Rating: 
Summary: Dread and great laughs
Review: Bulgakov died in 1940, this book was rediscovered in 1966. There are so many things to be said about this work and there are lots of different levels to explore. It's a fantastic bizarre story where nothing is impossible, for example a cat smokes cigar and knows how to use a gun. The restrictive cultural climate in USSR by this time is also something Bulagov critizes. It's a fascinating piece of work, with a great sense of humour that is absurd. The fictional land Bulgakov has painted is incredibly colorful. The book begins with a mystical stranger who enters Moskow and soon dreadful things starts to happen, still that doesn't stop the story from being very funny. This is a timeless novel that I think will survive through the years.
Rating:
Summary: An Absolute Masterpiece
Review: The Master and Margerita is one of the finest novels you've probably never read. I was assigned it in a class on Russian writers in college, and I doubt I've ever devoured an assigned read so hungrily and gleefully. There are simply too many layers in this narrative to do any of them justice in a brief review like this. I will simply say that when the novel has finished, the thinking has just begun. The ideas herein will eat at you, even as they entertain you. You will ask yourself, in a the social distortion of a Stalin-like regime is Satan a hero?
Rating: 
Summary: A Whimsical Tale of Good and Evil
Review: If you are coming across Bulgakov for the first time, there are a few things that you should know about the artist and his art: he came from a group of artists that satirized the oppressive regimes under which they lived through a combination of absurd situations and irrational characters, Bulgakov's allegorical deployment of the elements of surrealism and magical whimsy has influenced a host of novelist, most notably Salman Rushdie. Bulgakov saw _The Master and Margarita_ as his one masterpiece, on which he worked until his death--not in the hands of secret police, but by illness--in 1940.Much is said about the fact that one of the principal characters in this novel is Satan himself, or as he is called in the book, Woland, the professor of black magic. The height of frenzy in Soviet history took place under Stalin's purges of intellectuals and top administrators, as well as generals and admirals, anyone whom he saw as a potential pole of opposition against his person. In that context, with his penchant to do away with the potential irritant, Woland seems to be a stand in for Stalin. The top administrators of a renowned theatre company begin to disappear as the balack magician positions himself for an appearence at Variety theatre. Woland is behind the disappearences, but his ultimate reasons are deeply subversive. The best part of the novel and the part that best illustrates the political attitude the author for me comes toward the middle of the book when Woland holds a "seance" in a theatre to gauge the Moscovites for many things, but above all for gullibility. The devil bestows on the audience riches and luxuries, rains money from the sky, clothes and shoes the women in expensive paris couture gowns. And when a startled master of ceremonies, whose duty it is after all to explain away the mystery behind performances and defang their potency, reassures his audience that everything is an illusion, Woland orders his sidekick, Behemoth, an enormous cat that can talk and walk on its hind legs, to rip off the perplexed MC's head off, which the cat promptly does. This scene, powerful in its symbolism, recurs many times in the novel, with different characters portraying the radical artist renouncing or dismembering the authority figures that are out to destroy him. In a parallel story, Bulgakov tells the story of Pontius Pilate, teh Roman procurator of Judea, who is forced to wrongly condemn to death a man by the name of Yeshua Ha-Nozri( an adaptation of the real life Jesus of Nazareth). Thematically and aesthetically, the parallels with the Moscow episode are obvious: both Pontius Pilate and the master, the author of a book on Pilate's life in real time, feel the constraints of authority and are forced to walk around, taking care not to cross these boundaries, and in the end triumph over them. However, Pilate's position of authority complicates his claim to the victim status, and his inexplicable fear of the high priests is never fleshed out, his inner integrity not brought to bear on the situation until it's too late. But if he were to possess any integrity, he would have in any case prevented Yeshua from being executed as it was well-known to him before the fact that Yeshua was the victim of political intrigue. On second reading this becomes disturbingly obvious. Furthermore, in the last ten chapters or so, the magical tricks, disappearences and Satanic spells literaily slide toward a Gomorrah of decandent indulgence, climaxing with the Satan's Ball. Afterwards, the Satan is no longer the sower of misrule, the prince of darkness, but just a anti-establishment sort of chap who redeems his followers by turning them into witches when--would you believe it--Apostle Matthew turns up to plead with Satan to save Master and Margarita. You can take it or leave that part of the novel. I didn't know what to do with it. Bulgakov, instead of using magical elements to crystallize a psychological mindset that apparently pervaded two distant historical eras, uses Satan as a wish fulfilment device, an infernal deus ex-machina if you will, for what it would be like if a novelist were to be redeemed by the Satan. Granted, given the alternative of living under Stalin and eloping with the devil, the choice is only between the devil that you know and the devil that you don't. Perhaps Bulgakov was just being realistic. I gave this book 4 stars for whimsical invention, and I even considered making it 5 stars were it not for the truly miserable ending. A great work, if not a masterpiece.
