The time is now, my ducklings! After promising it to us for many moons, Alice of Reading Rambo has commenced her fall readalong of The Master and Margarita. Though no official word has yet been handed down, I am choosing to believe that this readalong is sponsored by M&Ms. You can agree or disagree with me as you see fit.
To my extreme shame, The M&M has been sitting on my shelf for six and a half years unread — and what makes it even worse is that my sister gave it to me for my birthday, so not only am I a slacker in reading classic Russian novels, but I am also a birthday ingrate.
In my defense, my sister gave me this book and then advised me to keep a running list of characters and all their various names, and that is — Imma be honest — not the greatest way to make a book seem unmissable. I believe I tried this out when I was living in New Haven and going to Blue State Coffee every morning, and then two things happened, viz.:
- My list consisted of two people and one of them immediately got decapitated right as I had figured out all four things the text was going to call him; and
- A really obnoxious Yale bro complimented me on my reading choice and I wanted to spite him by hating the book he loved.
So, super legit reasons for never continuing this book for nearly seven years. I guess I can forgive Bulgakov for promptly killing Berlioz / the editor / Mikhail Alexandrovich / Misha, given that he seems like the exact kind of dude who would get into a big argument with you about atheism when you’re just trying to scootch around him and get your hands on the half-and-half so you can go sit down with your damn coffee before you have to get into work.
Anyway, here’s a list of things that happen in the first eight chapters of The Master and Margarita. I kind of don’t know how to comment on any of this, given that so much of it caused me to say “the fuck?” rather than reach any sensible conclusion about what the book is trying to say.
- The two characters we meet right off the bat have names that begin with the same letter. God damn it, Bulgakov. They meet a scary guy who claims to be a professor of black magic and also professes to know the future and to have been present at the court of Pontius Pilate.
- One of them quickly goes under a bus and his head comes off, pop. Fine. Now I only have to remember one character whose name begins with B.
- This one apartment is cursed, but Styopa Likhodeyev, also known as Stepan Bogdanovich, chooses to live there anyway. The professor of black magic, whose name is Woland and who I presume is the devil, comes to stay there also, along with his very large black cat (Margarita, I presume?) and a skinny fellow with a pince-nez. Don’t live in cursed apartments, team.
- The poet Bezdomy, also known as Ivan Nikolaevich Ponyryov, tries to convince the town that Woland is a dangerous criminal. Unfortunately, he does not say the useful information that Woland predicted the exact manner of the dead guy’s death. Instead he fixates on this story Woland told them about Pontius Pilate. Like it wasn’t even that good a story. No wonder everyone thinks Bezdomy has lost his hold on reality.
So far, incredibly Russian. It is good I am reading this with a crowd because if I were reading it myself, I cannot promise I would continue this tremendously confusing and random novel.
Ha ha no, it doesn’t suck. It’s just extremely Russian. It’s very, very, very Russian but I can plow through it. Thanks to wonderful Alice for hosting! I’m going to understand this book some day!
