Rdrama Bookclub Discussion Thread #1 . “The Master and Margarita” Chap. 1-7

Here are my takes on the first 7 chapters.

Berlioz and Bezdomny discussion resembled that of two redditors, so basically a couple of redditors meet the devil. When you think about it, as the head of MASSOLIT, Berlioz acts as a real life power mod, censoring whatever steps out of the party line while using empty verbose arguments to show why he’s right and why Jesus never existed. I was rooting for Woland the entire time, then Bezdomny proceeds to act in the most crazy person way as possible, so no one believes him.

The Pontius Pilate chapter was strange and very interesting. Does anyone here who is a fan of Stephen King knows whether he read or mentioned this book in some interview? Because the characterization of “Yeshua” kind of reminded me of John Coffey. Yes, I’m aware Coffey is a Christ like figure, being a miracle man wrongfully executed and such, but Biblical Jesus is different, he speaks with a strong voice and is quite aware of the evil in this world. This book’s Yeshua on the other hand is quite naive and frail, he calls anyone “good people” and begs not to be killed and mistreated. So I wonder if king got inspired by this version of Jesus.

The apartment chapter was just comical, the theater director being magically transported to Yalta after meeting some stranger with a nice suit with a beret, accompanied by a giant talking cat and another couple of weird men. So Woland/Satan is planning to give Moscow some nice magic tricks.

I’m very intrigued by the plot so far.

Ivan Nikolayevich is a chad. Especially when he squares up to the Professor in chapter 4.

"PAPERS CITIZEN "

Ill go chapter by chapter:

Chapter 1: does a good job showing the arrogance of the USSR's state established atheism and the general mood of the book which is very uncertain characters frequently hallucinating things or being unsure of what they are seeing.

Chapter 2: This chapter is incredible and could easily stand alone as a short story. I like how slightly less obvious names are used for biblical characters then standard translations which makes everything seem off. It also seems interesting to me that jesus is portrayed as a man physically unable to see evil while Pilate is a punisher of evil. Its an interesting dictamy.

This line stood out to me:

Chapter 3: mostly just continuing the same tone of 1 but I did not expect Berlioz to die that soon.

Chapter 4: seemed to mostly be a comedic chase which according to the notes here is a satire of some russian opera. Ivan takes a mock baptism in the Moscow river. Wonder if that will be important later minus the symbolism of the sacred and profane mixing (holy cleanliness vs dirty industrial river).

Chapter 5: again seemed mostly to be satirizing people and literary works from the time and I found it kinda boring. The weird pirate ship scene was spooky tho

Chapter 6: an excellent portrait of a party line creative. Really the last line says all you need to know about Ryukhin genius stuff:

Chapter 7: a pretty funny look at the stalinist era unpersonings. Now we really see Woland/Mephistopheles/Satan's entourage develop. Of note is that when Styopa is sent to heck at the end he wakes up near "Yalta" which I assume is referring to the Yalta conference where the allies discussed how to divvy up the axis powers. Perhaps some blame is being placed on the other Allies for allowing Stalinist russia to develop unchecked. Not only turning a blind eye to his human rights violations but actively promoting Stalin as an ally and man of the future, The man of steel.

Man has an encounter with something he can't rationally understand, ends up wandering Moscow in his underwear.

Good book so far. I can tell the author really does not like censors I guess Bulgakov hopes to be a kind of Professor W for his readers, shaking up our worldview with wit and trickery.

I quite enjoyed the opening, and the way they were trying to figure out his nationality, Woland is a well-represented and mysterious devil, he seems to have come, not just to torment, but rather in a Faustian way claim his due for the actions of the Massolit degenerates. Men that rely and spout on about the workers revolution but live in luxury. This, of course is emphasized later when Riukhin literally says he belives nothing of what he writes, and that's he living a lie.

I like you guys' takes on the Pilates chapter... it perplexed to say the least. I don't feel i can cross-reference well-enough but this thread has certainly given new perspective.

The wild goose-chase across Moscow was funny, and a good introduction to what could be called the 'Antagonists'. I quite enjoyed the seeming meaning behind the locations that were astrally-projected to him, the holy marriage, the icon and baptizing himself in the Jordan river. A test of faith?

That's all i have for now :)

Since I read the discussion about the best translation, with multiple translations of the same sentence, I can't help noticing that the characters tend to swear mentioning the Devil a lot right before some shenanigans happen. I'm pretty sure that's intentional. I wonder how many other such subtle Easter eggs there are.

edit: btw for the newcomers who want to join, pirate what's considered the best translation here: https://libgen.is/fiction/819D3E8A110577E3C53018814ECAAACD

This book almost reminds me of something that Douglas Adams would write. The tone is much more whimsical than I was expecting, although it does have its serious moments as well. The Pontius Pilate chapter was interesting, is there any historical basis for the changes he made? I found it interesting to be sure. Overall very much enjoying it so far.

