re:mote voices

Title: The Master And Margarita
Author: Mikhail Bulgakov
Publisher:Vintage

With The Master And Margarita, Bulgakov presents a curious satire, one which was no doubt more relevant at the time of writing than it is now. Though at the time of writing, 1938, he found himself stifled by Stalin’s regime, so that it was 1973 before the novel was finally published in a complete form.

The Master And Margarita follows the arrival of a mysterious stranger in Moscow. With each chapter we witness the fall out of the stranger’s actions. Along the way illustrating the competitive backstabbing of the literary scene, the ease with which the slightest thing will be reported to the authorities, the increasing combat for housing, and the crimes of foreign currency. Manipulating these tensions the stranger leaves a trail of madness wherever he goes. Rumours and outlandish stories spiralling out in the wake of each encounter.

We are 140 odd pages into the book before we encounter the Master, who is in a mental hospital, and quickly deduces from a new patient that this stranger is in fact Satan. The devil has come to Moscow, accompanied by two demons, a giant, talking, black cat, and a naked woman, combining to provide a rather mischievous and perhaps malicious motley crew.

Told in two parts, the first really establishes what is going on, while the second is the climax and resolution, with which we are introduced to Margarita. Margarita is the Master’s true love, and she is haunted by his disappearance. The highlight of the book comes with this section, the encounter between Margarita and the Devil and his servants. With that leading to chaos and the climax of events that is the Ball Of A Hundred Kings.

The Master And Margarita wasn’t really quite what I expected, suspecting that the Master would be some vastly heroic figure, who would clash with the devil in some kind of epic absurdity. However that wouldn’t suit Bulgakov’s tone at all, with the resulting interactions being more surprising than that. While The Master And Margarita can at times become difficult to follow, due to the lengthy and unfamiliar Russian names, as well as the curious tangents into the life of Pontius Pilate - Bulgakov keeps the narrative readable, mixing a certain absurdist humour with his social commentary and epic premise.