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4.16 AVERAGE
4.16 AVERAGE
adventurous
challenging
dark
funny
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Wait, only 4 stars for a universally hailed classic of western literature--are you mad?
Probably my only-slightly above lukewarm or tepid reception of this novel has more to do with timing than with the work itself. Ever since the rise of a Neo-Fascist party in my homeland (the U.S.A.) and the various expose's of these new Nazi thugs in khakis carrying Tiki torches that I've been forced to watch, I've listened to too many people spouting Biblical quotations to explain their desire to eradicate huge portions of their fellow countrypersons in the name of law and order, God's will, and racial cleansing. Therefore, as I was reading the discussion between the poet and the editor at the novel's opening, I was wholly on their side and completely resented the novel's protagonist's project and how the appearance of Satan/Woland tended to legitimize it. We are at a point in time, I believe, in which Christianity is just no longer an acceptable moral guide. It's texts are simply too archaic and out of date--as well as being confused and contradictory--to be of much use to us at this juncture in history. I'm no longer as tolerant of the "Jesus was real" argument since historians have pretty much proved that he may be totally fictitious and the invention of a group of well-meaning but renegade Jews looking to subvert the power of the Roman Empire in their powerless, colonial state. (Note how the writers of the New Testement are a kind of literary/cult equivalent of taday's Jihadists!)
The editor, therefore, is right in trying to get the poet to write satirical verses ridiculing the superstitious beliefs that Christian soldiers use to propagate their filthy ideals of achieving a Christian apotheosis by enslaving, chasing away, segregating, or killing people of their own nationality. Then he immediately loses his head for it, and the novel becomes something of a celebration of the literary attempt to regularize the Jesus story, falling back on the age-old self-contradictory "perhaps the scriptures are embellished, but the son of God really did come down to earth and we will need to feel guilty about his sacrifice forever" argument which is especially bulshitty since the only text you have to authorize this belief are the scriptures themselves. Therefore simply re-telling what you know from the scriptures but applying the literary strategy of realism around these so-called facts and changing certain of said facts to be more likely/verisimilar doesn't convince me. It only makes me angry that we'll cling to these failed ideals of racial purity, guilt, and a skewed self-serving concept of good and evil for eternity, updating it constantly, avoiding mostly the few good and useful things that the fictional Jesus says in the scriptures, and endlessly repeat the xenophobic, racist, and violent acts also described in the Bible.
End of rant, end of explanation of tepid response.
Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln... The Master and Margarita is rather masterfully composed, particularly its two set pieces: Satan's ball and Judas's murder scene. After that, however, the un-revised last 75-100 pages do drag a bit, endlessly tying up loose ends. I trust Bulgakov would have edited heavily there so it's not an entirely fair criticism. Those centerpieces and many of the episodes that build up to them are really very entertaining and are filled with great characterizations, funny jokes, tension, quotable lines... so many of the things that make for a lively literary classic. And I get that within a regime that tried to eradicate in one blow the long Christian tradition in Russia was an unfair and totalitarian strategy so I really can't fault Bulgakov for writing this particular story at that particular time--like me, he's for the underdog and fighting for freedom, it's just that Christianity is a far bigger threat to freedom these days than is Soviet Communism so my view falls in line with my particular historical moment.
I'm sorry that I just wasn't much in the mood for this story. Still, I was riveted and rushed through the novel with a certain amount of glee. It's undeniably well written, entertaining, and worth reading, and I wouldn't want anyone to think otherwise.
Note to self: read it again when you're less angry at Christianity for being reconcilable with, for legitimizing, and even for prompting idiots to turn to genocide and self-destruction as viable political beliefs.
Probably my only-slightly above lukewarm or tepid reception of this novel has more to do with timing than with the work itself. Ever since the rise of a Neo-Fascist party in my homeland (the U.S.A.) and the various expose's of these new Nazi thugs in khakis carrying Tiki torches that I've been forced to watch, I've listened to too many people spouting Biblical quotations to explain their desire to eradicate huge portions of their fellow countrypersons in the name of law and order, God's will, and racial cleansing. Therefore, as I was reading the discussion between the poet and the editor at the novel's opening, I was wholly on their side and completely resented the novel's protagonist's project and how the appearance of Satan/Woland tended to legitimize it. We are at a point in time, I believe, in which Christianity is just no longer an acceptable moral guide. It's texts are simply too archaic and out of date--as well as being confused and contradictory--to be of much use to us at this juncture in history. I'm no longer as tolerant of the "Jesus was real" argument since historians have pretty much proved that he may be totally fictitious and the invention of a group of well-meaning but renegade Jews looking to subvert the power of the Roman Empire in their powerless, colonial state. (Note how the writers of the New Testement are a kind of literary/cult equivalent of taday's Jihadists!)
