The Master and Margarita

Mikhail Bulgakov's written The Master and Margarita arrived just today. My significant other gifted this to me on my birthday! I have not started reading it till now, definitely have high expectations from this classic. Loved it! This book tells the love story of a man only named as 'The Master' and Margarita, while exploring the themes of good and evil, and how they are interrelated. This modern Russian classic literature promises that it deals with humor, social satire of Soviet life, and also sensual: so it was censored as it was written secretly during Stalin's dark reign. In short the book is about how a woman will go to any extent and will do anything to protect and bring back her man from imprisonment. This is the information I gathered before buying this book! Talking about the packaging it was okay: as they could take care of the book while packing, the edges were tampered just a little bit (refer to the picture). Delivery was unexpectedly before time, like they delivered it 3 days earlier, which pretty much impressed me to be honest. But in major part of the book the printing is not commendably: it's kind of hazy, though readable and not a big issue. Still I would prefer Penguin publishing house to take care of the printing and overall content. Rest everything is perfect. Thank you! If wondering whether to buy it or not, you should buy this no matter what. This is definitely worth reading.

This Penguin classics edition has the Pevear and Volokhonsky translation with the usual extra material of an introduction, chronology, further reading list, and notes at the end. The text of the book is towards the smaller side but it is still well readable so that's not an issue for me. The book is towards the floppy side which is good, its not rigid and difficult to hold while reading. It opens flat on its spine, making for a easy reading experience, and the spine won't crack unless one wrestles with it unnecessarily.

The book was delivered within 2 days from ordering. It came with slight tarnishes along the cover, but thankfully the text was legible and it had no dog-eared pages.

Before reading this book, I didn't have much exposure to Stalin-era literature, maybe except Dr Zhivago. This book is witty, funny, racy, brillant, religious, absurd, evocative, intriguing, lovelorn, and immortal. I was almost ready to write immoral, but in a deeper sense that would not have been true. His religion and deep sense of morality is veiled by irreverence, which, by the way, is quite misleading. But when the party is over and the fun there is only an intoxicating memory, you are not left high and dry. You will feel emotions coiling up inside your throat like a python. Your knees will tremble as you have never felt this fire, this burning, this catharsis. After finishing this book, you'll become one of the immortals too, for you can't be otherwise.

so pretty. The penguin classics are my favourite and the picture on the cover was soo elegantly perfect and reletable to the novel. I love woland and Ivan. Azazelleo is so pretty . The novel is well- written, and the characters are all elegantly perfect.

This book is nice and has talked about references used in the book in the last few pages. It was a great read, I recommend the book.

I’ve started loving the translation of Penguins classics… not only this but a lot of books are translated in a way that it is easy to follow and interesting.. it also provides whole list of words from local culture or religion that a reader might be unaware of so it’s convenient to understand perspective of any character!

There are elements of magic and supernatural stuff. It's hard to decide whether to recommend this book or not. Looking back, I really enjoyed the narrative of Pontius Pilate, the fifth procurator of Judea!

Un livre essentiel

Edição lindíssima, de ótima qualidade dessa obra que é excelente! As ilustrações e o detalhe nas bordas das paginas deixam o livro ainda mais charmoso. A história já um clássico da literatura é uma das minhas favoritas e essa edição de aniversário fez jus a ela.Tive problemas com a entrega mas a Amazon resolveu de forma rapida.

Boken va trasig

Before you dive into this review, know this. I'm a native Russian, and a writer, and I have just completed a feat of rereading the novel in Russian and reading first Ginsburg and then Pevear & Volokhonsky translations, back to back, to compare. And Ginsburg's translation will give you the best feeling for the language, the culture, and the story. It's the bomb. This translation left me in tatters, it didn't speak to me as Bulgakov, it even impoverished his style for me. The rating you see is for the novel itself, which is the work of art. Now, to the review itself. The first time I read The Master and Margarita in Russian, it was, out of all places, in Berlin. I was a teenager, and I lived in Berlin with my father and his new wife and my half-sister, because my father was a writer and a journalist and was sent by Soviet Union to Berlin to be the correspondent for a large Russian newspaper agency. I remember reading the book so vividly, that even today every detail is etched in my brain like a colorful photograph. The soft bright chair I sat in, with my back toward the window, the book in my lap, the pages rustling, and the image of Margarita, most importantly, of her knee, the knee that's been kissed over and over and how it turned blue. And the cat, the black cat that could talk. That's all I remember, plus the feeling of fascination I got. And now, over 20 years later, I have read it again, after becoming a writer myself 2 years ago, not knowing back in my teens that I would ever write, but being struck by the genius of Bulgakov. And, my, oh my, rereading it now I understood for the first time what the book was about. I sort of thought of it as a fairy tale back in my teens, I felt something underneath it, but couldn't get it. I got it now, and I cried, I cried for Bulgakov, for his imprisonment as a writer in the country that oppressed him to the last of his days, and I cried because he refused to be broken, and because he has written a masterpiece, and I was holding it in my hands, reliving it like so many people, many many years after he died. As to the story. It's not just one story, and not even two, it's four. A story of love, and of darkness, and of life and death. There are four narratives, the love between Master and Margarita, the strange visitors and Satan who come to Moscow, the story of Moscow life itself, the city, the people, and the story of Yeshua in the ancient walls of Yershalayim. Each has its own flavor, breathes its own air, and weaves into one book that tethers on that notion that no work of art can be destroyed, "manuscripts don't burn", says Satan, and that's Bulgakov's pain, him against the system that wanted to crush him, and didn't. He escaped. The irony of the book is that, in some sense, it's autobiographical, and that makes it even more tragic. But the satire! Oh, the satire! I don't know how many times I snorted coffee and tea out of my nose, because I have this habit of drinking hot drinks while reading, curled up on the couch. So many memories burst on the scene, so many authentic Russian quirks and habits and characters, the wealth of which I have nearly forgotten over my 16 years in US, and which dazzled my mind like fireworks, albeit of course, because I was reading it in Russian, and I'm about to start reading two translations in English, one by Mirra Ginsburg, and another by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky. Because, if there was ever a book worth reading 5, 10, 20 times in a row, it is The Master and Margarita by Bulgakov, his last book written over the course of 10 years, and not quite completed… he narrated changes to his wife right up to his death. No matter. It is perfect. Read it.

bel libro, l'ho letto una volta con la traduzione in persiano ma il libro era in lingua originale quindi ho comprato questo per poter leggere tutta la storia