master and margarita, a combined glance

8/14/2019 Master and Margarita, A combined glance

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http://www.scarabeus.it 2009 Lets Read Together 1

A Combined Glance

Lets Read Together

"The Master and Margarita"A Combined Glance

Livorno, 2009


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A Combined Glance

In the complicated narrative plot and in the many-sided shapes that compose theromance (realism, symbolism, surrealism, grotesque comicality), the unifying factoris the contrast between evil and good.

The first one is identifiable in the lust, in the desire for power, in the red tape, inatheism, in selfishness, in hypocrisy, in the lust that enlivens the negativecharacters, mediocre humanity quite integrated in the system.

The second one, that not by chance mixes together the cast out and the losers, is

love, in all its shapes: love for every living being (Jeshua), love for truth, love ofcouple.

Wherever rationality that gives false security prevails there is evil. Not at random inthe course of the story we find a lot of falling or suffering heads: from the initialbeheading of Berlioz to Pilato's headache, from the cut head of the magic show's

presenter to the mental confusion of all of the characters that end up in a mentalhospital. The head is the icon of evil. Love is Jeshua, is the swallow that may for asecond raise Pilato from the obsession of his role and open before him liberatingsolutions, is Margarita's power. Bulgakov opposes heart-characters to head-

characters, while the contemporary Freud was discovering the same split in theindividual depth.

This opposition does not seem possible in the reality of this earth, but only in thefree world of fantasy. What other possibility for an unappreciated artist, whosehistorical horizon saw rise and triumph regimes (one of which he was a direct victimof) united by the organized rational cruelty, child of human presumption? He islucky to have missed seeing the incredible results of scientific rationality...


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A Combined Glance

The event, very special, makes the book to be fascinating. Using different fictionmodes, the author offers a view of the Russian society during the regimehighlighting the abuses and the favoritisms by the way of allegory.

What stuck me most was:

1) The dreamlike aspect that charms and carries the reader into aspecial world making him forget both the personal reality and that thatof the story.

2) The meeting with the unforeseen (Satan) that changes life totallyand is always around the corner.

3) The character of Pilato, man, not only despot, deeply tormented bydoubts and feelings of guilt.

4) The meeting of the Master with Margarita and the concept of lovethat hits and leaves defenseless.

Regarding this, I found especially effective this passage: ....


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A Combined Glance

"Love hit us instantly. I knew It that same day, already an hour later, when we metagain, oblivious of the town, on the embankment. ..the May sun was shining for us....

5) The accuracy in the description of the details and the attentiontowards the details that make the environments concrete and thecharacters living. (EX. Pilato's hatred for the perfume of the oil of roses,his terrible headache..)

There are different possible levels of reading: partly black comedy (for examplemany scenes with the cat Begemot), partly deep mystical allegory, partly biting

socio-political satire not only of the Sovietic Russia but also of the superficiality andvanity of the modern life in general. On the other hand, there doesn't seem to be aparticular nostalgia of the "old times" - in fact, the only one in the story to mentionthe Tsarist Russia is the same Satan/Woland.

Images from:http://causticcovercritic.blogspot.com/2008/09/more-master-and-margarita.html


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A Combined Glance

Moreover, especially fierce is the satire towards the literary elite of the period,immortalized in the members of the Massolit as a group of mediocre poets,

wretched critics, false pompous intellectuals, hypocrites, pleasure seekers andsycophants (persons that denounce for revenge to the authority a debatable fact).From a religious point of view, notwithstanding the explicit references of the story toChristianity, a version anything but orthodox is supported. For example,Bulgakov's good-natured Jesus/Yeshua of Bulgakov complains that Levi Matteo'swritings about him are inaccurate. As for Satan/Woland, he does not seempresented as in open opposition to God, but he is rather described as a pleasure-loving and mocking being devoted to punishing corruption and misery and makingfun of them.

A famous quote from "The Master and Margarita" is: "the manuscripts do not burn".The Master is a writer persecuted by the censorship of the oppressive Stalinistregime in the Moscow of the thirties, and he burns the manuscript of his book tofree himself from the problems it has created for him. There it is anautobiographical element in this aspect of the character of the Master, sinceBulgakov himself had burnt a previous draft of "The Master and Margarita" forsimilar reasons.


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A Combined Glance

I greatly enjoyed reading the Master and Margarita, especially when we are told allthe devilries of Woland and of his assistants, incredible the lightness with which themisdeeds are described without omitting the facets of the human behaviorespecially when by magic money is poured on the people who are watching "blackMagic" show by Woland and his followers, money, money that intoxicates andmakes people loose their heads when it arrives unexpected to those who havenever had enough of it and the greed that it incites, (an other subject that unitespeople of all times), in spite of the Russian regime in the time of the story, that doesnot certainly encourage the individual economic enrichment .

To close I would like to say how true it is that in the reading of the "classics" inwhatever period they were written, one finds present the feelings, passions,apprehensions, that have been part of the human beings for ever and ever.


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A Combined Glance

The reading of this romance has not been simple, but binding and at times tiring.

It created in me the interest and the desire to deepen some topics (various appearduring the reading, fantastic, historic, satirical, political, magical and grotesque) andfor this I have been helped by: the meetings with the members of the reading cluband the work on wiki.

So I have come to know the author, his life and its vicissitudes.

I was able to deepen the historical period, Russia, Stalin, censorship, socialdifferences.

I have discovered that artists, producers, playwrights at world level have receivedinspiration from this work.

I have therefore read a novel regarded as one of the greatest masterpieces of theRussian literature of 20 century, defined by Eugenio Montale "A miracle thateveryone should greet with emotion".


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A Combined Glance

Personally I find "The Master and Margarita" to be an extraordinary andoverwhelming work, visionary without being irrational; this story represents fully theheavy standard of living and, even more, artistic of the writers of the Stalin times.To be able to survive and to escape the fear of the repressions, Bulgakov hasmade a joke of them, the same way as he has mocked the cultural and politicalinertia hardly agreed upon by the dissidents. Brilliant, imaginative, realistic, ironical.The literary world is full of masterpieces: each one attractive in its own way andabove all for its variety. But "The Master and Margarita" carries with itself animportant secret: the secret of humanity (revealed by the author with a lot ofcourage and little reflection). The secret of forgiveness as an absolute well-being,and of the existence of evil as a witness on behalf of good. Practically the essenceof the human nature, in the second case, and the essence of the divine nature inthe first one.

Livorno, May 2009.

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master and margarita, a combined glance

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