Rating: 
Summary: One of my favorites books of all time!
Review: First time reading "The Master and Margarita"
by Mikhail Bulgakov was for a Soviet Literature class and I couldn't read it fast enough. Since then I have read it many times and picked up other Bulgakov works (he is great, but TMM is the crown jewel). All the other reviews here go into details about the plot, so I won't. If you buy this book, you will not be disappointed!
Rating:
Summary: Classic Genius
Review: Unclassifiable novel that breaks all the conventions and succeeds. I won't waste time explaining the plot or storyline, just buy it and read it. Subtle political statement (or understatement) permeates this novel but where it departs and excels is in it's weirdness. It is certainly the most bizarre and entertaining novel I have ever read. The Dinner Ball with Satan is a real highlight.
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Summary: Hilarious, Terrifying, and Just Plain Brilliant
Review: I've always been a fan of Russian novels, ever since I read my first Dostoevsky novel at the age of 10...(okay, it was a Classics Illustrated comic book version of Crime and Punishment!)but had never run across anything by Bulgakov until a few years ago. A Russian friend of mine really pressed me to read the book. I bought it, but it just stayed on the shelf until a few weeks ago. All I can say is, I didn't know what I was missing. Master and Margarita is a wickedly funny, sad, frightening, and ultimately haunting masterpiece of fiction. Bulgakov was one of the first generation of Soviet writers who flourished in the 20s, during the short lived Soviet Experimental movement, and then suffered horribly after the stregnthening of Stalin's regime. Bugakov was primarily a man of the Theater, and something of a theatrical quality hangs on to this book. The chapters have an almost tableaux style construction. When the Stalinist purges began, Bulgakov was began work on Master and Margarita, pretty much to please himself. He knew that he would never live to see it published. The novel itself is nearly impossible to describe. It consists of three separate plots. On the surface is the visit to Moscow, of the Devil in the guise of a professor named Woland, and his henchmen, two grotesque disfigured men, a naked woman and a cat who plays chess among other things. The group proceeds to essentially terrorize the city's intellectual community, mostly by exposing each character's inner hypocracy. The satire of communist society in this section is quite biting, and uproariously funny. Embedded in this story is a "novel within a novel" ...the story of Pontius Pilate and his encounter with the itinerant spiritual man, Yeshua. Finally, there is the story of the separated lovers, the Master and Margarita, who interweave between the other two stories. They live in the present day Moscow, but the Master ostensibly wrote the manuscript which told the story of Pontius Pilate. This rich and complicated stew of a book works on so many different levels. At it's most obvious, it is a scathing attack on communism and the cultural elite's complicity with the evils of the system. It is also rather pitiless in it's exposure of the greed, corruption and mendacity of human nature. But Bulgakov is not a conventional moralist. The Devil as Woland is an evil figure...sometimes a terrifying figure, and yet he ends up as the instrument of the redemption of both the Master and Margarita. There is a deep spiritual viewpoint at work here...Early in the novel, Yeshua tells Pilate that, "all men are good", to Pilate's incredulity. In the context of the novel, Yeshua seems hopelessly naive, but by the end of the novel, you wonder if this may actually not be the author's central point. Even the devil is capable of some good here. This book contains a whole world. Characters change in dizzying fasion and events go by with lightening speed. And yet, by the last pages there is a haunting beauty, an almost incandescent light that shines over the prose. Some of these final images stay etched in my brain even now, several weeks after finishing. I highly recommend that anyone read this book. It may be one of the greatest novels of the 20th century. It certainly is the greatest Russian novel of the last 100 years!
Rating:
Summary: Awesome!
Review: I just finished this book and it's the best I've read in a long time! Bulgakov tells his story about Satan's visit in Moscow with humor, limitless imagination and also social criticism, involving all kinds of characters, from Pontius Pilate to a talking cat by the name of Behemoth... It's inspired and interesting, and I recommend this book to anyone!
My only regret is that I don't know enough Russian yet to be able to read it in the original language - I believe it could be even better then.
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Summary: wonderful wonderful wonderful
Review: The Master and Margarita has wonderfully complex characters and an enthralling storyline that kept me riveted. Very enjoyable. I highly recommend it.
Rating:
Summary: First-Grade Fresh.
