The Master and Margarita

2016-08-24

Glad I finally got around to this one. A dizzying novel: books within books, magical realism - at times biting satire and at other times contemplative meditation on the nature of art and redemption. And the premise is just fun: the devil and his entourage (including a giant vodka-drinking, pyromaniac cat) playfully ravage 1930s Moscow and its stodgy bureaucracy. Hard to believe Bulgakov wrote it in secret, and it was first published decades after his death.

The translation by Diana Burgin is particularly good - I’d read a chapter, then flip to her commentary at the end of the novel, then repeat.