The editor, therefore, is right in trying to get the poet to write satirical verses ridiculing the superstitious beliefs that Christian soldiers use to propagate their filthy ideals of achieving a Christian apotheosis by enslaving, chasing away, segregating, or killing people of their own nationality. Then he immediately loses his head for it, and the novel becomes something of a celebration of the literary attempt to regularize the Jesus story, falling back on the age-old self-contradictory "perhaps the scriptures are embellished, but the son of God really did come down to earth and we will need to feel guilty about his sacrifice forever" argument which is especially bulshitty since the only text you have to authorize this belief are the scriptures themselves. Therefore simply re-telling what you know from the scriptures but applying the literary strategy of realism around these so-called facts and changing certain of said facts to be more likely/verisimilar doesn't convince me. It only makes me angry that we'll cling to these failed ideals of racial purity, guilt, and a skewed self-serving concept of good and evil for eternity, updating it constantly, avoiding mostly the few good and useful things that the fictional Jesus says in the scriptures, and endlessly repeat the xenophobic, racist, and violent acts also described in the Bible.
End of rant, end of explanation of tepid response.
Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln... The Master and Margarita is rather masterfully composed, particularly its two set pieces: Satan's ball and Judas's murder scene. After that, however, the un-revised last 75-100 pages do drag a bit, endlessly tying up loose ends. I trust Bulgakov would have edited heavily there so it's not an entirely fair criticism. Those centerpieces and many of the episodes that build up to them are really very entertaining and are filled with great characterizations, funny jokes, tension, quotable lines... so many of the things that make for a lively literary classic. And I get that within a regime that tried to eradicate in one blow the long Christian tradition in Russia was an unfair and totalitarian strategy so I really can't fault Bulgakov for writing this particular story at that particular time--like me, he's for the underdog and fighting for freedom, it's just that Christianity is a far bigger threat to freedom these days than is Soviet Communism so my view falls in line with my particular historical moment.
I'm sorry that I just wasn't much in the mood for this story. Still, I was riveted and rushed through the novel with a certain amount of glee. It's undeniably well written, entertaining, and worth reading, and I wouldn't want anyone to think otherwise.
Note to self: read it again when you're less angry at Christianity for being reconcilable with, for legitimizing, and even for prompting idiots to turn to genocide and self-destruction as viable political beliefs.
dark
funny
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
funny
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Absurdist political satire.... recommended to read alongside a study guide with historical notes.
Wow-just WOW! Bulgakov simply blew me away with his dark & very eastern-block humor, twisted ironies, brilliant metaphors, infinite layers of meaning, his surrealist aesthetic and refusal to follow any "rules" of any particular genre. Within a few chapters, this book quickly moved up to my #1 Most Brilliant Books Ever Written list, and after the last pages, I have a feeling it will stay here for a long time (perhaps until I take up Gogol, or so I am told).
There are many layers to this novel, a plethora of imagery, metaphors, and references that have been studied in hundreds of scholarly articles and tens of thousands of journalistic/reviewer articles, so I will not attempt to gloss superficially over any themes. Rather I will focus on the ironic humor, which touched me most profoundly, as a person born and raised under Ceausescu's regime (Romania).
Ironic, tragic, dark and depressing humor was central to Eastern European resistance to communism, and served a healing as well as communal/relational function. Even today, visiting Bucharest, the dark humor remains, and is spoken, without reservation, between strangers at bus stations, intimate family members, colleagues at the office, etc--it is a key thread of our identity and how we relate to and understand the world. I have never ready any work that captures this humor better than Bulgakov.
A process that is emphasized in the literature on communism is the development of a duality of psychic space, a mode of schizophrenic resistance. To many who sought refuge in books and humor, this fragmentation transformed into a positive experience: a honed, rich duality was a sign of strength, showing how one could successfully detach herself from the absence of things and to fill space with meaning in spite of adversity. These processes were transmitted historically, and taught one how to survive without alienating oneself psychologically. Andrei Pleşu remembers humor about lack as a "prop of survival". Oana-Maria Hock remembers the theatre as providing a "surrogate toughness", a form of resistance in the face of material insecurity. In a place in which material necessities were difficult to come by, disassociation, particularly through artistic release, served to create spaces of plenty.
Even though this work may be read by any audience, and though most find it brilliant, it particularly speaks to those who have lived through the horrors of Eastern-block communism and its historical particularities in this region; the humor especially is not only deeply ironic and depressing, but also is born of an experience difficult to describe if one has not lived it: the reference, for example, to "second-grade-fresh" fish.
It may seem superficially funny to anyone who has not experienced rationing as a way of life, but the phrase has many layers of meaning: first, as a reference to the rationing process/how hard it was to find food, second as a reference to the Eastern-block communist way of meticulously categorizing all things (such as different grades of products, of which "first grade" was of course never available to the non-connected citizen), third as reflection of how people in this region relied on deeply disturbing humor to pacify, at least temporarily, their disquietude, fourth, illustrating the peculiarities of communication during this time (when everything had at least a double meaning, under the politically correct and allowed language), and fifth, it brings back the embodied feeling itself of how one used to imagine the world before 1989--it is absolutely *visceral*, because this is EXACTLY how people talked. Everything was a private joke--and every comment was either ironic or meant something other than what it actually said.
