To whom ever it may concern....
This blogg is just my musings, about books, fashion, art, anything i fancy sharing. Some may find it interesting, many probably wont...but thats life, 'your damned if you do, damned if you don't' so i hope this blogg atleast interests one kindred spirit out there, or incourages some people to read some books or listen to some band that i consider to be worth spending the precious moments of you life on.
The first of these books being 'The Master and Margarita' the namesake of my blogg, so seems a good place to start. This novel, by Mikhail Bulgakov, came across me in the second year of my English degree, and to be honest i bought it and it sat and collected dust on my shelf (as many of my 'essential reading list' books did in university - one thing I found in uni, there was little fun in reading a book you are forced to study - even if you are an avid reader like myself. [another lesson being you could create a perfectly good 2.1 essay from reading SparkNotes chapter reviews...but ssshhhhh my lecturers must never know.]) Now having graduated and stumbled across a box of unread novels collected from the 3 years of study, there are actually some brilliant books in there, another being the short story 'The Nose' by Nikolai Gogal, but that is for another blogg another time.
'The Master and Margarita' is a book to stimulate your senses, a book in which you will descover new meaning a new depth each time you come back to it. The book took three decades to publish because of its radical context, and when eventually published was heavily edited. But im sure all you really want to know is what the novel is actually about...
The novel alternates among three settings. The first is 1930s Moscow, which is visited by Satan in the guise of Woland or Voland, a mysterious gentleman "magician" of uncertain origin, who arrives with a retinue that includes the grotesquely dressed "ex-choirmaster" valet Koroviev, a mischievous, gun-happy, fast-talking black cat Behemoth the fanged hitman Azazello, the pale-faced Abadonna with a death-inflicting stare, and the witch Hella (Гелла). The havoc wreaked by this group targets the literary elite, along with its trade union, MASSOLIT (a Sovient-style abbreviation for "Moscow Society of Literature", but possibly interpretable as "Literature for the Masses"; one translation of the book also mentions that this could be a play on words in Russian, which could be translated into English as something like "LOTTALIT"), its privileged HQ-cum-restaurant Griboyedov's House, corrupt social-climbers and their women (wives and mistresses alike) – bureaucrats and profiteers – and, more generally, skeptical unbelievers in the human spirit.
The opening sequence of the book presents a direct confrontation between the unbelieving head of the literary bureaucracy, Berlioz, and an urbane foreign gentleman who defends belief and reveals his prophetic powers (Woland). This is witnessed by a young and enthusiastically modern poet, Ivan Bezdomniy. His futile attempt to chase and capture the "gang" and warn of their evil and mysterious nature lands Ivan in a lunatic asylum. Here we are introduced to The Master, an embittered author, the petty-minded rejection of whose historical novel about Pontius Pilate and Christ has led him to such despair that he burns his manuscript and turns his back on the "real" world, including his devoted lover, Margarita. Major episodes in the first part of the novel include Satan's magic show at the Variety Theatre, satirizing the vanity, greed and gullibility of the new rich; and the capture and occupation of Berlioz's apartment by Woland and his gang.
Part 2 introduces Margarita, the Master's mistress, who refuses to despair of her lover or his work. She is (invited to the Devil's midnight ball) then made an offer by Satan (Woland), and accepts it, becoming a witch with supernatural powers on the night of his Midnight Ball, or Walpurgis Night, which coincides with the night of Good Friday, linking all three elements of the book together, since the Master's novel also deals with this same spring full moon when Christ's fate is sealed by Pontius Pilate and he is crucified in Jerusalem.
The second setting is the Jerusalem of Pontius Pilate, described by Woland talking to Berlioz and echoed in the pages of the Master's rejected novel, which concerns Pontius Pilate's meeting with Yeshua Ha-Nozri, his recognition of an affinity with and spiritual need for him, and his reluctant but resigned and passive handing over of him to those who wanted to kill him.
The third setting is the one to which Margarita provides a bridge. Learning to fly and control her unleashed passions (not without exacting violent retribution on the literary bureaucrats who condemned her beloved to despair), and taking her enthusiastic maid Natasha with her, she enters naked into the world of the night, flies over the deep forests and rivers of Mother Russia; bathes, and, cleansed, returns to Moscow as the anointed hostess for Satan's great Spring Ball. Standing by his side, she welcomes the dark celebrities of human history as they pour up from the opened maw of Hell.
She survives this ordeal without breaking, and for her pains and her integrity she is rewarded: Satan offers to grant Margarita her deepest wish. She chooses to liberate the Master and live in poverty and love with him. However, neither Woland nor Yeshua thinks this is a kind of life for good people, and the couple leaves Moscow with the Devil, as its cupolas and windows burn in the setting sun of Easter Saturday. The Master and Margarita leave and as a reward for not having lost their faith they are granted "peace" but are denied "light", i.e. salvation.
So please read and enjoy this book as i have done, it may seem a bit daunting but it is throughly enjoyable! And thanks for reading my first blog!
The first of these books being 'The Master and Margarita' the namesake of my blogg, so seems a good place to start. This novel, by Mikhail Bulgakov, came across me in the second year of my English degree, and to be honest i bought it and it sat and collected dust on my shelf (as many of my 'essential reading list' books did in university - one thing I found in uni, there was little fun in reading a book you are forced to study - even if you are an avid reader like myself. [another lesson being you could create a perfectly good 2.1 essay from reading SparkNotes chapter reviews...but ssshhhhh my lecturers must never know.]) Now having graduated and stumbled across a box of unread novels collected from the 3 years of study, there are actually some brilliant books in there, another being the short story 'The Nose' by Nikolai Gogal, but that is for another blogg another time.