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april_does_feral_sometimes 's review for:
The Master and Margarita
by Mikhail Bulgakov
'The Master and Margarita' by Mikhail Bulgakov is a novel of sheer absurdist lunacy of the type the Marx Brothers and Month Python's Flying Circus specialized in, only the subject of the satire is the Russia which was terrorized by the psychopathic Stalin and his secret police forces. Bulgakov does not confront readers with Stalin's regime, but instead disguises the policies of the regime and its corrosive effects on people with madcap literary magical realism. The book has more literary layers than an extravagant wedding cake, and it is as much of a bizarre show as anything P.T. Barnum invented for his circus in the 1900's!
I have read [b:The Gulag Archipelago, 1918 - 1956: An Experiment in Literary Investigation, Books I-II|246422|The Gulag Archipelago, 1918 - 1956 An Experiment in Literary Investigation, Books I-II|Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1610935574l/246422._SY75_.jpg|42472998], a non-fiction book about the same era, by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. 'The Gulag Archipelago' is an academic book of true stories about the horrors of a corrupt regime that had no boundaries in using arrest and torture and murder. Paranoia wasn't an abnormal condition, it was a survival mechanism in this culture. The surviving Russians became slave labor. The Master and Margarita' does not describe this reality of Russian life under Stalin, but instead imagines what happens when Satan comes for a visit to a Moscow theater.
Satan, who is using the name of Professor Woland (German word for Satan), signs a contract to appear at the Variety Theater in Moscow. He will act in seven performances as a black magic magician. He brings demonic assistants with him - Azazello, Koroviev, Behemoth and Hella. These assistants would have fit in with Monty Python's Flying Circus perfectly! They act out in the same manic manner as the Marx Brothers did in their movies, if the Marx Brothers could use magic and shapeshift their bodies as required. Behemoth in particular is remarkably playful and dangerous for one's mental health - he is a large black talking cat. Most of the time.
The Master isn't introduced until Part Two, the halfway point of the book. He is a writer locked up in a facility for the mentally deranged. He has been writing a novel about Pontius Pilate in the days Pilate met Jesus, who is called Yeshua Ha-Nozri. The Master's novel is introduced in the second chapter of 'The Master and Margarita'. It initially seems like a story alternating with the one about the demonic visitors harassing everyone involved with the Variety Theater in the 1940's. Christians will recognize the story is based on the one in the Bible, but it does not focus on Ha-Nozri. Instead it is about Pontius Pilate, and the effect on him of knowingly condemning an innocent man he admires to death.
Margarita is also introduced to readers in Part Two of the novel 'The Master and Margarita'. She is the reluctant thirty-year-old wife of a wealthy and respected Soviet Communist. She married him at age nineteen. Despite that she lives in a world of vast wealth and luxurious goods, she is desperate to be with the Master, but she thinks he might have died after being disappeared. She loves the Master! Deeply, forever. There are a lot of disappearances in the novel. People never ask questions. Margarita is so desperate, she would even ask Satan for help! Why not? The good people of Russia aren't good. Could Satan be worse?
No. Not. Satan is, well, the better man! In this environment of corruption, senseless death and fear -and the comical insane circus that Russia is during Stalin's reign- and after all that, a country run by malacious caprice- a man (using the term loosely) of discernment and intelligence like Satan, who has self-control AND charisma, with magical powers as well as political power, is a man who can be admired! Unlike Stalin, Satan can be trusted to have rules!
Besides being a madcap absurdist farce, the book is dense with literary layers and remarkable characters who were absolutely destined to be archetypes for writers and TV performers forever after the publication of 'The Master and Margarita' in 1967. Bulgakov finished it in 1940, but given that the kind of censorship enforcement readers see in the novel [b:1984|40961427|1984|George Orwell|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1532714506l/40961427._SX50_.jpg|153313] was actually in force in Russia at the time of the novel having been written, understandably the book was not printed until after Bulgakov's death by his wife and friends decades later in Paris.
I have a Wikipedia link below which explains ALL, so read it with care if you hate spoilers:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Master_and_Margarita
Or, read the excerpt below:
From Wikipedia:
"The novel deals with the interplay of good and evil, innocence and guilt, courage and cowardice, exploring such issues as the responsibility towards truth when authority would deny it, and freedom of the spirit in an unfree world. Love and sensuality are also dominant themes in the novel."
In other words about the sensuality: Naked women. Lots and lots of naked women, demon witches and human women, in the theater audiences and flying about. The demons really enjoy naked women. Needless to say, the characters who keep their clothes on are male.
