At last I could get my copy of this celebrated novel in the December Book fair. I have been reading about this novel for a long time, especially in connection with 20th century Russian fiction. Some books reach you late. The intervening years may probably add more thoughts to facilitate a nuanced comprehension of the book. The Master and Margarita is an astonishing, intense, surreal novel that defies genre. Mikhail Bulgakov’s ironical satire on the Soviet Union of his time is equal to the likes of Cervantes, Gogol, Kafka and Beckett. The quintessential Russian element; the lampooning of the victorious or the glorious and the vindication of the common continues to be present. A flamboyant, anomalous, rich and intriguing narrative that pitches in figures of history, legend, myth and religion from Jesus Christ to Pontius Pilate to Judas Iscariot to Matthew Levi to Satan and his retinue- In more ways the novel is a narrative accomplishment; the tapestry of voices, contradictions, vices, historical eccentricities, peccadilloes in People’s lives that only Satan can detect and purge.
The allusion to Kant and Philosophy is a subtle commentary on the superstructure, or rhetoric the state employs to inflict pain and suffering on the citizens. In a reversal of roles Satan is the harbinger of disorder in the life of Moscow’s shams, hypocrites and liars but restorer of order and harmony in the life of Margarita who sincerely wishes for her union with the Master. The parallels between Jesus and the Master who is engaged in writing his novel on Pontius Pilate are subtle. Both are portrayed as silent sufferers, wishing only good for others and ready to take on suffering with a self effacing humility. Jesus is hunted and humiliated by Kaifah and Judas whereas the Master is snubbed by the literary luminaries of Moscow. The revenge on the perpetrators of these crimes on the innocent or the meek is executed by Pilate and Satan respectively. In the Master’s novel it is Pilate who deftly orchestrates the murder of Judas.
The power of Literature is another major theme and Professor Woland’s (Satan)cryptic statement that “Manuscripts don’t burn” and his magical resurrection of the Master’s manuscript which he had thrown into fire out of depression ( Biblical analogy of the resurrection) is a scathing indictment of state censorship and the restriction on artistic freedom. Margarita is the queen of the novel. Bulgakov’s portrait of this lady and Satan’s consort or queen for the Ball who is deferred to by his crew is a celebration of the feminine. The reader would certainly find resonances of a long line of women; enchantresses, femme fatales, iconoclasts from Venus to Eve to Lilith to Magdalene to Margot enshrined in motif, mythology and folklore. However the unlimited freedom that witchery and sorcery can offer her are subservient to her love for the Master and for humanity. She is human in that sense retaining that ‘milk of human kindness’ even when she is transformed. When Satan offers to fulfill a wish, she seeks the pardon of Frieda.
Chapters like Azazello’s cream, Black magic and its exposure, the Great Ball at Satan’s are examples of exhilarating, surreal writing. The resonances of his Russian predecessors especially Nikolai Gogol, Fyodor Dostoyevsky in the way language, logic, debate and dialectic is employed and the unabashed portrayal of evil to counter the machinations of state philosophy and reason is a crowning factor in the novel.
In a complete reversal of powers it is Satan who can grant salvation to the sufferers. The Master grants it to Pontius Pilate who has been awaiting it for 2000 years. Satan grants it to the Master who has ended his novel and Satan dissolves like a dream into the deep of the earth. At the insistence of Jesus, Mathew Levi informs Woland that the Master does not deserve light but peace.
The language of formality and ordered existence amongst the Moscow citizens is in contrast to the irreverent banter of Woland and his crew. The merging of fantasy with reality, magic with monotony, the real with the surreal, the mythical with the historical bestows on the novel a devilish narrative prowess, where the novel is surging ahead, strident and unfettered into new territory that it has charted. The power of the narrative voice in the shock and awe that it can generate because of the deftness of its logic, its juxtaposition and its search for truth takes it to the heights of Cervantes, Gogol, Dostoyevsky and Marquez.
The normality of the world is imposed terror and Woland and his crew are forever engaged in puncturing this apparent order. The Master tries to question it but cannot overpower it. He is therefore confined to Stravinsky’s asylum. Margarita is subject to this terror for a long time, but quits it when she chooses to become a witch. Woland roasts the citizens who have learned to play along in this world of imposed terror. The Master and Margarita is a carnival of satire, a literary tour – de-force.