Book Review - Mikhail Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita
Published by: Penguin Classics
Publication Date: 1967
Format: Paperback, 448 Pages
Rating: ★
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How does the devil prove that he exists? By proving the existence of God. Satan, in the guise of one Professor Woland, arrives in Moscow with his retinue. His companions are Koroviev, his valet, Behemoth, a black cat who walks on two legs, Azazello, a hitman, and Hella, a vampire. Their goal is to sew chaos and confusion. Woland targets the head of the Massolit, Berlioz, a corrupt toady. Berlioz embraces Soviet atheism and is in a heated discussion with the poet Bezdomny about how Jesus is a mythical figure. Woland, needing to prove his own existence, tells Berlioz that he will be decapitated by a Russian woman. Finding this death prophecy absurd it comes as quite a shock when Berlioz slips in the street and his head is forcibly removed from his body by a tram car driven by a woman. Bezdomny sees this as the proof Woland promised and is driven insane trying to stop the spread of their evil while warning his fellow citizens. He ends up being committed to an asylum. This is where Bezdomny meets the Master. The Master is a failed writer who was working on a book on the life of Pontius Pilate that was rejected by the Soviet state. Driven insane by critics he burned his manuscript and forsook his love, Margarita. Poor Margarita. She is about to fall under the spell of Woland, just as all of Moscow has with his show performed at the Variety theater. Azazello gives her the power of invisibility and invites her to his master's ball. There Woland gifts her with witchcraft. She flies through the night, over rivers and forests, and arrives to be hostess of Satan's spring ball, welcoming the luminaries of hell. All she asks for in return is to be reunited with the Master. They will spend an eternity together. In hell. The ball ends. The spirits all depart. Moscow is free. As is Pontius Pilate, whose story has also come to an end, and now he too can walk beside Yeshua.
Ah, the greats of Russian literature. Tolstoy is epic, you could literally bludgeon someone to death with one of his book. Chekhov is annoying, trust me on this, once you watch an undergraduate production of Three Sisters or reread The Cherry Orchard ad infinitum for a semester you will want to travel back in time to stop him from ever having written a word. Pasternak is basically why I exist. And Bulgakov is surrealist art in prose form. I think. I mean it's the only way I can make any kind of sense of whatever this is I just read. Wait, was this supposed to be funny? Oh, it's supposed to be darkly funny with a Faustian twist. Yeah, totally didn't get that. The humor that is, the Faustian part is kind of obvious. And the thing is, this is a book I felt somehow intimidated by for years but after watching the adaptation of Bulgakov's A Young Doctor's Notebook I thought that I had a handle on his humor. I was wrong. And I also shouldn't have been intimidated. Because this book is a whole lot of nothing. Sure, you can make it into something, you can analyze the Christian imagery and parse the text and basically find a way to justify whatever your point of view is, but in my mind a book can't just be there for scholars to spar over. There has to be a story, there has to be something more. The one part of the book I liked was the glimpse we got into the Master and Margarita's life before he went insane and she became a witch. That was sweet and harrowing and bored everyone in my book club. They were all about the cat and the witches and seriously, how did I not like this book? There's an anthropomorphic cat! But Behemoth was just somehow too creepy for me. Too mean. And I know cat haters out there will say, but that's just a cat. I'm sorry, but no. No it's not. And as for Pontius Pilate... Why is there basically historical fiction about the life of Jesus intercut with the devil in Moscow? And don't say because it's all biblical. Because it feels like unnecessary filler. Like an idea for another book that was just grafted onto this one. In the end, who cares? Not me. Those who decry that everyone should read and love the classics are partially right. They should read them to find out their own tastes. And this book left a bad taste in my mouth.
Any fan of Good Omens or it's two authors will know the turbulent history of trying to get an adaptation of it made. Years and years of trouble and strife all for it to finally come together only because of Terry's death. His death hit me hard, it was one of the only times I've cried for an author and not because of something they've written. And Neil promised Terry that Good Omens would happen. Almost two year's after Terry's death it was announced that Neil himself was adapting the book to be a six part miniseries for Amazon that would be released in 2019. Later that year Michael Sheen and David Tennant (listed alphabetically using David's stage name) joined as the two leads. The show is jammed with the cream of the crop of British guest stars, so much so some people didn't notice a few recognizable Americans snuck in there as well. The show, like the book, is uneven. And don't get me started on France McDormand's narration as God. Never has someone so talented phoned in their performance so epicly. The show would be almost 100% better if they just edited her out. A lesson they took to heart in season two. Yet for me, and for most fans, the heart of the show is the relationship between Aziraphale and Crowley. Season one's best episode is "Hard Times" and all it is is their relationship through the ages. And it is priceless. Because the friendship and love isn't just between the two characters but between the two actors. Michael and David have become the best of friends, so much so that during lockdown they created and starred in the award winning Staged, which is a fictionalized look at their lives. Therefore the second season of Good Omens had high expectations, because now EVERYONE knew that not only where the leads best friends but they shipped their characters. This show is unapologetically gay and fan service to the max, but that's why there is a second season, because of the fans. Season two works better than season one because it's on a smaller, more intimate scale. The main cast is just a handful of characters and it's all about finding love. Which makes all the Jane Austen references so perfect, even if she was secretly a criminal and to Crowley's shock, an author. But the show still has pacing problems. We spent way too much time with Job, but thankfully Aziraphale having the meat sweats distracted me a bit there, and I could have used even more Jon Hamm. Seriously, I hated his character in season one, but an amnesiac angel let him lean into his comedic abilities which he should seriously do more often. Has everyone seen A Young Doctor's Notebook? Because if not you should get on that right away. And for some reason, no matter how much I do love her, Miranda Richardson just didn't work. But all my problems fell away with the final two episodes. The whole show is about how people in power don't want you to ask questions. They don't want you to think that something they are against is a possibility, so an angel and a demon falling in love? It's the greatest protest you could stage. And stage it they did. So damn beautifully. That HEA was well earned. Sadly it wasn't for Aziraphale and Crowley. Which means if we don't get a season three someone will be hurt. It will probably be me.
