The Master and Margarita

In conversation with a colleague recently, I was asked what The Master and Margarita is about, and when I did, she suggested I blog about books I love. So here it is…

…The Greatest Novel Ever Told.

Satan comes to Moscow for a Ball of the Damned. His preparations are carried out by a retinue that includes a trickster, a demon and a huge black cat that is both. Hilarity and mayhem ensue. Parallel to all this is the story of an insane author and the devoted mistress who attempts to save him, as well as a third story, linked to both of the others, but contained in the pages of the author’s rejected and destroyed book.

But, what’s it about? I’m not sure how to say. It’s about so much, too much to wrap up into a paragraph. In fact, I don’t really know what it’s about or what it means, despite having read it half a dozen times, in three translations. But, like the novels Invisible Man, or Life: A User’s Manual, or the film 2001: A Space Odyssey, the fact that it can’t be fully and finally comprehended is part of what makes me love it and continue to explore it.

The Greatest novel? Really? Well, it’s is certainly among the greatest. It is definitely one of the most fun. And, as a combination of side-splitting humor and thought-provoking substance, it has few rivals.

And why do I write ‘told’? Merely in recognition of the way it unfolds, much of it through conversation, through story-telling, as well as through the chapters of the novel within the novel.

I’ve been told, since the time I first loved it in 1973, that it’s a satire of the early Soviet regime that persecuted its author, Mikhail Bulgakov and which kept this novel underground for the first 26 years of its existence, until it was finally published in 1966.

Sure, I can recognize the caricature of political society within The Master and Margarita’s pages. But I know so little about the soviet system that if it depended on such knowledge to have punch, it wouldn’t work very well. Like Orwell’s Animal Farm, what this novel draws out about humans foibles is pretty universal, and can be recognized anywhere.

It is also a book about cowardice, guilt and redemption. And it’s about creative obsession that latches onto you and won’t let loose. And, it’s about devotion and betrayal. It’s even about the existence of God, and about “that power which wills forever evil, yet does forever good.” Let that be enough to get you started, and you will encounter riches. 

The sexist and paternalistic overtones of the title were a little off-putting even in the 70's, but while these tropes pop into view in spots, they are ultimately transcended by a novel that goes beyond expectations at every turn. The writing itself is brilliant, and employs two very different literary styles, maybe three. It’s one of the absolutely funniest and satisfying things I’ve ever read. And it’s also philosophical, touching and poignant. There is no other novel quite like it.