Another example: in the Epilogue, when Bulgakov takes on the narrator role and tells us what happened after the Devil left Moscow, he first mentions the plight of black cats: "A hundred or so of these peaceful animals... were shot or otherwise destroyed in various parts of the country"... The ridiculousness of his concern for the cats considering circumstances is another perfect example of the twisted humor used during this period as a means of resistance.
Further, Bulgakov continues his story, citizens were goaded into public vigilantism of capturing black cats and reporting with them to police stations; there is even a story of a woman who comes to a station to vouch for the "character" of her cat. Clearly, this is not a story about cats, but a reference to the Secret Police, the dreaded disappearances, and the ways in which regular citizens were complicit in the process--yet at the same time, it is also a story about how Eastern block policies/dictators actually did value "cats"/animals above people (not to mention that people were treated AS animals, another double meaning).
In an even darker twist, after several pages, Bulgakov moves on from the cat stories: "Besides the cats, there were a few people who suffered some minor unpleasantness. Several arrests were made... A lot of other things happened, but one can't remember everything."
And with this poignant reference to the communist culture of "forgetting" (scrubbed history books, banned authors, emphasis on the present and future at the expense of the past incarnated in communist policies, purging of national archives, etc) Bulgakov ends by reminding us of the dark and tragic experience of Eastern-Block communism.
There are many layers to this novel, a plethora of imagery, metaphors, and references that have been studied in hundreds of scholarly articles and tens of thousands of journalistic/reviewer articles, so I will not attempt to gloss superficially over any themes. Rather I will focus on the ironic humor, which touched me most profoundly, as a person born and raised under Ceausescu's regime (Romania).
Ironic, tragic, dark and depressing humor was central to Eastern European resistance to communism, and served a healing as well as communal/relational function. Even today, visiting Bucharest, the dark humor remains, and is spoken, without reservation, between strangers at bus stations, intimate family members, colleagues at the office, etc--it is a key thread of our identity and how we relate to and understand the world. I have never ready any work that captures this humor better than Bulgakov.
A process that is emphasized in the literature on communism is the development of a duality of psychic space, a mode of schizophrenic resistance. To many who sought refuge in books and humor, this fragmentation transformed into a positive experience: a honed, rich duality was a sign of strength, showing how one could successfully detach herself from the absence of things and to fill space with meaning in spite of adversity. These processes were transmitted historically, and taught one how to survive without alienating oneself psychologically. Andrei Pleşu remembers humor about lack as a "prop of survival". Oana-Maria Hock remembers the theatre as providing a "surrogate toughness", a form of resistance in the face of material insecurity. In a place in which material necessities were difficult to come by, disassociation, particularly through artistic release, served to create spaces of plenty.
Even though this work may be read by any audience, and though most find it brilliant, it particularly speaks to those who have lived through the horrors of Eastern-block communism and its historical particularities in this region; the humor especially is not only deeply ironic and depressing, but also is born of an experience difficult to describe if one has not lived it: the reference, for example, to "second-grade-fresh" fish.
It may seem superficially funny to anyone who has not experienced rationing as a way of life, but the phrase has many layers of meaning: first, as a reference to the rationing process/how hard it was to find food, second as a reference to the Eastern-block communist way of meticulously categorizing all things (such as different grades of products, of which "first grade" was of course never available to the non-connected citizen), third as reflection of how people in this region relied on deeply disturbing humor to pacify, at least temporarily, their disquietude, fourth, illustrating the peculiarities of communication during this time (when everything had at least a double meaning, under the politically correct and allowed language), and fifth, it brings back the embodied feeling itself of how one used to imagine the world before 1989--it is absolutely *visceral*, because this is EXACTLY how people talked. Everything was a private joke--and every comment was either ironic or meant something other than what it actually said.
Another example: in the Epilogue, when Bulgakov takes on the narrator role and tells us what happened after the Devil left Moscow, he first mentions the plight of black cats: "A hundred or so of these peaceful animals... were shot or otherwise destroyed in various parts of the country"... The ridiculousness of his concern for the cats considering circumstances is another perfect example of the twisted humor used during this period as a means of resistance.
Further, Bulgakov continues his story, citizens were goaded into public vigilantism of capturing black cats and reporting with them to police stations; there is even a story of a woman who comes to a station to vouch for the "character" of her cat. Clearly, this is not a story about cats, but a reference to the Secret Police, the dreaded disappearances, and the ways in which regular citizens were complicit in the process--yet at the same time, it is also a story about how Eastern block policies/dictators actually did value "cats"/animals above people (not to mention that people were treated AS animals, another double meaning).
In an even darker twist, after several pages, Bulgakov moves on from the cat stories: "Besides the cats, there were a few people who suffered some minor unpleasantness. Several arrests were made... A lot of other things happened, but one can't remember everything."
And with this poignant reference to the communist culture of "forgetting" (scrubbed history books, banned authors, emphasis on the present and future at the expense of the past incarnated in communist policies, purging of national archives, etc) Bulgakov ends by reminding us of the dark and tragic experience of Eastern-Block communism.
dark
funny
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Pomalo čudna knjiga za svoje doba, sa dijelovima koji izgledaju kao da uopće ne trebaju biti u knjizi, ali idalje nekako smiješno-zabavna za pročitati.
