Book review: Master and the Margarita
In 1967, the New York Times critic Eliot Fremont-Smith introduced the Western world to a ghost. Writing in 'The Devil in Moscow,' he noted:
MIKHAIL BULGAKOV died in 1940 at the age of 48, unsung and virtually unknown.
While that review defined the book's legacy for decades, it also created a lens of required historical knowledge that most modern readers feel they must wear before opening the first page. Most approach this text through the heavy fog of its history. I chose to walk in blind. By reading the novel before the biography, I found a version of Bulgakov unburdened by the Master's legend. Here is my uninfluenced report from the front lines.
The book is many things in one- it is a satire of the totalitarian surveillance regime, an autobiographical account of the writer and the retelling of the age-old Christian lore. The heart of the book is in these axioms: Manuscripts don’t burn and Cowardice is the greatest sin.
The book follows a three-narrative structure and goes back and forth between two different times. One is the timeline of Jesus Christ’s trial. Jesus (who is called by his Hebrew name Yeshua Ha-Nozri) undergoes his trial. The depiction is psychological, gritty and realistic. The focus is on the aftermath of his trial and its immediate impact on his contemporaries. The second timeline descends into a chaotic, then-contemporary Moscow, where the Devil and his entourage—most notably a gargantuan talking cat—systematically dismantle the city's performative Soviet tranquility.
There is also a visible attempt at subverting of common tropes of literature and society. The biggest example of this in the book is in the way the satan is portrayed. Bulgakov breaks away from the traditional depiction of the satan and emphasizes his being a nuisance to the established order. In his writing, the satan is a well-meaning entity who helps the oppressed and exposes the wicked and his doing so starts tearing the fabric of the society. This is an elemental invention which provides the levers to invert the rest of the environment without unnecessary exposition.
This is one of the foundational books of modern magical realism. The characters and the plot-lines are wild in imagination and execution. At the center of the chaos is a vodka-swilling, pistol-wielding cat who holds court before stunned audiences, using sleight of hand to strip away the pretenses of Moscow’s liars. The absurdity escalates from a vodka-swilling cat to a man casually pocketing roasted chicken legs, culminating in a woman taking flight on a broomstick. While these vignettes sound like fragments of a fever dream, Bulgakov weaves them into the narrative with such precision that every absurdity yields a calculated, narrative pay-off. This book alone should be enough to establish Bulgakov as one of the giants of the genre.
It is difficult to judge the quality of a translation without knowing the original language. The only valid yardstick therefore for judging its quality is whether the translation itself can be considered a good book. That is the parameter with which the world has judged great translators like Rabasa. On that, this translation holds its ground. Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky produce a funny and intelligent piece of art, which for the English readers of the book paint a very reverential image of the original master Bulgakov.
It was a serendipitous that I read this book in the same month as The Satanic Verses- another favorite in the same genre. I could not help spotting the obvious inspiration that this book served as for Rushdie. While Rushdie leaves the room for interpretation and relies on the reader to make the final judgement, Bulgakov’s writing is bolder and more audacious. I also found a paper by Prof. Radha Balasubramanian on the similarities between these two books.
No story about this book would be complete without pointing out the surreal circumstances and the self-referential nature of the book. The writer could not publish the book while alive. Smuggled copies of the book were translated and distributed in France. The original manuscript remained unavailable for general consumption for half a century. There is a bitter irony in Bulgakov’s reality: while Stalin’s personal favor spared him from the Gulag, his tenure at the Moscow Art Theatre became a gilded cage that stifled his creative spirit. He spent the last days of his life in pain and blindness describing the final revisions to this very book to his wife knowing full well that the book might not see the light of the day for decades thence. This layering of the fantastical over the historical transforms the book into more than just a satire; it is a desperate, semi-autobiographical act of artistic pushback against a regime that sought to silence him.
A century after its inception, the novel remains a stylish, irreverent masterpiece. It is imaginative, stylish and deep. It is a must-read for fans of magical realism as a genre, writers looking for inspiration as well as people who seek counter-opinions to the official portrayals of communist regimes, and in my case just a fan of good books.
