The Master and Margarita

Rating:
Summary: When Satan came to town
Review: One fine day, the Devil arrives in Moscow, in the time of Stalin. He starts off by predicting and then causing the horrible death of a writer who had told him neither God nor the Devil existed. Then he causes great misfortunes (although mostly comical ones) all over town, assisted by the motliest of crews: a tall, thin man ridiculously attired, who wears broken pince-nez, called Koroviev; Azazelo, a dwarfish guy with a protruding fang; a redheaded vampiress; and a black cat who talks nonsense and walks straight up, called Behemoth. Many people end up in an asylum for maniacs, including the companion of the dead writer, Ivan Homeless, an aspiring poet who is confined after he tells his story with Wolland (as the Devil calls himself). In the asylum, Ivan meets a guy called simply the Master, who tells him a sad love story with a married woman called Margarita. The Master happens to have written a biography of Pontius Pilate (whose first part is curiously told by Wolland in his first conversation with the writers). After he had finished the book, the Stalinist censors destroyed both the book and the Master's emotional sanity, and so he ended up in the asylum and separated from his lover Margarita.

After causing great disasters in Moscow, including a very crazy performance of magic in a theater, the devils set out to fulfill their mission, which is precisely to reunite the Master and Margarita. This they achieve by transforming the peaceful Margarita into a witch, making her fly on a broom to a witches' party and then to the aposents of Wolland up in the sky, or down in Hell, God knows where. There she presides over a great Satanic ball, and after that she gets together with the Master and they are freed from suffering and given over to eternal peace, along with Pilate. Interspersed with the main story is the one about Joshua's (Jesus) trial and crucifixion, in an heterodox version, of course. The overall tone of the story is one of sarcasm, parody and black comedy. Bulgakov is supposed to having made fun of the Soviet regime, based on his own personal disheartening and tragic suffering of Stalinist repression and censorship. Of course, many of these allusions and real-life characters will go over your head, unless you are a very specialized scholar of Soviet history. But the book's main quality is a general parody of human vices, as well as an uncontrolled imagination and talent for wild, crazy sceneries and situations. The Great Satanic Ball is simply out of this world. Many influences are easily detected here: Dante's visit to Hell and, of course, Goethe's "Faust". I also was very much reminded of Lewis Carroll's crazy dialogues between Alice and the characters she encounters underground. There are many symbolisms, some of them obscure, but if you're only trying to have an entertaining and rewarding read, you don't need to worry about them. This is a literally fantastic romp, crazy, wild and well writtem, a true gem of last century's literature conceived and executed in some of the worst times of human history.

Rating:
Summary: The best book ever been written!
Review: This book is a masterpiece, I've read this book million times and still can't get enough. I recommend that book to everyone who has ever been interested in the questions of God And Devil and meaning of life. It will completely change you vision of life.
Your life will never be the same after you will read this book.
Bylgakov- BRAVO!!!!!!!!

Rating:
Summary: A masterpiece at several levels
Review: This amazing book can be interpreted at several levels or just read for the sheer enjoyment of the bazaar antics of all the characters. I found it to be full of profound concepts wrapped in a chaotic and fantastic romp of a good story.

First, I thought the story was a tale of revenge. Bulgakov was highly discriminated against and his work suppressed throughout his career and life. A genius' work is smothered by Soviet brainless censors while a literaray elite develops composed of talentless writers and editors who only push the Communist Party line. Bulgakov has these nit-wits become the play-toys of the Devil in a story of hilarious dark comedy. Bulgakov never got revenge against the system that impoverished him until after his death when readers laugh at the incredible uncomfortable situations the Devil creates for the Moscow talentless literary elite.

Second, the tale is a satiric critique of the Soviet system under Stalin. Many Soviet methods of social control, such as apartment assignments by the state, set the stage for wild adventures for Soviet citizens caught in this overly centralized society. The chapter on the Soviet authorities trying to take over the apartment of the be-headed editor from the Devil and his assistants is some of the most clever satire ever written. The magic shows performed by the Devil in a state-owned theater was a perfect commentary on the weaknesses of the Soviet system.

Third, the novel is a superb essay on the killing of God as a political act. The Devil is delighted to come to the Soviet Union where belief in God is under attack and atheists rise to positions of power and status. The Soviets tried to kill God to better control their citizens. The genius of this book is that Bulgakov tells us the tale of Pontius Pilot and the High Priest of Jerusalem playing a careful came of strategy with the life of Jesus Christ. Both men had reasons to kill Jesus so that they could both maintain political power. But these two men are wise and they wish for the other party to take the blame for the crucifiction. Since Jewish law did not allow for the death penalty, the High Priest must manipulate Pilot to give the orders. However Pilot uses spys and murderers to cast blame back on the Jewish leadership by murdering Judas and throwing thirty silver pieces into the home of the High Priest. God must always be killed/maimed/distorted for a totalitarian government to maintain control. Suppression of God doesn't simultaneously suppress the Devil.

