Mikhail Bulgakov
Posted by climach on 2007
If an entire society denies the existence of God, then how will it respond when Satan appears in the flesh, with a bumbling British sidekick, a talking cat, a couple naked witches, and a horde of demons?
The Master and Margarita’s central question alone is worth a couple of points.
Much of Bulgakov’s genius will be lost on Western readers who aren’t familiar with the Stalin-dominated world in which he wrote, but he remains one of the more accessible recent Russian authors—especially if you get a well-annotated translation. Even more genius will be lost if you can’t see his wordplays in Russian (I’m still working my way through). So, take away the power of a cutting historical satire and the humor of clever turns of phrase, and you’re still left with a masterpiece.
The Master and Margarita intertwines four stories: an author who has facing despair while sitting in prison for writing unacceptable material; a woman (Margarita) who is desperate to save her lover from despair; Satan and his henchmen trying to make it big in Moscow; and the story The Master doesn’t seem to be able to finish—a revisionist critique of Christ’s Passion, told from Pilate’s point of view and set in a dualistic world.
Spiritually, the story is dark, but moving, along the lines of Halfstadter’s Godel, Escher, Bach, or Eco’s Baudolino, or Hesse’s Siddhartha.
On the trivial side, a Russian TV company recently released a very faithful mini-series of the book, complete with naked witches and all. It’s a big hit.