Review: I would never admit in public that I was somewhat disappointed to learn that 'Margarita' was the name of a character in this book, and that the tequila-based beverage we all know and love would not be making an appearance of any kind. It didn't stop the book from SHINING. A set of parallel stories, one of the devil wreaking havoc on Moscow and the other of a migraine-suffering Pontius Pilate and his interactions with Jesus. In Stalinist times it was unlawful and unadvisable to criticize anything about Russia, so the social commentary in the book is displaced to biblical times, whereas many of the biblical elements (a trinity, baptism, resurrection and whatnot) are in turn displaced to Moscow. The book is shockingly brilliant and stunningly well written. It's also bubblingly witty. ("That salmon's not spoiled! It's second-grade fresh!") And it's well translated, and very well annotated. The translator footnoted all the problem areas in translation ("The English 'quiet as a mouse' becomes 'Quiet as a fish on ice' in Russian"), and included relevant historical references from European History. It also included running explanations on Goethe's Faust, which are crucial to the text. As soon as I finished 'The Master and Margarita', I filed it away in my 'top five favorite books ever,' along with the other nine or ten books that are already there.
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Summary: Funny!
Review: Bulgakov's book is one of the most treasured Russian words of the Soviet Union, and with good reason! With a little knowledge or Soviet history, you can easily see why this book was banned by Stalinist authorities and kept Bulgakov under high tension.
"Master and Margarita" is about purges in the Soviet system, but its not done by Stalinist authorities; instead its done by Satan himself, and a slew of absolutely bizarre cohorts that includes a huge talking cat. If you aren't familiar with the purges, you will miss out on the greater meaning of the book, but the story is so bizarre, compelling, and humorous that you'll find yourself eager to find out what is going to happen.
Lots of my Russian friends absolutely love this book, and kept pestering me to read it. Bulgakov is almost the Soviet version of Dostoevsky in the sense that he treats real problems with an amusing story with the serious subject matter lurking behind the storyline. It would definatly help if this book was read in a class, or at least with a guide, because it will reveal Bulgakov's mastery in the literature of oppression.
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Summary: Hilarious plot with a grave undercurrent
Review: In THE MASTER AND MARGARITA, nothing is as it seems. A foreign professor turns out to be Satan, currency transforms into worthless paper, and luxurious clothing vanishes off the bodies of respectable women. The same can be said of the plot: on the surface, this novel is about the arrival of the Devil in Moscow and all the havoc he wreaks until he can settle his business with a failed novelist (the Master) who has written about Pontius Pilate. However, Bulgakov's novel is not merely a story about the Devil's antics; it is about oppression and persecution, about misguided government, about literary and personal self-importance, about devotion and bravery, about illusions. The satire is thick and multi-layered, with allusions and symbols that have kept scholars busy since the novel surfaced in the late sixties. Thankfully, you don't need any special knowledge to enjoy this hilarious send-up of life - political, literary, social - in the Soviet Union of the late 1920's, although the more you know about the Soviet Union and Bulgakov's life, the better you will understand the intent. Despite the danger in writing such a mocking novel of the Soviet regime, Bulgakov obviously had enormous fun writing this book. Who wouldn't want to turn a nosy neighbor into a pig, or behead an annoying control freak and then reattach his head? How much fun to have a man hauled off to prison, not for the bribe he just accepted, but for possessing foreign currency he knows nothing about. Satan's band itself is a ragtag group of dirty, bizarre-looking misfits who wiggle their way into Soviet society. Surprisingly, the brilliance of this novel is not its humor; it is the expert way with which Bulgakov links Pontius Pilate's interaction with Jesus to the desolate life of a novelist and his lover by developing parallel plots that merge in the final pages. I highly recommend this novel for readers of fine literature.
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Summary: If you were in Hell, would you know it?
