Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ

It ends. After awhile, praise be to God, it ends.

If really feels like you have been

God I hope you're right.

Are you reading it slowly because of the group read or because you don't like it?

It demands to be read slow because it's like digesting gravel.

Joel wrote: "Are you reading it slowly because of the group read or because you don't like it?"

Because I hate it.

You sonuvabitch, Puma. My comments are like fucking manna from heaven, but with more MSG and sugar.

throw it across the room!

Well, good for you for sticking with it.

maybe it will stop sucking? cloud atlas did!

Jenn(ifer) wrote: "maybe it will stop sucking? cloud atlas did!"

Sheds a small tear of joy.

It never stops sucking. It's a regular vacuum. Think Mike in The Castro, circa 1975.

Bam.

Am I supposed to be keeping score here?

I'm surprised to see such a negative reaction to this book among my GR friends from across the pond. Maybe it's a cultural thing? Or maybe the translation is at fault? I have never read it in English so I don't know. Hope you'll like it in the end!

Jason wrote: "Am I supposed to be keeping score here?"

It might be a good idea, as some of our elderly members will find it easier to follow along.

Maciek wrote: "I'm surprised to see such a negative reaction to this book among my GR friends from across the pond. Maybe it's a cultural thing? Or maybe the translation is at fault? I have never read it in Engli..."

There are also many English-reader who love it, don't worry, Maciek.

Maciek wrote: "I'm surprised to see such a negative reaction to this book among my GR friends from across the pond. Maybe it's a cultural thing? Or maybe the translation is at fault? I have never read it in Engli..."

I don't think it's the translation, although it probably doesn't help. The prose is very stilted.

For me, it's more to do with this ridiculous way a "cab driver drives away with loathing" or the "bartender draws in his head to make it obvious that he is poor." What the fuck does that even mean? How do people drive with loathing? The descriptors make no sense! It's like the author wants us to have this impression of a person or a situation but then gets us there with these bizarre sets of modifiers. Absurd I can deal with, but this is just sloppy and infuriating. I haven't rolled my eyes this much since season three of Weeds.

Haha, I love Jason-weed related rants.

I agree with what's been said. I'm barely past the 100 mark so I can't judge at all, but it the prose makes for slow, clunky reading. (I have the same one as Jason). I'm also just not getting the Pilate cutaways which I know I should be.

It looks like you are reading the Bergin translation, Jason? I didn't notice Ginzberg's being stilted.

I'm reading Burgin/O'Connor, yes.

But I'm okay with it being a little stilted. Russian is a language with lots of right angles, isn't it?

My biggest fear is that I will be reading this book for the rest of my life.

Yeah, and you haven't even started on the second volume* yet!

Good luck!



* The Master & Margarita 2: Electric Boogaloo.

Jason wrote: "Maciek wrote: "I'm surprised to see such a negative reaction to this book among my GR friends from across the pond. Maybe it's a cultural thing? Or maybe the translation is at fault? I have never r..."

Jason, out of pure curiosity could you tell the chapters and possibly exact quotes of these passages? I'd like to look them up in other translations and see how they look.

The bartender tucking his head into his shoulders in an attempt to "look poor" is on page 175 in my March 1996 Vintage International Edition (Unlucky Visitors). The cab driver one I paraphrased because I couldn't remember the exact location of the passage. Anyway, this book is riddled with this tomfoolery, with this nonsensical ballyhoo.

Look, here's more: "Oh, my God!" thought Andrei Fokich, who, like all bartenders, was nervous and edgy. (page 174)

What the holy hell. Like all bartenders, was nervous and edgy? What happens in Russia that puts bartenders into perpetual states of anxiety? How bizarre.

And this is not to mention the conversations that characters have with each other. I think they are meant to be farcical and amusing but they are flat and stupid. Jack Tripper has had more believable conversations with Chrissy Snow than these people have with each other.

"A terribly clever theft it was too. Caused an unbelievable scandal! And what's more, no one knows who would need the head, or why!" (page 191)

Right. Because it's what the thief would use the head for that's of particular interest here. The fuck?

