Master and Margarita

[Anonymous No.12493154]

Just finished this. Disliked the most out of all the "classic novels" I've ever read.

Why does this get such high praise? The guy can't tell a story, and his characters are cardboard for the most part. There were some interesting aspects of it, but the whole "LOOK THE DEVIL/HIS FRIENDS MADE A FUNNY THING HAPPEN LOL" deal wears off really fast.

Do I actually have pleb tastes, or did I accidentally read a novel that is only adored by edgy teen girls?

[Anonymous No.12493188]

>>12493154
>Do I actually have pleb tastes
Yes

[Anonymous No.12493189]

no, just bulghakov was massive russian retarded drunken niggur and pleb also. this is book made for mentally ill childrens on death-bed.

[Anonymous No.12493196]

If you didn't at least love the Pilate sections then yes, you are a pleb

[Anonymous No.12493197]

>>12493154
this book sucks, you accidentally have a patrician and truly demanding taste
no big deal, just don't trust /lit/ so much

[Anonymous No.12493200]

>>12493154
seems like you havent read faust 1 before eading this ;)

[Anonymous No.12493226]

it's the most consistent pleb filter i've seen on /lit/ sorry op

[Anonymous No.12493229]

>>12493188
Pleb tastes for liking coherent narratives, in which one event begets the next? Guess I'm a pleb

>>12493196
left it out of the op, but those were the only tolerable parts of the novel; even then, I felt that Bulgakov ruined their entire effect with "Get it, guys, it's a book within a book after all!"

>>12493200
Read the Marlowe play, TM&M made me realize how badly I need to get to the original text of that

[Anonymous No.12493238]

>inb4 OP reveals in passing that he or she read the P+V translation

[Anonymous No.12493241]

>>12493229
cringe

[Anonymous No.12493242]

>>12493229
>Pleb tastes for liking coherent narratives, in which one event begets the next? Guess I'm a pleb
Unironically true. A coherent narrative is not a requirement for great literature, and if you think it is then I'm afraid the cap fits

[Anonymous No.12493244]

>>12493197
Only recently started browsing /lit/--no idea what's considered good and not good around here

>>12493238
>he read the Burgin & O'Connor translation, but didn't research first

[Anonymous No.12493279]

>>12493154
>reads for plot

You're a STEM-pleb, admit it.

[Anonymous No.12493283]

>>12493242
of course it's not a requirement. But (in the moskow sections, at least) Bulgakov strings together event after event for no reason. "A funny thing happened to this guy, then a funny thing happened to these other guys, then something strange happened to that one woman." There was no artistic unity, nor was there any asthetic value. It read like it was unfinished/unedited--which I think it was, if I remember

[Anonymous No.12493293]

>>12493283
Imagine having no story depth perception, please read more

[Anonymous No.12493302]

>>12493279
Humanities through and through.

I don't read for plot, but given this novel's lack of any interesting characters, artistic devices or insights beyond the grossly general, a well constructed narrative could at least take the pressure off those deficiencies.

[Anonymous No.12493316]

>>12493302
>lack of any interesting characters, artistic devices or insights
What a well thought out and poignant critique. Indeed, a humanities man through and through.

[Anonymous No.12493317]

>>12493293
your lack of any coherent argument here makes me think you're either retarded or haven't read the novel.

[Anonymous No.12493332]

>>12493283
You do understand that the structure of a novel can hold meaning in itself, right? The only parts of the novel that are so unhinged and difficult to follow are the parts where Woland's gang is running around fucking things up in the city.
The rest is coherent. Why? It wasn't an accident.
>>12493302
If you don't think Pilate, Yeshua, the Master, Margarita, or Bezdomny were interesting characters and read that entire novel without noticing a single "artistic device," you need to start simpler and move on to more complex shit in a more constrained way.

[Anonymous No.12493338]

>>12493316
Point to one character in the entire novel who isn't just "average russian guy trying to get by, but wait he meets the devil," titular characters excepted. The Master is a thin shadow of a Dostoyevskian 'impoverished artist who is redeemed,' and Margarita is a shallow non-character

[Anonymous No.12493352]

>>12493317
Your coherent dumb thread is coherently showing that you are coherently uncaple of coherently understating coherent Bulgakov and what he tried to coherently portray with his coherent image of Satan and the Ultimate Truth.

[Anonymous No.12493382]

>>12493338
>A book about average Russian life interrupted by Satan contains many characters living average Russian lives interrupted by Satan
The Master fitting an archetype doesn't make him uninteresting, as he goes through many things no Dosto character ever did, and Margarita is absolutely not a "shallow non-character."
Bezdomny, Yeshua, and Pilate each get a lot of focus and are entirely outside of your shit summary.

[Anonymous No.12493421]

>>12493317
Not him, but your previous post make a good case for you being retarded. The string of seemingly random, but tightly intrinsically connected events is the whole point of conveying the comical and absurd invasion of actual Devil into the mundane and predictable daily life of Soviet Union. If you actually don't see the implied yet painfully obvious causal and semantic threads behind them, you shouldn't be bothering with literature at all. It's even fucking spoonfed to you from the get go with Annushka's oil and Berlioz's death, you goddamn brainlet.

[Anonymous No.12493451]

>>12493332
Pretty primitive way of using structure as meaning--"look guys, weird inconsequential shit is happening because Woland's crew are weird guys and nothing matters anyways lol"

The exchange between Pilate and Yeshua was an interesting scenario, true.

In terms of artistic devices, yeah there was some interesting stuff with the narrator going on, of course, and the novel was conscious of its status as such. But you can't honestly say that the devices here are abstract or unconventional enough to be at all revolutionary or even inherently interesting.