There are many wonderful reviews on Goodreads. I have copied a few links, but there are many more reviews:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/101062494?book_show_action=false&from_review_page=1
By Nataliya
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2942922755?book_show_action=false&from_review_page=1
By Nandakishore
I have read [b:The Gulag Archipelago, 1918 - 1956: An Experiment in Literary Investigation, Books I-II|246422|The Gulag Archipelago, 1918 - 1956 An Experiment in Literary Investigation, Books I-II|Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1610935574l/246422._SY75_.jpg|42472998], a non-fiction book about the same era, by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. 'The Gulag Archipelago' is an academic book of true stories about the horrors of a corrupt regime that had no boundaries in using arrest and torture and murder. Paranoia wasn't an abnormal condition, it was a survival mechanism in this culture. The surviving Russians became slave labor. The Master and Margarita' does not describe this reality of Russian life under Stalin, but instead imagines what happens when Satan comes for a visit to a Moscow theater.
Satan, who is using the name of Professor Woland (German word for Satan), signs a contract to appear at the Variety Theater in Moscow. He will act in seven performances as a black magic magician. He brings demonic assistants with him - Azazello, Koroviev, Behemoth and Hella. These assistants would have fit in with Monty Python's Flying Circus perfectly! They act out in the same manic manner as the Marx Brothers did in their movies, if the Marx Brothers could use magic and shapeshift their bodies as required. Behemoth in particular is remarkably playful and dangerous for one's mental health - he is a large black talking cat. Most of the time.
The Master isn't introduced until Part Two, the halfway point of the book. He is a writer locked up in a facility for the mentally deranged. He has been writing a novel about Pontius Pilate in the days Pilate met Jesus, who is called Yeshua Ha-Nozri. The Master's novel is introduced in the second chapter of 'The Master and Margarita'. It initially seems like a story alternating with the one about the demonic visitors harassing everyone involved with the Variety Theater in the 1940's. Christians will recognize the story is based on the one in the Bible, but it does not focus on Ha-Nozri. Instead it is about Pontius Pilate, and the effect on him of knowingly condemning an innocent man he admires to death.
Margarita is also introduced to readers in Part Two of the novel 'The Master and Margarita'. She is the reluctant thirty-year-old wife of a wealthy and respected Soviet Communist. She married him at age nineteen. Despite that she lives in a world of vast wealth and luxurious goods, she is desperate to be with the Master, but she thinks he might have died after being disappeared. She loves the Master! Deeply, forever. There are a lot of disappearances in the novel. People never ask questions. Margarita is so desperate, she would even ask Satan for help! Why not? The good people of Russia aren't good. Could Satan be worse?
No. Not. Satan is, well, the better man! In this environment of corruption, senseless death and fear -and the comical insane circus that Russia is during Stalin's reign- and after all that, a country run by malacious caprice- a man (using the term loosely) of discernment and intelligence like Satan, who has self-control AND charisma, with magical powers as well as political power, is a man who can be admired! Unlike Stalin, Satan can be trusted to have rules!
Besides being a madcap absurdist farce, the book is dense with literary layers and remarkable characters who were absolutely destined to be archetypes for writers and TV performers forever after the publication of 'The Master and Margarita' in 1967. Bulgakov finished it in 1940, but given that the kind of censorship enforcement readers see in the novel [b:1984|40961427|1984|George Orwell|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1532714506l/40961427._SX50_.jpg|153313] was actually in force in Russia at the time of the novel having been written, understandably the book was not printed until after Bulgakov's death by his wife and friends decades later in Paris.
I have a Wikipedia link below which explains ALL, so read it with care if you hate spoilers:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Master_and_Margarita
Or, read the excerpt below:
From Wikipedia:
"The novel deals with the interplay of good and evil, innocence and guilt, courage and cowardice, exploring such issues as the responsibility towards truth when authority would deny it, and freedom of the spirit in an unfree world. Love and sensuality are also dominant themes in the novel."
In other words about the sensuality: Naked women. Lots and lots of naked women, demon witches and human women, in the theater audiences and flying about. The demons really enjoy naked women. Needless to say, the characters who keep their clothes on are male.
There are many wonderful reviews on Goodreads. I have copied a few links, but there are many more reviews:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/101062494?book_show_action=false&from_review_page=1
By Nataliya
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2942922755?book_show_action=false&from_review_page=1
By Nandakishore