Mikhail Bulgakov: Master and Margarita review

Bulgakov's Master and Margarita is the best Russian novel I've read. It doesn't have those endless descriptive parts of the surroundings and such, which made me almost fall asleep while reading Tolstoy's Anna Karenina.

Bulgakov's piece is a satiric description of the Moscow in the 1930s. Book is divided into three storylines: one describes the relationship of the unfortunate writer called Master and his married mistress Margarita. The other shows Jerusalem at the time Pontius Pilate condemned Jesus to be crusified, and how he would have wanted to discuss with him more of his beliefs.
The biggest part of the book shows how satan arrives to Moscow to cause confusion and disorder, hence the Finnish translation is called "Satan arrives to Moscow" and from my point of view, that title describes the book better.

Master and Margarita is full of supernatural and fantastic elements that satan and his followers manage to cause to all those gullible citizens of Moscow. One of the most hilarious and at the same time terrible thing is how the cat Behemot claws the head off from one person and how it's later on put back on. And he's still alive, but will always wake up in the middle of the night and think he's head is gone.

This book was banned for several decades in Russia. It's almost as good as four stars, but not quite there yet. It could have been a bit better.
(And no, satan isn't really that evil.)
/ [Caterin S.]

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