NP: The Master and Margarita

[Mark Thibodeau]

The Master and Margarita is one of the great novels of the 20th
century, no doubt about that. It's also kind of Pynchonian (despite
being a precedent). There's just so much going on, and it's so
historically rich and complex and surreal and emotionally resonant.

Never before has the plight of Pontius Pilate been so beautifully
expressed. In fact, it almost feels as though Bulgakov took it upon
himself to rehabilitate Pilate, the historical figure, almost like
doing advanced theology via fiction.

An amazing work that belongs on every Pynchon aficionado's to-read (or
'have already read') list, for sure.

Jerky

On Thu, Apr 20, 2017 at 5:42 PM, Smoke Teff <smoketeff at gmail.com> wrote:
> Sup y'all.
>
> I'm rereading this book--P&V translation--and am gratified that it's as
> great as I remembered it. I can't recall if I've seen it get any love around
> here, but I really recommend. It's a brilliant book. A masterpiece, I think,
> if you traffic in this most ridiculous of hyperboles.
>
> Also, I'd put more money than I actually possess (this isn't saying much) on
> Pynchon having read it probably before writing Gravity's Rainbow, and
> definitely before M&D comes out (first English trans. of TMaM comes out in I
> think '67, albeit with 60pp cut out). There are a lot of small details and
> moments and atmospheres along the way that make me think this. But anyway,
> here's translator Richard Pevear in his intro to my copy: "The mobile but
> personal narrative voice of the novel, the closest model for which Bulgakov
> may have found in Gogol's Dead Souls, is the perfect medium for this
> continuous verbal construction. There is no multiplicity of narrators in the
> novel. The voice is always the same. But it has unusual range, picking up,
> parodying, or ironicaly undercutting the tones of the novel's many
> characters, with undertones of lyric and epic poetry and old popular tales."
>
> At the very least I submit that a young Pynchon would've found some
> spirituo-aesthetic kinship in Bulgakov. Lotsa paranoia round these parts.
>
> If you haven't read, I urge.
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