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Reviews tagging 'Forced institutionalization'
The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
35 reviews
fyre_flies's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Mikhail Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita was my choice for a book club because I'd heard loads about it. It's vivid characters and beautiful descriptions captured my attention and I was intrigued.
Written between the 1920s and 40s, this classic was published posthumously due to the strict censorship of Soviet Russia.
The story follows the devil, Woland, and his peculiar entourage, which includes an enormous talking cat with a penchant for vodka and ill timed humor, in a visit to Russia.
Bukgakov combines supernatural elements with a layer of dark comedy and satire, flawlessly them playing off each other. The eponymous characters, however, only come into play in the latter half of the narrative after Margarita brokers a deal to be host, "Queen Margot", at the Devil's Ball in return for finding her missing lover - the unnamed Master, who has written an interesting tale of the history of Pontius Pilot...
Here is a very quick review:
The characters were vibrant, the descriptions magnificent and the action and dialogue was well constructed but the flow was bitty and all over the place. It appeared to me more like a set of short stories about the devil making trouble in numerous hilarious, satirical and at times serious ways. The ending too, felt a little underwhelming to me.
I also believe that readability and, in turn, enjoyability for this work depends a great deal on the translation and the format you read it in. I struggled through sections when reading certain translations but thoroughly enjoyed the audiobook experience (the one I chose was a Naxos edition read by Julian Rhind-Tutt which I really recommend).
Due to this, it didn't get my highest review, but it has definitely made me interested in reading more of Bulgakov's works in the future. I really enjoyed how he managed to blend humour with serious subjects in a way that doesn't clash and doesn't take away from the importance of the subject he is discussing.
Read if you like slow-paced yet action filled stories that are slightly wacky and very satirical, with sprinklings of seriousness and humour. It is literally the definition of a wild ride.
Written between the 1920s and 40s, this classic was published posthumously due to the strict censorship of Soviet Russia.
The story follows the devil, Woland, and his peculiar entourage, which includes an enormous talking cat with a penchant for vodka and ill timed humor, in a visit to Russia.
Bukgakov combines supernatural elements with a layer of dark comedy and satire, flawlessly them playing off each other. The eponymous characters, however, only come into play in the latter half of the narrative after Margarita brokers a deal to be host, "Queen Margot", at the Devil's Ball in return for finding her missing lover - the unnamed Master, who has written an interesting tale of the history of Pontius Pilot...
Here is a very quick review:
The characters were vibrant, the descriptions magnificent and the action and dialogue was well constructed but the flow was bitty and all over the place. It appeared to me more like a set of short stories about the devil making trouble in numerous hilarious, satirical and at times serious ways. The ending too, felt a little underwhelming to me.
I also believe that readability and, in turn, enjoyability for this work depends a great deal on the translation and the format you read it in. I struggled through sections when reading certain translations but thoroughly enjoyed the audiobook experience (the one I chose was a Naxos edition read by Julian Rhind-Tutt which I really recommend).
Due to this, it didn't get my highest review, but it has definitely made me interested in reading more of Bulgakov's works in the future. I really enjoyed how he managed to blend humour with serious subjects in a way that doesn't clash and doesn't take away from the importance of the subject he is discussing.
Read if you like slow-paced yet action filled stories that are slightly wacky and very satirical, with sprinklings of seriousness and humour. It is literally the definition of a wild ride.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Mental illness, and Forced institutionalization
Minor: Body horror and Child death
fyre_flies's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death and Violence
Moderate: Infidelity, Forced institutionalization, Blood, and Alcohol
Minor: Gore
clairvoyant's review against another edition
funny
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
Content Warnings
Moderate: Body horror, Death, and Blood
Minor: Forced institutionalization and Suicide attempt
sherbertwells's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
funny
hopeful
lighthearted
fast-paced
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
“‘And there’s no devil either?’ the sick man suddenly inquired merrily of Ivan Nikolaevich,
‘No devil…’
‘Well now that is positively interesting!’ the professor said, shaking with laughter. ‘What is it with you—no matter what one asks for, there isn’t any!” (41)
The Master and Margarita is a wonderful book, thanks to the efforts of five storytellers. Bulgakov is only the first.
He’s probably the most important, too. The 20th-century Russian author has a wicked talent for atmosphere; his 1937 novel transports the reader to a Moscow that almost existed. The tense, wild summers of the Stalin-era city propel the story like hot air filling up a balloon. From high up in its basket, the reader is free to behold a thousand tragedies, which, at such a distance, become comedies. Jerusalem appears on the horizon for a few moments, then a moonlit world beyond time and space. Naked witches glide past on brooms. Smoke fills the air. It is a fantastic voyage, but escaping the terror that grips the city below means taking a ride with the devil himself.
