The Master And Margarita: Marginal Notes

[poliphilo]

1. Everyone ought to read this book.

2. This is what life is like in a police state- weirdly, creepily normal.  People sit on park benches in the sun, go to restaurants, manage their careers- and "disappear "as if by magic.  These disappearances are accepted as routine and only glancingly discussed.  Everyone is afraid of everyone else because anyone could be a snitch. Bulgakov's references to the apparatus of terror are so delicate, so discreet you could easily miss them.

3. Woland and his gang are a mask and metaphor for the secret horrors of the police state. They draw the infection. They tumble its secrets onto the streets.

4. There are three novels in one- each belonging to a different genre-  An historical/theological epic, a knockabout comedy and a romantic love story. They coil round and round one another like snakes.  There is no single point of view, no single dreamer. Every reality is more or less compromised. The least unreal characters are the most far-fetched.

5. All men are good men. "Bad" men are good men corrupted by vice- and the worst vice is cowardice. Evil is an illusion, a failure of men to live up to their inherent goodness, a lapse into banality and fear. Woland, the black magician, the dark archangel, is a minister of divine justice. He tests, he punishes, he saves.  
 
6. Koroviev and Behemoth are an infernal Laurel and Hardy, the gothic elements come out of German expressionism (Goethe as mediated by Murnau), the Pilate story, with its huge sets, crowd scenes and crane shots couldn't exist without Griffith and de Mille. In spite of its huge debt to cinema the book is almost certainly unfilmable.

7. Andrew Lloyd Webber planned a musical version, but shelved it, deciding it couldn't be done. Thank Heavens for that.

Comments

[ideealisme.livejournal.com]

Wow - I'm thinking of writing a short sci-fi story on a similar principle of disappearing. I might well check out that book first.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I can't recommend it highly enough. It's a modern classic, but also wildly entertaining.

[queen-in-autumn.livejournal.com]

I tried to read this a few years ago, on the recommendation of another LJ friend, and couldn't get past the first few pages. Maybe I should look again.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

All I can say is, persevere.

It starts fairly slowly, but soon speeds up. It's a wild ride.

[sovay]

1. Everyone ought to read this book.

Yes. I discovered it in college; it is one of my very favorite novels. I am so glad you like it!

7. Andrew Lloyd Webber planned a musical version, but shelved it, deciding it couldn't be done. Thank Heavens for that.

I'm still going to wake up with nightmares . . .

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

ALW's current gig is writing the British entry for the Eurovision Song Contest. That ought to keep his mind off Bulgakov.

[airstrip.livejournal.com]

Fortunately, I'm young enough that the satire was totally lost on me.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

It's very gentle, sly satire. There's very little in the text to let you know it's set in a communist dictatorship.

[wyrmwwd.livejournal.com]

This makes me think of the "Twilight Zone" episode I saw last night. It was called "A Nervous Man in a Four Dollar Room". It was about this petty criminal who has had a perfectly awful life simply because he never had the courage to say "no". He wasn't a bad man, he was just a fearful one.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I think Bulgakov is suggesting that if people were only a little braver tyranny would be impossible.

[wyrmwwd.livejournal.com]

I think Serling was suggesting the same thing.