This is satire at its sharpest, as the Devil and his cohort descend on Moscow afflicting the stolid citizens with fantasy and whimsy, some of it deadly. Juxtaposed with that timeline, is Moscow during the Communist era, and its literary scene, something Bulgakov knew intimately and well, too well it would seem. Well before the recent explosion of Magical Realism, Bulgakov was already using it to tell this picaresque story of then contemporary Moscow and how it intersects with Roman ruled Palestine during a fateful period 2000 years ago, when one Pontius Pilate was in charge. Easy to read that is once I got used to the way Bulgakov casually bends time, space, history and religion to tell his story. I can't speak for the quality of the translation, but I found the book easy to read.
One of the great Russian novels, satirizing everything Bulgakov sets his sights on. What ensues is a novel of inexhaustible energy, humor, and philosophical depth, a work whose nuances splendidly emerge in Diana Burgin’s and Katherine Tiernan O’Connor's superb English translation, with an afterword and extensive commentary by Ellendea Proffer. But they also bring peace to two unhappy Muscovites: one is the Master, a writer pilloried for daring to write a novel about Christ and Pontius Pilate the other is Margarita, who loves the Master so deeply that she is willing to literally go to hell for him. The visitors quickly wreak havoc in a city that refuses to believe in either God or Satan.
One hot spring, the devil arrives in Moscow, accompanied by a retinue that includes a beautiful naked witch and an immense talking black cat with a fondness for chess and vodka. Now The Overlook Press is reissuing this acclaimed translation in an all-new package. Its truths are so enduring that its language has become part of the common Russian speech.
The novel’s vision of Soviet life in the 1930s is so ferociously accurate that it could not be published during its author’s lifetime and appeared only in a censored edition in the 1960s.
The acclaimed, bestselling translation of Mikhail Bulgakov’s masterwork, an undisputed classic of Russian and world literatureĪn audacious revision of the stories of Faust and Pontius Pilate, The Master and Margarita is recognized as one of the essential classics of modern Russian literature.
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