A friend recommended this book called "The Master and Margarita" by Mikhail Bulgakov. The author wrote this book in the 1930's in Stalinist Russia knowing it would not be published in his lifetime. The book was published in censored form 26 years later. From the back cover: One hot spring, the devil arrives in Moscow, accompanied by a retinue that includes a beautiful naked witch and an immense talking black cat with a fondness for chess and vodka. The visitors quickly wreak havoc in a city that refuses to believe in either God or Satan. But they also bring peace to two unhappy Muscovites: one is the Master, a writer pilloried for daring to write a novel about Christ and Pontius Pilate; the other is Margarita, who loves the Master so deeply that she is willing literally to go to hell for him. What ensues is a novel of inexhaustible energy, humor, and philosophical depth, a work whose nuances emerge for the first time in Diana Burgin's and Katherine Tiernan O'Connor's splendid English version.
As you read this you can certainly pick up on what the author saw at the time: overcrowding, people missing, a sense of entropy everywhere you look. The first two chapters stand out in my mind and this book is quite a read. There is a wonderful afterword by Ellendea Proffer and I recommend this fascinating and at times strange read. The short biography on the author made me think about Gurdjieff, who left Russia around this time and Political Ponerology.
As you read this you can certainly pick up on what the author saw at the time: overcrowding, people missing, a sense of entropy everywhere you look. The first two chapters stand out in my mind and this book is quite a read. There is a wonderful afterword by Ellendea Proffer and I recommend this fascinating and at times strange read. The short biography on the author made me think about Gurdjieff, who left Russia around this time and Political Ponerology.
