A review by kmhst25
The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov

dark medium-paced

1.5

While the first sections are extremely promising, the book ultimately devolves into male fantasies and fever dreams. I don't know how anyone can take this novel seriously. For example:
  • There is one main female character, and she is naked for more than half of all of her appearances.
  • There is one secondary female character, and she is naked for all of her appearances. 
  • In fact, most of the background women in the book are also naked. Female nudity is basically a theme. Theoretically, a lot of it can be explained by the association of witches with nudity, but there are so many non-witch naked women floating around that that explanation proves flimsy.
  • The "Master" is a man who writes one novel that his (barely fleshed out) lover reveres so much that she only calls him Master from then on, and he adopts the name as his own. (He still calls her by her name though, and her defining characteristics are that she's beautiful and that she's devoted to him.) If anyone asks him who he is, he only says, "I'm the Master." The Master conveniently shares several traits and life experiences with the author of this book.
  • Later in the novel, it becomes clear that some of the chapters that we have been reading are actually excerpts from the Master's brillaint masterpiece. So not only is he similar to the book's author, but the book's author decides that he is also qualified to write the Master's genius work.

Need I go on?
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