Status Updates From A Reader’s Companion to Mik...

I skipped the chapters on the drafts and publication history of the novel. The 5th chapter is titled “A Tale of Two Cities” with reference to the famous novel by Charles Dickens. It shows how the scenes in Moscow echo those in Yershalaim, The next chapters focuses on Volant and his similarities to Mephistopheles in Goethe’s “Faust” and Gounod’s opera under the same title.

Usually I do not read secondary literature on book, but as I found this on our shelves and recently reread "The Master and Margarita" - one of my all time favourtes - I decided to go for it. The chapters on Bulgakow's biography are worth it. Falling in love for a maried woman, scathing by the official critics, burning of manuscripts, mental illness, all these aspects of his live made it to the book.