/lit/ - Literature

It's pretty fantastic. Reminds me of a Gogol-structured Perec, if that serves as reference.

It really helps to read up on Faust first. I'm sure people will argue that, but you will relate more to the thematic elements than, say, Milton.

it is a lot of fun

I've read this book in Russian and it's indeed worth reading.

>>4085707
man, oh man, read the book for this one character.

>>4085707
READ IT!

I got it from my grandmothers sister, as a birthday present.
Rarely have I been so much into a book, it just has it all. It has depth, but with a sprinkle of satire and irony.
It gets more bizarre by the end, but also more hilarious, the entourage that are kind of the 'antagonists' are amazingly funny.

>>4085808
Fucking saved.

The historical fiction stuff set back in 0BC is god tier.

It's a great book. I'd hardly say it's one of the best, but very entertaining, imaginative and tells you a lot about Soviet Russia before ww2.

>>4085707
http://lib.rus.ec/b/68830/read#t21
http://lib.rus.ec/b/374981/read

>>4085883
I felt that the ending has beauty that goes far past the satire that makes for the bigger part of the book (I tend to be biased against overtly satirical books, but this has so much other things going for it that one just can't mind)

>>4085707
>Does a background in Soviet life help considerably in understanding the context?
There are a few passages that are relative to the social satire. I would suggest picking a translation which has endnotes - explains some stuff I otherwise wouldn't have figured out about the secret police in relation to citizens comically disappearing etc etc. Very subtle stuff though.

It would also help if you knew just a little bit about the Bible too. At least about Jesus, because he's portrayed quite differently in M&M. And his religious prosecution is like a bridge to the countless of soviet prosecutions - like the interrogations and the beatings etc.

>>4086180
I read it while I while I was doing a course on religion, or a class, it took a whole year.
We went through the different ideas of Christ and his role and so forth, and I also discussed M and M with my teacher, he loved it as well. Great stuff in tandem with religious studies.

It's pretty great. At least a little bit of knowledge about Soviet life would be handy. It doesn't have to be super deep; just stuff you could find on Wikipedia would give you a decent base.

>>4085707
It's awesome, there's spoofs, goofs, feels, and magic.

I thought it started out pretty strong then got boring fast. i would still recommend it though becuase it is so highly regarded

>>4086326
The boring bit IMO is only the Jesus chapter which doesnt go too far out (it's still relevant to the narrative). After that, everything just becomes fucking awesome, like the theatre show and the comical passages with all the people being sent to the mental asylum.

I don't think I've read anything that is remotely as witty and insane as Bulgakov's work, he's a singular writer of his period. Only other Soviet writer I can think of that comes slightly close to him is the surrealist Platonov, but his themes are a bit darker - The Foundation Pit is a superb piece of Soviet satire and anti-Stalinist literature, it's also a little bit easier to understand since its satirical elements aren't as subtle as that of M&M. Just my 2 cents

why isn't there a kindle edition of this yet? i want to read it but i don't want to be responsible for the butchering of more defenseless trees

The book is quite all right. Very funny in sections, but also a tad.. what shall I say - strange? There is this uncomfortable feeling that Bulgakov was drunk or something when he wrote most of it, and not in an Ernest Hemingway good kind of drunk way.

>>4086418

Buy a used copy.

I never heard of this book before this thread, everyone that read it seems to love it though, it's definitely on my list now. I dont have any context on the Soviet age or anything, will that take away from the story?

best soviet novel ever

forget about crime and punishment and all that tragic crap

>>4085920

comrade, pozhaluista.

I love the cover art

>>4086582
No it wont. You probably know something about the Soviet age though, right? If you don't know about the stalinism that destroyed so many people's lives, or about the goddlessness of the time, you would have problems with any book I guess.

You will get context from the story as well, like how some people are filthy rich and how so many people behave strangely.

Books like M&M have given me this view of Russia as some kind of interesting place where fairy tales happen, while everything is burning to the ground.

>>4086702

That's probably similar to how the author experienced his homeland.

I didnt like it too much, it was ok.

>>4086726
It's a bit like reading about Arabia back in time. A Danish author Karen Blixen wrote some stuff taking place in Arabia some hundred years ago or so, it seemed so magical. Back when people had roles in society, before people became individuals who spend their entire life trying to create an identity they don't own.

It's like roleplaying for me, I love reading books in interesting time periods, aka. M&M and C&P

I've never actually read this, but I loved Bulgakov's book about his time as a doctor in some out-of-the-way town. In my country the book was titled "Morphine", but I think in English they called it "The Notebook of a Country Doctor" or something.

From what I read, I guess this is a different type of work altogether? Somewhat surrealist and whimsical rather than gritty and depressing in its raw vision of reality?

>>4086785
It is very satirical. People die and it's a joke.

>>4086448
Or high as fuck. I remember reading the bit where she puts the invisible lotion on and flies naked on a broom over Moscow with another naked witch riding a manpig or something. I thought I wasn't reading it right at first. And it doesn't get any saner later on...

>>4086866

Yeah, I'm pretty sure he must have been taking SOME sort of substance before writing parts of the book.

The only parts that I thought were actually quite well-written (and not just humorous) was the Jesus part, and the initial story about their lost love.

>>4086884

And sorry for fucked up sentence. I can't really fix at this point.

>>4086884
you can't tell me that the discussion about Dostoyevski wasn't both incredibly humorous and well written

>>4086920

I didn't say that it wasn't. It was funny as fuck - but it, along with most of the book, was quite corny.

>>4086923
Well, sure, but the cornyness was so masterfully woven into the Soviet mentality and everyday life. I obviosly wasn't born even close to the time it acurred, but I have read some of the more serious, down to earth, not so deranged pieces, and that campy, a bit overdramatised way of conversation and recalling of events is very much apparent. Though, since the translation I read was in Latvian, some grammatical oddities might be more combatible.

>>4086944
Wow, I might have fucked up in the grammar department. Tired. Sorry.

>>4086944
>>4086948

That's all right - I am too, and I fuck my shit up pretty badly.

And I agree, the satire is great. But it's little gems, and in general I can't say it's a MASTERWORK or anything. Sure, it's pretty good, but it isn't masterfully written or anything.

>>4087187
Well depends on what you mean with masterfully written. Do you mean the prose? the narrative?

In regards to the prose I've read both the English translation and the Russian original text. The English text is quite choppy and awkward at times, not as good as an average translation of Tolstoy who seems to write in a more traditional fashion. While Bulgakov in Russian has so much more flow, his prose slowly unravel things that add up to the comical effect of the characters and their situations - while in the English translation that is sometimes lost, so the crafty effects of diction and syntax don't really measure up to that of the Russian text.

There are also some parts that couldn't have been translated differently but have a different effect depending on language/geographical situation: For example, there's this part in the first chapter where the woman in the stand 'for some reason becomes offended'. It has absolutely no meaning in the English language, but in Russian it is very relatable and charming in a away - it's quite hard to explain, but it's about cultural and/or dialectal differences which can be quite difficult to understand as a foreigner. That's why I often dread translations.

>>4087504

I did not think about it as particularly being the prose, but I think you are right. I felt that it was bit choppy and awkward, mainly due to how the different situations played out.

Moral of the story: fuck translations, learn russian.