Mike wrote: "Esteban wrote: "It never stops sucking. It's a regular vacuum. Think Mike in The Castro, circa 1975.

Bam."

It was well after '84 before this Mike got there."

'84? There was probably a Starbuck's there by then.

I don't go in for that kinky stuff. Much.

I don't go in for that kinky stuff. Much.

I was going to type that I'm a "meat-and-potatoes" sort, but in my paranoia, it reads as suggestive.

Has that stopped you before?

I filter on occasion, Morias. On occasion.

Quit trying to put stuff in my mouth, Puma.

Jason wrote: "The bartender tucking his head into his shoulders in an attempt to "look poor" is on page 175 in my March 1996 Vintage International Edition (Unlucky Visitors). The cab driver one I paraphrased bec..."

Jason wrote: "The bartender tucking his head into his shoulders in an attempt to "look poor" is on page 175 in my March 1996 Vintage International Edition (Unlucky Visitors). The cab driver one I paraphrased bec..."

I checked these passages and they are pretty much the same in three languages - though I think that they read pretty stiff in English, but it might be just my reaction. I think the character tucking his head into his shoulders to "look poor" is just another way of expressing how someone "shrunks down" when intimidated - in this case the character does this on purpose to disguise himself as to have less wealth than he actually does, thereby emulating this pose.

About the bartender: you've got to remember that the novel is set in Soviet Russia, where many people lived in a state of constant anxiety and paranoia, and this book is just a giant riff on that. In this case I think it can be so that bartenders have many dirty secrets to hide - for example: selling liquor from below the counter. Also, police could interrogate them at any time if it was so that people suspected of something have been at their bar or even talked with them; etc etc. It is bizarre and I can understand why some westerners would have trouble thinking about such things but in places like these things mentioned above happened all the time.

A good example can come from Bulgakov's personal life. Depressed that he cannot realize his full talent, he wrote a letter to Joseph Stalin requesting permission to emigrate from the USSR. He did not intend to post the letter, but somehow did; later he received a phone call from Stalin himself, who asked if he really did want to emigrate. Bulgakov knew that this phone conversation would decide about his life: he said that he couldn't live outside his homeland. If he confirmed his wish, he most probably would have been dead. Artists have been opressed in the Soviet era, too; The Master and Margarita did not saw the light of the day for over 30 years. The version we are reading now saw the light of the day in 1989; and it was completed in 1940!

I do think that the conversations are made to be farcicial and comic - when one of the characters is a giant, shapeshifting and gasoline drinking black you can expect some comic elements. It's also juxtaposed with the extreme Soviet bureaucracy and stifness of government workers and people of power, which still plagues this region of the world - this is why it was so fun to read to me. I also think that I would have had a similar impression had I read the English translation. Somehow, the parts I've read feel stiff and boring to me. But once again, this is just my impression.

Thanks, Maciek. I agree the bartender being anxious could have been explained by the Stalinist Russian setting. But I still insist there is no such thing as a "poor" pose!

Thanks, Jason! Oh, I did not mean to say that there is - maybe I should have phrased it differently. IMHO in this scene the character wants to physically shrink down in size (the expression "shrank" or "shrank down" seems to be rather common) to appear poorer. He wants to appeal to a stereotype of someone with his head between his shoulders, running scared and hungry, instead of walking with his chin up and walled full of money. That's how I understood it when I read it.

Yeah, I know that's the impression we're meant to receive. It just feels very awkward to me. They are like cartoonish descriptions rather than descriptions that illustrate the behavior and actions of real live people. Part of me is waiting for the roadrunner to show up. MEEP MEEP.

Maybe you would prefer Yellow Blue Tibia; it's Stalinist oppression with ALIENS!

I think that's the point - it's a satire of a regime which treated itself way too seriously, and in it almost everything is turned on its head. It did not bother me when I was reading it but then I always enjoyed this kind of stuff.