Been a while since I read it so I can't remember it by a chapter to chapter basis but yeshua and pontius pilate plotline is my favorite part of the book

I was disappointed that the book made Jesus less insane, and the Romans less bloodthirsty, than the gospels record. Professor Satan was an interesting character, I liked when he drove Ivan mad. I enjoyed the beginning conversation about the atheist poem about how Jesus doesn't exist.

marsey.pink

I reqlly enjoyed it tbh. The premise of a militant atheistic Soviet Union becoming haunted by the Devil and his supernatural entourage and brutally confronted by him is such a fun narrative device. My fav character is Ivan as he's the "model" soviet citizen being directly challenged by the Devil and his freaks like the precentor lol

By the way, regarding the quality of translation, I read the first chapter in Burgin and O’Connor's, and it's OK I guess? One thing that immediately jumps out is that the original is written in a little bit archaic and folksy Russian, not like what Shakespeare is to to modern English but just what you'd expect from something written 100 years ago, which gives it a certain charm. The translation doesn't have that feel at all (and to be fair one of the translators' goals stated in the preface was to produce a modern English translation, and I'm not sure it could be replicated faithfully anyway).

As for questionable translation choices, here's a couple I've noticed in the first chapter:

• They didn't get apricot juice, they got apricot water, which as you might imagine meant something different in the Soviet Union and explained why "the air started smelling like a barbershop" and the hiccups lol. As in, it's still a soft drink, but its pedigree wrt actual apricots was much more questionable than the "juice" implies.

• “suppose you were to start controlling others and yourself, and just as you developed a taste for it, so the speak, you suddenly went and … well … got lung cancer …”—at which point the foreigner chuckled merrily, as if the thought of lung cancer brought him pleasure. “Yes, cancer,” he repeated, narrowing his eyes like a cat as he savored the sonorous word, “and there goes your control! -- in the original it's "sarcoma of the lung", which is indeed more sonorous and much more foreboding, idk why they changed it.

• “The brick is neither here nor there,” interrupted the stranger in an imposing fashion, “it never merely falls on someone’s head from out of nowhere. I'd translate that part as "The brick for no reason,” interrupted the stranger in an imposing fashion, “will never and nobody drop on the head of". idk, it's hard to translate to preserve the cadence while not sounding stilted, but that "neither here nor there" just wasn't in the original while "never and nobody" was but too bad it's hard to fit in grammatically.

I'd say that it appears to be a pretty good translation overall. The stuff above just shows that translation is inherently difficult.

One more note here is that Woland is heavily based on Mephistopheles from Goethe's Faust. This is why Woland is frequently called a german. Many of his lines are lines from Faust and there is also a random mention of a poodle which only makes sense when you know Mephistopheles first appears to Faust as a Poodle. (Ive only read Faust part 1)

I'm sad that I've missed this. I'm gonna try to catch up.

I'm not actually reading the book, but listening to it . It's my first audiobook, and it's pretty good so far. Voices are very on point

The argument is that while it's possible to argue for some entity in Tolkien's cosmos to be known to be "transgender" due to a corruption of their nature, whether or not their "transgenderness" is inherently a quality of their nature or a corruption of their nature is inscrutable to all but the entity themselves and possibly Ilúvatar, but that even if some other entity perceives it to be due to corruption, that per Ilúvatar (or this narrator's representations of the words of Ilúvatar, being the narration given by Pengolodh), that such is mere perception, and that ultimately all that which Men do translates to the completion and perfection of the work.

That Men (those of the race of Men) have a necessary inherent quality which redeems them and their actions, a part of their nature which they express (and which, in our parlance, no one can judge). Even the Creator refuses to condemn it - only celebrates it.

And IMNSHO Pengolodh (the narrator) is Tolkien's self-insert for the purpose of narration.

So "trans people don't exist / aren't valid" isn't an argument from axioms in the universe of Middle Earth. That's related to, but separate from, "here's a trans person in Middle Earth", which to my knowledge isn't in evidence. I want to be argued away from that / be proven wrong.

I wrote the analysis because using Tolkien's Middle Earth to say "Tolkien says trans rights" is using his cosmos as an allegory, which he alternately declaims and claims (the "it's not an allegory to WWII" claim and the "It's the story of Christianity in an alternate universe" claim - both detailed elsewhere). So it's a viable avenue of argumentation - if he's going to deconstruct and then orthogonalise the precepts of Christianity into an alternate history, then we can deconstruct and orthogonalise the precepts of that cosmogony back to ours.