Fourth, the events related in the story are extremely fun to read. The encounter with the Devil in the public park, the scenes in the dead editor's apartment, the magic show, the insane assylum, the Devil's ball, the flashbacks to Jerusalem, all will stick in your mind for days after you finish the book.

This novel was finally released after Bulgakov had been dead for 30 years. The Devil in the story predicts this future when he says: "Manuscripts don't burn."

Rating:
Summary: One of the greatest novels of the XXth century!
Review: My only wish is that more non-Russian speakers knew about it! :(

Rating:
Summary: Nearly incomprehensible: this was hard work, not fun to read
Review: The devil and a bunch of his companions land in 1930's Stalinist Moscow and wreck havoc on the officially atheist city. What follows is an, in my opinion, incomprehensible tangle of out-of-the-ordinary events, not made any easier to comprehend due to the impression that one half of the male characters in the book seems to be called Nikolai Ivanovitsch and the other half Ivan Nikolaievitsch. There are probably a lot of very witty references to biblical events, but most of these will have escaped my atheist attention. In short: this was no fun to read.

Rating:
Summary: Scathing satire about Stalinist Russia.
Review: This is a great book, every time you read it a new facet emerges, every two or three years you should read it and you will come away with something new to think about. Religion, life, love, death, government, the human spirit this is a very deep book but it poses as a hilarious comedy. One of my favorite books.

Rating:
Summary: I know, I know
Review: There are 245 reviews of this book and 206 are five star and only 5 are one star. But I will say that this book, tho it is written (or translated) so that it is easy to read, yet, tho I tried to penetrate at least one of "many tiers" of significance which it is said to have, I could not find any significance of interest to me. If one is into fantasy I suppose one could get caught up in the senseless and impossible things which occur all thru the book, but it all seemed dull and stupid to me. I have looked at the impressive web sites dealing with the book and obviously some are quite taken by the book. I was so glad when I reached the last page!

Rating:
Summary: A book about the burning souls
Review: I recommend everyone to read the book "Master and Margarita". Written in the times of the Soviet Union communist regime during the '30s, Bulgakov uncovers in it the pictures of three different worlds. The first one which is visible and real presents Moscow in the years of the socialist order, when the religion is considered as an opium for the mind and the atheism - the only way for sobering; where the people are hidden, materialistic, unorientated, limited, languid, torpid and low spirited, living in small and narrow apartments, hiding currency in closets and shafts, afraid from each other's treachery. The other world is mystic, magic and fabulous, world in which the Satan is ruling, studying and analyzing the people, making fun of them and entertaining himself. The third picture is of Jerusalem, presented in the biblical time of the Crucifix. Bulgakov is interweaving these worlds and the characters of Ieshua, Pilate and The Satan with the common ordinary people to develop a great book about the belief, love, self-sacrifice, creativity and self-preservation, brimming over with wit, amazing Russian humor, laughter and imagination. This is a book about the lost, burning souls, about the Hell that we create by ourselves, restraining, stopping and destroying our impulses to create.


Rating:
Summary: One of my top 10 favorites
Review: I love this book. I've also forced all of my friends and most of my acquaintances to read it. Needless to say, my dogeared paperback is wearing a bit at this stage. I'm in the process of reading all of the other Bulgakov books, I liked it so well...buy it, if you don't like it I'll probably buy it off you to replace my exhausted copy.

Rating:
Summary: What a Uniquely Russian Prose
Review: I am from Ukraine... But I read the book for the first time while in college in the U.S (at BYU). I was house-sitting for a friend and she had a bunch of russian books. I found Master and Margaritta, a full Russian edition published in W.Germany back in the seventies. Back then, copies in the USSR were quite "abridged" by the party censors.

Anyway, I read the book in about three days. I read it in between work and classes. I'd stay reading it late into the night. I could not put it down. I found the book so purely russian it made me a bit homesick.

Woland, the Satan, comes to Soviet Russia and causes havoc. But he does not just do it himself; he toys with people who get tangled themselves. It seems the more people try to oppose Woland, the more they get tangled in Woland's web of tricks. Many of those people end up in an insane asylum. Woland has a couple of "assistants" a talking cat and another geezer... oh, there is also the naked diva who ricks of grave... The symbols and the imagery used are absolutely amazing, especially during the Satan's annual ball.

Woland is not the Master... In fact the Master does not appear till much later in the book... Especially interesting parts of the book are the flashbacks to Jesus Christ and Pontius Pilat. However, anyone will find themes and parts to which he or she can relate. Just keep in mind, This is not just a love story, even though it can be read as such very easily.

Enjoy.