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jujudepamplemousse's review against another edition
5.0
Did I originally buy the Master and Margarita only because of the mind-blowing cover of the penguin classics deluxe edition? Yes! Am I happy to have done so? Bloody yes!
The cover is the reflection of what is to be expected inside. With the Master & Margarita, Bulgakov created a one of its kind novel. It’s crazy, imaginative, humorous, satiric and most of all living proof that "manuscript don’t burn".
The cover is the reflection of what is to be expected inside. With the Master & Margarita, Bulgakov created a one of its kind novel. It’s crazy, imaginative, humorous, satiric and most of all living proof that "manuscript don’t burn".
joeyoudan's review against another edition
1.5
I wanted to like this novel more than I did. I also want to give it a better rating than I thought throughout reading because I thought the ending was strong.
But overall didn’t really get on with it. Possibly deserving of a deeper re-read, because I found it very funny at specific places, but this type of Absurdist beurocratic comedy is done better in a book like Catch-22, for me.
Ivan Nikolayevich Homeless was great though. All his scenes were gold, he stole the show.
But overall didn’t really get on with it. Possibly deserving of a deeper re-read, because I found it very funny at specific places, but this type of Absurdist beurocratic comedy is done better in a book like Catch-22, for me.
Ivan Nikolayevich Homeless was great though. All his scenes were gold, he stole the show.
aureliano_animadverte37's review against another edition
challenging
dark
funny
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
lovebooksandcats's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
informative
reflective
medium-paced
4.5
wasthursday's review against another edition
challenging
dark
funny
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.5
malin12ccf's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
informative
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.5
Nowhere Books Bingo: Banned books (Wasn't published until 27 years after Bulgakov's death, and only then in a censored version. )
CBR16 Bingo: Cult (cult classic, and there's the whole Devil and his entourage as a central plot point - that's pretty cultish, right?)
I can't remember exactly how long The Master and Margarita has been on my TBR list, but it's certainly more than twenty years. A quick glance on Goodreads shows me that 15 of my friends have rated it four or five stars, with several naming it one of their favourite books. So why has it taken it so long for me to read it? Some of my reticence comes from having tried to read translated Russian novels in the past, and in on one memorable occasion, nearly losing my will to read anything at all (Anna Karenina, I am absolutely looking at you). So the idea of tackling another Russian classic wasn't always that appealing. Knowing that so many people whose opinions I respect and trust rate it so highly, also makes me nervous - what if I don't like it and they'll be disappointed in me?
I made an attempt to read my mother's Norwegian translation of the novel for the first couple of chapters, but because the copy she had was translated in the 1970s, the language was heavy and archaic enough that I struggled. So instead I read the 50th Anniversary edition, translated into English by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volkhonsky. Once the language flowed more smoothly, reading became a lot less like unpleasant homework. As readers of my reviews know, I mostly read genre fiction like romance, fantasy and science fiction, where the plots are light-hearted and the books are very easily digestible. That is not the case with this book, written in the 1930s and up until the author's death in 1940, and finally published in 1996. It's an allegorical political satire, written in a very different time and culture, and getting into it felt like a bit of a slog.
I feel like I'm letting down all of my bookish friends and acquaintances when I confess that the first part of the novel mostly either bored and/or confused me. So much of it is absurdist and strange, and there is a long series of, to me, mostly interchangeable men with long Russian names either dying or ending up in an asylum, as a result of their encounters with Woland (the Devil). Nor was I particularly interested in the sections that involved Herod and Yeshua.
The novel finally got interesting to me in the second part, where the reader finally gets to meet the eponymous Margarita, and discovers the lengths she will go to to be reunited with her beloved, the Master. This section seemed more like a dark fairytale for the most part, and while it also had some odd twists and turns, I was mostly enjoying what I read. I can also faithfully say that at no point could I predict where the story was going to go next, and certainly not the way it was going to end.
If the entirety of this book had only been the main story of part two (which involved Margarita and her beloved), I think I would have liked the novel a lot more. 20th-century history was never an area that particularly interested me, and while I know some of the atrocities committed in the Soviet Union under Stalin, I am in no way well-versed enough in the background of this novel to get the many layers of satire that the author has created. I found all the digs at literary intellectuals and various officials tedious.