Satan, adorned in a checkered sport coat and trailed by a fiendish retinue, is the second entity that guides the story. He’s not strictly a hero or villain; as the magician Professor Woland, he captivates crowds, but as the latest in a long line of Russian trickster-protagonists he stupefies the bumbling artists and corrupt bureaucrats in the upper echelons of communist society. Most of the time, they deserve it. At Woland’s magic show, materialistic women fight one another to trade in their rags for conjured French fashions, only to emerge in their underwear. An unscrupulous landlord accepts a bribe that turns into illegal foreign currency. Other times, Satan’s victims are ordinary people thrust into the path of the scheming interpreter Koroviev or the gluttonous talking cat Behemoth.
Vignettes detailing his encounters, which make up the first half of the story, are initially disturbing but slowly morph into cathartic fun as Bulgakov sinks deeper into the climate of fear and suspicion which the ‘good’ characters—a relative term here applied to the Master, Margarita and the poet Ivan Homeless—endure daily. The only people to which Satan is resolutely loyal are Margarita, an unhappy housewife, and the Master, the disgraced author of a novel about Pontius Pilate.
The latter, who is also Margarita’s lover, is the third storyteller. Master is not only an author-insert for Bulgakov himself, but a foil to Woland. This is most evident in their use of monogram: the magician distributes business cards marked with a W, while the Master demonstrates his profession by donning “a completely greasy black cap with the letter ‘M’ embroidered on it,” an inversion which (I think) also works in the original Cyrillic alphabet (135). He and Woland take turns telling the story, whose chapters, inserted sporadically into the longer narrative, create a commentary on the eternal use and abuse of power. Its depiction of the life and death of Jesus, here called Yeshua Ha-Nozri to distance the story from the biblical Greek, is not necessarily accurate but is an intriguing look at religious history in a country where most people, according to one literary critic, “long ago ceased believing in fairy tales about God” (8). Here, the biblical messiah becomes a ragged philosopher with a single wandering disciple, who is executed by Pilate out of cowardice and a sense of obligation. Their dialogues, as well as the descriptions of 1st-century Jerusalem, are some of the most beautiful in the whole book. But the credit for these passages must go to the fourth and fifth storytellers: the translators.
Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky did a great job translating The Master and Margarita from Russian to English for the Penguin Classics 50th anniversary Edition. Pevear and Volokhonksy’s prose is readable and image driven, and their cultural annotations help reveal the novel’s hidden depths. As far as I can tell, they represent the best of modern classic translation. They have translated at least 50 works of classic Russian literature together and won the PEN translation prize. While The Master and Margarita is the first book translated by them that I’ve read, my great-aunt claims that they produced “the only decent [English] copy” of Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace. They deserve at least as much real-world credit as Bulgakov for creating an enjoyable version of the story.
Because The Master and Margarita is such a good story, I find it much more difficult to share my opinion of it. Whenever I think about how much I love it, another amusing detail or message occurs to me. I want to reread it, to annotate it and discuss it with friends, to buy my own copy and treasure it. I’m really grateful that this book exists.
I just wish I knew who to thank.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Forced institutionalization
Moderate: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Physical abuse, and Violence
Minor: Alcoholism, Cancer, Sexual assault, Slavery, Torture, and Antisemitism
Unlike the work of some authors (*cough*Dostoyevsky*cough*) the minor tag for Anti-semitism isn't from Bulgakov's point of view. In this case, it refers to some of the Roman/Jewish religious tensions in the biblical parts of the story. But I figured readers still might want to know about it beforehand.allimoose37's review against another edition
challenging
dark
funny
mysterious
slow-paced
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.25
I finished this book weeks ago and I still don't really know how I feel about it.
It's definitely Russian Literature and may be a difficult read. It is certainly slow paced in one sense and extremely fast in another. Part One of the novel feels very disjointed and each chapter is essentially a vignette, Part Two is more cohesive in the narrative, and I'm not certain Part One is edited down to it's best ability. This is a book about The Devil so be sure to check out any content warnings.
It's definitely Russian Literature and may be a difficult read. It is certainly slow paced in one sense and extremely fast in another. Part One of the novel feels very disjointed and each chapter is essentially a vignette, Part Two is more cohesive in the narrative, and I'm not certain Part One is edited down to it's best ability. This is a book about The Devil so be sure to check out any content warnings.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Infidelity, Mental illness, and Forced institutionalization
Moderate: Alcoholism, Cursing, Gun violence, Terminal illness, Violence, and Blood
Minor: Cancer