![]() As heads roll and people are driven mad, Ivan meets his neighbor in the asylum, one known only as The Master. When Woland's prediction of the death of the writer Berlioz turns out to be true, another writer, Ivan the Homeless is unceremoniously carted off to an asylum and the esteemed Dr. Back in Moscow, things have taken a bizarre turn. Yeshua is sentenced to death and crucified and Pilate grows more and more disturbed. Pilate, although finding himself captivated by Yeshua and desiring to free him, has no choice but to order his execution instead. Much to Pilate's dismay, Yeshua freely admits to all of the charges brought against him. The next chapter takes us to Yershalaim (Jerusalem) and Pontius Pilate's interrogation of Yeshua Ha-Nozri (Jesus). Unbeknownst to the two writers, this stranger is none other than Satan, himself, who is now calling himself Woland. As their discourse continues, they are joined by a third man, a well-dressed stranger who claims not only to believe in the existence of the historical Jesus, but to have actually been present at Jesus's trial and crucifixion. True to their times, both writers devoutly discount his existence. Near Patriarch Ponds, two writers sit on a bench engaged in a discussion regarding the nature of Jesus. This extraordinary and unique book opens in 1930s Moscow during the darkest period of Stalin's repressive reign. And yet, by the last pages there is a haunting beauty, Characters change in dizzying fasion and events go by with lightening speed. Even the devil is capable of some good here. In the context of the novel, Yeshua seems hopelessly naive, but by the end of the novel, you wonder if this may actually not be the author's central point. There is a deep spiritual viewpoint at work here.Early in the novel, Yeshua tells Pilate that, "all men are good", to Pilate's incredulity. The Devil as Woland is an evil figure.sometimes a terrifying figure, and yet he ends up as the instrument of the redemption of both the Master and Margarita. But Bulgakov is not a conventional moralist. It is also rather pitiless in it's exposure of the greed, corruption and mendacity of human nature. At it's most obvious, it is a scathing attack on communism and the cultural elite's complicity with the evils of the system. This rich and complicated stew of a book works on so many different levels. They live in the present day Moscow, but the Master ostensibly wrote the manuscript which told the story of Pontius Pilate. Finally, there is the story of the separated lovers, the Master and Margarita, who interweave between the other two stories. the story of Pontius Pilate and his encounter with the itinerant spiritual man, Yeshua. Embedded in this story is a "novel within a novel". The satire of communist society in this section is quite biting, and uproariously funny. The group proceeds to essentially terrorize the city's intellectual community, mostly by exposing each character's inner hypocracy. On the surface is the visit to Moscow, of the Devil in the guise of a professor named Woland, and his henchmen, two grotesque disfigured men, a naked woman and a cat who plays chess among other things. ![]() The novel itself is nearly impossible to describe. He knew that he would never live to see it published. ![]() When the Stalinist purges began, Bulgakov was began work on Master and Margarita, pretty much to please himself. ![]() The chapters have an almost tableaux style construction. Bugakov was primarily a man of the Theater, and something of a theatrical quality hangs on to this book. Bulgakov was one of the first generation of Soviet writers who flourished in the 20s, during the short lived Soviet Experimental movement, and then suffered horribly after the stregnthening of Stalin's regime. Master and Margarita is a wickedly funny, sad, frightening, and ultimately haunting masterpiece of fiction. All I can say is, I didn't know what I was missing. I bought it, but it just stayed on the shelf until a few weeks ago. A Russian friend of mine really pressed me to read the book. I've always been a fan of Russian novels, ever since I read my first Dostoevsky novel at the age of 10.(okay, it was a Classics Illustrated comic book version of Crime and Punishment!)but had never run across anything by Bulgakov until a few years ago. ![]()
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