The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov A review

The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov A review

Set in Moscow during the darkest period of Stalin's regime, in the

1930s after the Russian Revolution, The Master and Margarita is a

piece of literary alchemy. It is a fusion of Geothe's Faust, fragments

of autobiography, an alternative version of the crucifixion of Christ,

a tale of political repression and a meditation on the role of an

artist in a society bereft of freedom and individuality. The book does

not have a readily describable plot as the narrative structure is

intricate and complex, with several stories nestled in one; inside one

narrative there is another, and then another, and yet another. The

Master and Margarita begins by inter-weaving two apparently

unconnected tales and later introduces a third which unites the other

two narratives at the end.

The first narrative concerns a visit to Moscow (1930) by the devil in

the disguise as a professor of black magic, Professor Woland. Woland

and his infernal retinue, including a hit man with appalling dress

sense Koroviev, a vampire maid, Hella and a six foot black cat,

Behemoth who walks on his hind legs, drinks vodka and eats caviar,

wreck havoc and chaos in Moscow. They upset the literary world of

Moscow and disrupt the life of ordinary Muscovites by putting up a

black magic show. In the magic show, Woland showers the audience with

tempting gifts of money which later changes to strips of paper and

tempts the ladies with Parisian gowns and shoes which later disappear.

They succeed in comically befuddling an atheist Moscow which denies

the devil's existence with his supernatural feats, his predictions of

the future and his enigmatic stories of Pontius Pilate. First he

predicts that a noted ...

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...rd world of politics and

corruption, not to heaven, but to a world of two.

Thus in conclusion, The Master and Margarita shows just how important

freedom and individuality are and the power of literature to surpass

any human attempts to control it. It concludes that blind conformity

to any notion or ideal is the ultimate evil. Arenberg states that "the

Master demonstrates that each man's salvation lies within himself" and

that "Bulgakov recognized that men follow the path of least

resistance, denying their own imaginative capabilities in favour of

institutionalised ideologies, organized religion and conventional

morality". The book serves as a monument to all courageous authors who

in Salman Rushdie's words "attempt radical reformations of language,

form and ideas, those that attempt to do what the word 'novel' seems

to insist on: to see the world anew."