I don't regret finally reading the book, even though the first part was very hard going. However, I think I can also conclude that great Russian literature is not for me. I have tried several authors now, and if this, which so many of my bookish friends rate five stars, only for about half the novel, entertained me, it may be time to accept that I'm just not cut out for the Russian greats. I can see why it has been a controversial novel since its publication, not just for the political critique, but for prominently featuring the devil and witchcraft as part of the plot.
Judging a book by its cover: There are 1229 (!) different editions of this listed on Goodreads, so obviously there are also a huge amount of different covers available. Most of them seem to have a black cat somewhere on the cover (Behemoth is a very striking character, who can blame them?). My e-book edition seems to have the black cat in upper corner and the face of a young woman (obviously Margarita) in the lower one.
CBR16 Bingo: Cult (cult classic, and there's the whole Devil and his entourage as a central plot point - that's pretty cultish, right?)
I can't remember exactly how long The Master and Margarita has been on my TBR list, but it's certainly more than twenty years. A quick glance on Goodreads shows me that 15 of my friends have rated it four or five stars, with several naming it one of their favourite books. So why has it taken it so long for me to read it? Some of my reticence comes from having tried to read translated Russian novels in the past, and in on one memorable occasion, nearly losing my will to read anything at all (Anna Karenina, I am absolutely looking at you). So the idea of tackling another Russian classic wasn't always that appealing. Knowing that so many people whose opinions I respect and trust rate it so highly, also makes me nervous - what if I don't like it and they'll be disappointed in me?
I made an attempt to read my mother's Norwegian translation of the novel for the first couple of chapters, but because the copy she had was translated in the 1970s, the language was heavy and archaic enough that I struggled. So instead I read the 50th Anniversary edition, translated into English by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volkhonsky. Once the language flowed more smoothly, reading became a lot less like unpleasant homework. As readers of my reviews know, I mostly read genre fiction like romance, fantasy and science fiction, where the plots are light-hearted and the books are very easily digestible. That is not the case with this book, written in the 1930s and up until the author's death in 1940, and finally published in 1996. It's an allegorical political satire, written in a very different time and culture, and getting into it felt like a bit of a slog.
I feel like I'm letting down all of my bookish friends and acquaintances when I confess that the first part of the novel mostly either bored and/or confused me. So much of it is absurdist and strange, and there is a long series of, to me, mostly interchangeable men with long Russian names either dying or ending up in an asylum, as a result of their encounters with Woland (the Devil). Nor was I particularly interested in the sections that involved Herod and Yeshua.
The novel finally got interesting to me in the second part, where the reader finally gets to meet the eponymous Margarita, and discovers the lengths she will go to to be reunited with her beloved, the Master. This section seemed more like a dark fairytale for the most part, and while it also had some odd twists and turns, I was mostly enjoying what I read. I can also faithfully say that at no point could I predict where the story was going to go next, and certainly not the way it was going to end.
If the entirety of this book had only been the main story of part two (which involved Margarita and her beloved), I think I would have liked the novel a lot more. 20th-century history was never an area that particularly interested me, and while I know some of the atrocities committed in the Soviet Union under Stalin, I am in no way well-versed enough in the background of this novel to get the many layers of satire that the author has created. I found all the digs at literary intellectuals and various officials tedious.
I don't regret finally reading the book, even though the first part was very hard going. However, I think I can also conclude that great Russian literature is not for me. I have tried several authors now, and if this, which so many of my bookish friends rate five stars, only for about half the novel, entertained me, it may be time to accept that I'm just not cut out for the Russian greats. I can see why it has been a controversial novel since its publication, not just for the political critique, but for prominently featuring the devil and witchcraft as part of the plot.
Judging a book by its cover: There are 1229 (!) different editions of this listed on Goodreads, so obviously there are also a huge amount of different covers available. Most of them seem to have a black cat somewhere on the cover (Behemoth is a very striking character, who can blame them?). My e-book edition seems to have the black cat in upper corner and the face of a young woman (obviously Margarita) in the lower one.
jencam11's review against another edition
5.0
I feel incapable of even reviewing this, it was that good. Clever, hilarious, moving, outrageous. Brilliant. The end.
juliability's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
charlotte_burt123's review against another edition
challenging
funny
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
2.5