Book Review - Mikhail Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita
Published by: Penguin Classics
Publication Date: 1967
Format: Paperback, 448 Pages
Rating: ★
To Buy
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.
What's interesting about certain projects is what do you do when you're asked to take them further. I remember in undergrad I hated going back and having to re-conceptualize The Cherry Orchard yet again, this time for film instead of stage. Yet I think that was just my underlying hated of that Chekhov play. In fact I think it might be a hatred of Chekhov overall, stupid Three Sisters. But taking something I loved working on to the next level? Well, that's a fun challenge. Here I had to take my paper brochure and repurpose the content as an interactive pdf. Like a "brochure" you could download and watch from the Jane Austen Centre's website. Yes, I had to embrace the digital age while thinking of Austen! I was also required to add new photographic imagery that would be sourced from Getty Images, one that would be rights managed and one that would be royalty free so that I'd learn how to purchase and use the different kinds of stock imagery. But the one thing I was certain of when taking my brochure to the next level was that I still wanted to maintain that special feeling of reading a letter.
Therefore the opening shot was setting the scene of the Regency corespondent. Ink bottles, wax seals, letters, quills, and don't tell anyone that book on the left is actually Cranford. It's our secret OK? This tableaux I created from what I had lying about my office, and yes I'm so OCD that the wax seal is the letter 'A.' While you're not getting the animation here with my static imagery I can easily walk you through it, because the animation is almost secondary to the design and information, just a little something something for fun. If you compare this photo to the one above you'll notice there's now a letter unopened on the desk! It actually flies in from the upper right and lands on the desk and you click on it to turn it over and open it.
And at the click of a button the letter opens and if you're not one of those people who constantly leave their speakers off you will be surrounded by the theme music by Carl Davis to the 1995 miniseries adaptation of Pride and Prejudice. This was to get you in the Regency mood. Because seriously, what fan of Austen can hear that music and NOT get excited? In fact even though my DVD set has the option to watch all the episodes strung together as one I still prefer to watch them as they were originally broadcast and then distributed on VHS with the theme music playing every hour! 
Once past the desk space the design becomes more utilitarian. There's a hyperlink on the lower left to the centre's website and in the lower right a 'previous' and a 'next' button. I still maintain the language of correspondence with the cordial invitation, but again, this is a far more straightforward design. The large section in the center is actually the centre's welcome video which I embedded in the design but which can also be viewed on their website for the curious. 
The next few pages are just the information from the previous paper brochure in a new format with added imagery. What I had the most fun with though was the little hidden gems. When you role over the icon of Jane she gets a little speech bubble quoting the opening line of Pride and Prejudice, and yes, it was spoken too! The teacup had the sound of tea being poured. On the following pages the reticule icon had coins jingling and the teapot whistled as it came to a boil, and yes, I know it's a decorative kettle, but it was fun. As for the umbrella icon? That open and closed with the sound of rain. Yes, I fully admit to being a design dork. But I embrace it heartily. 
Again this design all came down to the map. Here I could do so much more now that it was interactive! In fact I started to call this my interactive masterpiece because I took Jane Austen sightseeing in Bath to a whole new level! Not only can you click on a dot and bring up facts you can click them all on or off as well as turning the highways on and off to highlight just one route. The details, the facts, the facets, everything about Jane's life and her novels as they are in Bath. The only thing that makes me sad is that between going from CS5.5 to CS6 Adobe really did away with all their interactive content, and they're even now phasing out Flash, which is good in the long run, but that means I can't really view this project anymore as the technology has changed. Therefore it's more a project in memory. Which kind of brings me around to the fact that while this was the culmination of this brochure project it's the first iteration that will have longevity. Technology changes, but paper and ink? Well, they stand the test of time as Austen herself would attest. 
First Impression: The first time she really stuck in my head and made an impression was as the captive housewife in The Crimson Petal and the White. There was just something so intriguing about her portrayal of the crazy wife in the attic a la Jane Eyre.
Lasting Impression: The White Queen, hands down. Of course I had seen her play crazy in The Crimson Petal and the White as well as Ripper Street, but here. Oh boy! She has a religious zealotry where the crazy actually reaches her eyes. But for all her actions she is an indomitable mother and a force to be reckoned with. I give you Amelia Hobbes!
Can't believe it's them: Being Human! Not the fact that she was on the show but the fact that she was so funny! This has to be one of the funniest episodes of the show with her as a rather vulgar ghost who puts on a show of gentility for Hal. Proves she totally gets the underlying humor in all her crazy lady parts. Though my favorite scene ever from Being Human is this...
Bio: Hale trained at RADA, graduating in 2005, choosing to become an actress over going to Oxford to read English. She started receiving accolades while still in school and upon graduating they continued flooding in for her stage work. Currently she is staring in Uncle Vanya (yet another Chekhov play I dislike) at the St. James Theatre. There's not much else biography wise online other then she's Welsh and I'll add to that that she's an awesome and powerful actress and can't wait for her next show! Please let it not be anything from Chekhov!