>>12493352
My coherent thread is making me think that maybe there was more to this semi-coherent novel then I first thought, but I'm still not convinced of its coherence.

>>12493382
identify one character trait that uniquely applies to Margarita, beyond "weirdly okay with all the weird stuff happening to her"

Pilate was fine I guess, but only because he's a new take on a historical figure. As a character, there is absolutely nothing unique about "guy who hates his job, and regrets having to do a thing"

[Anonymous No.12493495]

>>12493451
>half the novel flew over my head
>hur it's incoherent
>look how edgily I can summarize my ignorance
You should stick to video games and rereading Infinite Jest.

[Anonymous No.12493524]

>>12493421
Don't think I really made my argument as clear as it should have been. It's a given that narrative form and thematic content are connected here--and I take that for granted--but there is hardly any inherent aesthetic value in that simple fact.

[Anonymous No.12493532]

>>12493451
As others have pointed out, you can reduce anything down to make it sound retarded, but in the case of literature that makes you lose absolutely everything relevant and beautiful about it
>Lol Hamlet is LITERALLY just some dude whining, why does he care so much that his dad died anyway??? Like if my dad died I wouldn't want revenge, why does he??? What a one-dimensional character
>Lol Moby Dick is LITERALLY just about whaling, can anybody name a SINGLE character that wasn't just "guy on a whaling ship???"

[Anonymous No.12493563]

>>12493532
But theres a pluming of the depths in both of those works that is patently absent here. There's more colour in the characters of Bulgakov's "Heart of a Dog" than there is here, I think

[Anonymous No.12493605]

The level of pseudery in this thread
What op said is just common sense
You faggots pretending to enjoy a failed book are completely unable to read, understand, appreciate literature
Not only good literature - just literature itself
Keep voting for Gene Wolfe and the Phenomenology of Mind, don't forget Finnegans Wake

[Anonymous No.12493727]

It is strange that I first hear it on the radio today then read about it on /lit/.
A sign y maybe I should read it.

[Anonymous No.12493767]

>>12493605
>pseudery
>failed book
You don't have to samefag so badly out of shame, OP.

[Anonymous No.12493831]

master and margarita is a masterpiece

[Anonymous No.12493837]

i felt the same way. it was twice as long as it needed to be

[Anonymous No.12493897]

>>12493605
You'll forever be a pleb, I'm sorry anon.

[Anonymous No.12493907]

Master and Margarita gets better the longer ago you've read it.

>>12493727
Just Baader-Meinhof

[Anonymous No.12493915]

>>12493605
>a failed book
It's one of the most celebrated books of the last century and probably the most universally beloved domestic classic text in Russia.

[Anonymous No.12494094]

>>12493605
OP here

Funny, I actually love Gene Wolfe and Joyce (having read all of his work but Finnegans Wake). Bulgakov just seems a bit flat in comparison to those two.

To anyone who's still in the thread: should I even bother reading White Guard? Or will I not like it if TM&M isn't really my favorite

[Anonymous No.12494317]

Bump

[Anonymous No.12494318]

>>12493154
You need to understand the society Woland visited (and in which Bulgakov lived), a mix of uncompromising revolutionary ideology and new tyrannical order, in which no one believed (and wasn't allowed to believe) that Devil exists.

[Anonymous No.12494339]

>>12493154
Apparently you need to have read Dante in order to “get” it. Which is a load of crock because the niggers recommending it never mention that part

>>12493196
Pilate was the only redeeming parts of it, pure quinoa

[Anonymous No.12494344]

>>12493563
Heart of the dog is just lazy anti-communist propaganda told from the perspective of some pseud who doesn't like to associate with the working class.

[Anonymous No.12494418]

>>12494339
I've read Dante, and it seemed to me that the connections were pretty superficial when they were present.

>>12494344
But it was mercifully short, at least

[Anonymous No.12494432]

>>12494317
based old jotaro

[Anonymous No.12494474]

>>12494094
>should I even bother reading White Guard?
Judging by this thread you should stick to comic books.

[Anonymous No.12494492]

>>12493154
>hating Woland and his comfiness
I hate you forever.

[Anonymous No.12494526]

>>12494474
cute

>>12494492
Woland just seemed like baby's first Hawthorn satan-character

[Anonymous No.12494612]

>>12493154
Finally. Thought the same thing. Worst Russian novel I've read.
Granted I did really like the Pilate sections, but they were too few.

[Anonymous No.12494628]

>>12493154
It is regarded as one of the best novels of the 20th century by many critics.

[Anonymous No.12494648]

>>12494628
maybe top 250 at best

[Anonymous No.12494677]

>>12494344
> he probably thinks professor is supposed to be a good character

Moreover, it's not even a satire, it's a creative sketch of post-revolutionary years. Read some memoirs to learn about crazy conversations, crazy situations, and crazy killings that happened at the time.

[Anonymous No.12494685]

>>12494526
>Woland just seemed like baby's first Hawthorn satan-character
Gib recommendations immediately

[Anonymous No.12494730]

>>12494685
Hawthorne's short story "Young Goodman Brown" wasn't far from my thoughts as I was reading

[Anonymous No.12494743]

>>12494730
another for the reading list

[Anonymous No.12494757]

>>12494743
"The birthmark" and "The minister's black veil" by him are in the same kind of gothic mode. Hawthorne is terrific in general

[Anonymous No.12494781]

>>12494757
I'll definitely check them out!

[Anonymous No.12494838]

>tfw can't tell if English translations are terrible or /lit/ has finally succumbed to tasteless plebs