Rating:
Summary: Brilliant
Review: One of the two greatest books I have ever read. Absolutely incredible.
Rating:
Summary: the best book ever :)
Review: This is one of my favorite books. It has everything a good book ought to have: drama, suspence, comedy, love and great engaging characters. What makes interesting is how strange it is. Some of main characters include a black cat,Satan and of course the two lovers (Master and Margarita). I would recommend this book to everyone.
Rating:
Summary: A theatre of the absurd
Review: When finally published in 1967, "The Master and Margarita" made a huge impact on the young Russian generation. It came at the end of the "Russian Spring." The years of Stalinism had partially thawed, and the Soviet Union saw a period of relaxation of many of the austere measures that had been levied on its citizens. Bulgakov had written the book at the height of Stalinist repression. A devil mercilessly playing with the indoctrinated minds of the proletarians and intellectuals alike. One has to understand that Bulgakov was a deeply religious man. He used satire as a means of renouncing the god-less Soviet state. Bulgakov can be viewed in the same literary vein as Gogol and Dostoevsky. He also delighted in word plays, hidden meanings and multiple layers of storytelling, making this a book you can return to again and again. There are two essential stories in this novel. The first is that of the Master and Margarita, a doomed pair of lovers who find themselves fatalistically intertwined with the devil and his henchman. The other is that of Christ and Pontius Pilate. Bulgakov moves effortlessly back and forth in time through the voice of the devil, Woland, who overhears two Russian literati discussing the veracity of the death and resurrection of Christ. The fun and games follow in rapid succession, as the devil turns Petersburg on its ear, confounding a sedated city with his miraculous tricks. Pevear and Volokhonsky have done a fine translation. It is a bit too literal for my tastes. They didn't need to translate the names into English. Footnotes would have sufficed. But, then Bulgakov often employed blunt language. He was a playwright by profession, and in many ways this book is a theatre of the absurd.
Rating:
Summary: Good book, bad translation
Review: Let me share something:
An oaktree greening by the ocean
A golden chain about it wound
Whereon a learned cat in motion
Both day and night will walk around
On walking right he sings a ditty
On walking left he tells a lay...
(Alexander Pushkin, intro for "Ruslan and Ludmila" translated by Walter Arndt) You can tell good poetry when you see one. If you happen to know some Russian you'll also notice that this is almost a word-for-word translation and if you know Pushkin's heritage you'll be amazed at how well the translator preserved Pushkin's manner, spirit of the fairy tale and the very "Russian" colorit of the poem.
Now, this one (Volokhonsky/Pevear's translation of "Master and Margarita") ain't the case. While "Citizenness" Volokhonsky seems to know the Russian original, M'seur Pevear doesn't have a very good command of English language. He failed miserably not only to preserve the easily flowing bubbling like champagne Bulgakov's speech, but even to correctly interpret some very simple words. E.g., how would you, non-Russian speaking readers translate the Russian word "regent" (the former imperial title of Koroviev - one of Satan's most colorful servants)? I'll give you a hint - it is not "choirmaster" (an obscure use of the word in Russian church, for some reason chosen by the translators). The book is filled with Pevear's(Volokhonsky's?) own "neologisms" that are hard to understand at first and they require that the reader makes a mental list of their translations into common English after which they become simply annoying.
In general it's a good book, I give it four stars and suggest that the translators come visit the US sometime, get a sense of modern American English and maybe see some of our places of interest (like Universal Studios).
:-)
Rating:
Summary: This is the edition to get.
Review: The book is great, as all the other reviews tell you. This edition is excellently translated and annotated. Unless you're extremely familiar with early 20th-century Moscow, the annotations are necessary to understanding the incredible amount of nuance in Bulgakov's writing.
Rating:
Summary: Good Times
Review: I found this book to be the quintessential romp through the Russian writing style. It is humorous and pointed and underlying the work is an endearing sense of selflessness. It is almost as if the book is a joke, but a poignant and lyrical joke that you simply can't put down. Also I could read about Woland's entourage and their mis(?)adventures forever, they are some of the most colorful characters I have ever encountered in literature.
Rating:
Summary: All time classic!
Review: This book is a classic! Very complex characters, who are not boring (compared to some other Russian authors). This book will make you laugh, and it will make you cry. And what is interesting- is that each time I re-read this book I find something new. Action in the novel takes place in the Soviet Russia, but it could be anywhere, and any time. There are two story lines, one in the present, and one in the past during the time of Christ. The two lines are linked together by ever present of Woland, who is the Devil himself. This book is about good and evil. I would say that this is one of the top 10 book EVER written. Strongly recommended.
|