Review: Even the Devil believes in God. He just doesn't like him much. The devil, God, and a would-be godless and man-created perfect society are the background of "The Master and Margarita." The theme is despair, the medium is dark humor, as only the Russians know how. The book is reminiscent of Robertson Davies' "Deptford Trilogy" and has been echoed by Joseph Heller's "Catch 22" and Ken Kesey's "One Flew Over the Cuckoo Nest." If you liked these novels, you may find "Master and Margarita" very much to your tastes. Bulgakov struggled with this, his masterpiece, up to the end of his life in Soviet Russia. He witnessed the surreal cannibalistic madness of Stalin's ravenings in that war-weary land. After a while, every human seeks to normalize his surroundings in some way, lest he go mad. Bulgakov sought this form of peace with this novel which must have been his attempt to piece the ragged fabric of Soviet life into a meaningful covering. The problem when we, as Americans who neither speak Russian, nor know much Russian recent history, read this book, we can come up against a lack of contextual knowledge to truly appreciate what Bulgakov is doing. He's unraveling his weird world and trying to criticize and make sense of it. For us, reading this in English and not knowing the historical background and the inside jokes, it is probably a dim shadow of a Russian's experience when reading the same novel. I am not sure how much I am really getting from this, other than to know I am reading a brilliant satire and a very richly-written novel. So, as non-Russians, we probably only get about fifty percent of what is behind the wild antics and bizarre incidents, starting with the prediction that the editor Berlioz will end the day beheaded by a Russian woman, and following with a cat who drinks vodka and boards streetcars, paying his 10-kopeck fare and escorting the foreign "consultant" who is surely the devil. The sections of the book dealing with Pontius Pilate and one Yeshua are sure to irritate a believer in God, but Bulgakov may be revealing that a godless society has no understanding of the divine, and soon dissolves into despair and disaster. I think Bulgakov struggled with the question "Why can't we kill God and have a true Communist society?" Whether he himself understood it fully, he achieves an explanation of sorts in his sarcastic parody of life gone terribly, terribly wrong.
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Summary: The Master and Margarita
Review: It's impossible for me to say that I really understand this novel. It's not totally my fault, either: Bulgakov died before he could finish editing it, and this has left apparent contradiction in the narrative. The editors and translators in this edition try to point out inconsistencies in their "Commentary"--actually a set of endnotes that refer to certain words or phrases--but unfortunately do not include page numbers. You will have to come up with a system for when you want to flip to the back of the book and look something up in the hope that it is addressed. Anyway, the Commentary also hints strongly, at certain points, that it merely scratches the surface when it comes to explaining about Bulgakov's many sources. It seems Bulgakov drew heavily from real personages he had met or had skirmishes with--including literary critics, government officials in charge of housing, etc., or even literary figures whom he came to know or inspired him through their works--and Ellendea Proffers's annotations include a few admittances that she basically gives up on providing all the countless topical references. I suppose we get the important ones. Meanwhile, there's all the religious allegory, combined with uniquely Russian satire of the environment Bulgakov had become familiar with, Moscow of the 20s and 30s. So, be prepared to watch as high fantasy is used to tear apart politics and religion. The devil and his fantastic entourage invade the squalor and bureaucracy of Moscow between World Wars, and wreak havoc. People are teleported, documents appear and disappear at the whim of the troublemakers, thus giving officials headaches they never dreamed of, the devil hands out free money that later turns to illegal foreign currency, gifts of fine clothing that are illusory--and that's just the start. Woland's powerful associates include creepy Korovyov, a tall, skeletal oily talker who cannot be trusted, Behemoth the talking feline, who can get quite nasty with anyone who gets in his or his friends' way (best to stay quiet around him if you want all your body parts), and quiet Azazello, with the red hair and fangs, who can also leave quite a bruise if he wants to. Sometimes these folks are slicksters, masters of illusion, laughing manipulators of their poor human pawns, and later, mostly, they get more direct in their mischief put upon Moscow, with their fires, and theft, and apparent indestructability. Through all the chaos, Woland takes a special interest in two sundered lovers: a failed writer called the Master who let his critics blast his career to pieces, and Margarita, who watched him fall apart over the rejection of his retelling of Pontius Pilate's story (we are treated to large portions of this radical version of Pilate's most famous moments, along with new looks at Judas, Yeshua (Christ), Levi (Matthew the tax collector), and others), and encounters Woland just when she may fall victim to offering him too much for a lovers' reunion. A poet named Ivan, incarcerated at the same asylum where we first meet the Master, also figures into Woland's puppetmaster machinations, and does not escape the situation without having his life and outlook radically altered. For the fantasy reader, there are witches and demons, much magical mischief-making, and lots of symbolism pointing at greater meaning to it all (the moon as symbol, light versus dark as part of Manicheeism, tons of religious iconography, and hey, flying broomsticks and all-powerful talking cats). If you can't get it all sorted out while enjoying the sly revels, then don't worry about it; the editors have abandoned trying to make it all make sense, and for that matter, nobody in Moscow really understands what really happened anyway!
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