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Jan-Maat's Reviews > The Master and Margarita
The Master and Margarita
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Once in Moscow I made a beeline to the Patriach's Ponds, but sadly it was not at all what I had imagined after reading "Master and Margarita"(view spoiler).
On the surface this book is a fairly approachable story of the Devil arriving in 1930s Moscow interwoven with a book within a book about the Crucifixion, which has apparently been written by one of the characters within the novel. And I'm sure that readers have come to this book and have enjoyed it thinking it's some kind of soviet satire.
However underneath that simple surface is a world of complexity, Bulgakov took his theology as seriously as the nephew of a bishop ought (view spoiler). This is a deeply Christian work that relies on seeing the earthly realm as an inversion of the heavenly realm. The visit of the Devil is here a foretaste of the Apocalypse. The story within a story creates a set of parallels to illuminate the story for the reader. Most seriously, and maybe disturbingly given the time in which it was written, the persecuting state is shown to be a necessary actor in the Passion drama.
The seriousness is tempered the whole way through with anarchic fun as the order of Soviet Moscow is turned upside down by the Devil, his sidekicks and naked witches flying about on broomsticks, though perhaps this is a nod to the carnival effect you get in some Dostoyevsky novels, and perhaps with the double story we get Bakhtin's other favourite motive of heteroglossia. Certainly I remember reading this as release - the world turned upside down - rather than a kind of literary 'what the butler saw' experience.
It's also very different from Bulgakov's other works, The White Guard (a great favourite of Stalin's) or Heart of a Dog etc.
Contains much female nudity in places.
On the surface this book is a fairly approachable story of the Devil arriving in 1930s Moscow interwoven with a book within a book about the Crucifixion, which has apparently been written by one of the characters within the novel. And I'm sure that readers have come to this book and have enjoyed it thinking it's some kind of soviet satire.
However underneath that simple surface is a world of complexity, Bulgakov took his theology as seriously as the nephew of a bishop ought (view spoiler). This is a deeply Christian work that relies on seeing the earthly realm as an inversion of the heavenly realm. The visit of the Devil is here a foretaste of the Apocalypse. The story within a story creates a set of parallels to illuminate the story for the reader. Most seriously, and maybe disturbingly given the time in which it was written, the persecuting state is shown to be a necessary actor in the Passion drama.
The seriousness is tempered the whole way through with anarchic fun as the order of Soviet Moscow is turned upside down by the Devil, his sidekicks and naked witches flying about on broomsticks, though perhaps this is a nod to the carnival effect you get in some Dostoyevsky novels, and perhaps with the double story we get Bakhtin's other favourite motive of heteroglossia. Certainly I remember reading this as release - the world turned upside down - rather than a kind of literary 'what the butler saw' experience.
It's also very different from Bulgakov's other works, The White Guard (a great favourite of Stalin's) or Heart of a Dog etc.
Contains much female nudity in places.
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Finished Reading
June 17, 2011
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Antonomasia wrote: "in Moscow I made a beeline to the Patriach's Ponds, but sadly it was not at all what I had imagined after reading "Master and Margarita" A story about this might be the perfect way to begin a rev..."
well it's pretty close to the Kremlin and Sadovaya so I'm not surprised. I was only in Moscow for a flying visit so I had no feel for the quality of lives behind the walls and windows
*runs to the dictionary to look up heteroglossia*I put Master down around the halfway point last year and didn't pick it up again, although I was excited to read it initially. Your erudite and efficient review has inspired me to find my copy and carry on. Thanks as always for the a.m. enlightenment.
Putting it down in the middle surprises me, heteroglossia I suppose one might say a non-choir, each singing their own song as loud as possible!
a friend of mine suggested that bakhtin's russian term for heteroglossia is how the dogs bark at night.
sologdin wrote: "a friend of mine suggested that bakhtin's russian term for heteroglossia is how the dogs bark at night."he must have distinctly literary canines in his vicinity
This is the kind of serious review this book deserves, Jan-Maat, and one that I was completely incapable of writing! So interesting to read about Bulgakov's backgound, motives and intentions. Thank you.
J.C. wrote: "This is the kind of serious review this book deserves, Jan-Maat, and one that I was completely incapable of writing! So interesting to read about Bulgakov's backgound, motives and intentions. Thank..."thank you, I am glad that it was interesting!
A story about this might be the perfect way to begin a review of M&M. (Had you posted about the book before? I find such a rightness to this bit that's it's as if I'd read the opening sentence several times before.)
As I recall from a documentary I saw last year, (Lucy Worsley? Reggie Yates?) Patriarch's Ponds is now an expensive and hip area. What was it like when you were a student?