصیت مارگریتا، معشوقه ی "مرشد"، به رقص با شیطان دعوت می شود. او که از روی جنگل عمیق پرواز کرده، و در رودخانه ی مسکو حمام گرفته، بهمراه عزازیل، به مجلس رقص شیطان می رود. شیطان (ولاند جادوگر) حاضر است در مقابل روح مارگریتا، دو خواهش او را بجا آورد. و سپس عزازیل، مرشد و مارگریتای مرده را دوباره بر می خیزاند؛ رستاخیز مردگان، همچون خود عزازیل. آنها تمدن را همراه شیطان ترک می کنند، هم چنان که مسکو در آتش می سوزد. مرشد و مارگریتا محکوم اند که تا ابد در سایه بمانند (شبیه برزخ دانته) دست نایافته به شکوه بهشت، و ناسزاوار عذاب جهنم. آنها همراه پیلات به جاودانگی خاموش، محکوم اند.
(less)

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About Mikhail Bulgakov

Mikhaíl Afanasyevich Bulgakov (Russian: Михаил Булгаков) was the first of six children in the family of a theology professor. His family belonged to the intellectual elite of Kiev. Bulgakov and his brothers took part in the demonstration commemorating the death of Leo Tolstoy. Bulgakov later graduated with honors from the Medical School of Kiev University in 1915. He married his classmate Tatiana...more Mikhaíl Afanasyevich Bulgakov (Russian: Михаил Булгаков) was the first of six children in the family of a theology professor. His family belonged to the intellectual elite of Kiev. Bulgakov and his brothers took part in the demonstration commemorating the death of Leo Tolstoy. Bulgakov later graduated with honors from the Medical School of Kiev University in 1915. He married his classmate Tatiana Lappa, who became his assistant at surgeries and in his doctor's office. He practiced medicine, specializing in venereal and other infectious diseases, from 1915 to 1919 (he later wrote about the experience in "Notes of a Young Doctor.")

He joined the anti-communist White Army during the Russian Civil War. After the Civil War, he tried (unsuccesfully) to emigrate from Russia to reunite with his brother in Paris. Several times he was almost killed by opposing forces on both sides of the Russian Civil War, but soldiers needed doctors, so Bulgakov was left alive. He provided medical help to the Chehchens, Caucasians, Cossacs, Russians, the Whites, and the Reds.

In 1921, Bulgakov moved to Moscow. There he became a writer and became friends with Valentin Katayev, Yuri Olesha, Ilya Ilf, Yevgeni Petrov, and Konstantin Paustovsky. Later, he met Mikhail Zoschenko, Anna Akhmatova, Viktor Ardov, Sergei Mikhalkov, and Kornei Chukovsky. Bulgakov's plays at the Moscow Art Theatre were directed by Stanislavsky and Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko.

Bugakov's own way of life and his witty criticism of the ugly realities of life in the Soviet Union caused him much trouble. His story "Heart of a Dog" (1925) is a bitter satire about the loss of civilized values in Russia under the Soviet system. Soon after, Bulgakov was interrogated by the Soviet secret service, OGPU. After interrogations, his personal diary and several unfinished works were confiscated by the secret service. His plays were banned in all theaters, which terminated his income. Destitute, he wrote to his brother in Paris about his terrible life and poverty in Moscow. Bulgakov distanced himself from the Proletariat Writer's Union because he refused to write about the peasants and proletariat. He adapted "Dead Souls" by Nikolai Gogol for the stage; it became a success but was soon banned.

He took a risk and wrote a letter to Joseph Stalin with an ultimatum: "Let me out of the Soviet Union, or restore my work at the theaters." On the 18th of April of 1930, Bulgakov received a telephone call from Joseph Stalin. The dictator told the writer to fill an employment application at the Moscow Art Theater. Gradually, Bulgakov's plays were back in the repertoire of the Moscow Art Theatre. But most other theatres were in fear and did not stage any of the Bulgakov's plays for many years. At that time, the repressions, known as the "Great Terror" were started by an increasingly paranoid Joseph Stalin. Many of Bulgakov's friends and colleagues, like Vladimir Mayakovsky, Osip Mandelstam, Vsevolod Meyerhold, Anna Akhmatova, Mikhail Zoschenko and many others were censored, banned, prosecuted, exiled, imprisoned, executed, found dead, or just disappeared without a trace.

Mikhail Bulgakov died as a result of kidney failure.(less)

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Quotes from The Master and Margarita

“But would you kindly ponder this question: What would your good do if
evil didn't exist, and what would the earth look like if all the shadows
disappeared? After all, shadows are cast by things and people. Here is the
shadow of my sword. But shadows also come from trees and living beings.
Do you want to strip the earth of all trees and living things just because
of your fantasy of enjoying naked light? You're stupid.” — 297 people liked it

“Everything will turn out right, the world is built on that.” — 199 people liked it

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