the master and the margarita

the master and the margarta by Mikhail Bulgakov written in the 1930s

A beautifully written go-around of of good and evil written as a political protest novel. Mary Clark provides an excellent synopsis posted on GoodReads.

"Surely no stranger work exists in the annals of protest literature than The Master and Margarita. Written during the Soviet crackdown of the 1930s, when Mikhail Bulgakov's works were effectively banned, it wraps its anti-Stalinist message in a complex allegory of good and evil. Or would that be the other way around? The book's chief character is Satan, who appears in the guise of a foreigner and self-proclaimed black magician named Woland. Accompanied by a talking black tomcat and a "translator" wearing a jockey's cap and cracked pince-nez, Woland wreaks havoc throughout literary Moscow. First he predicts that the head of noted editor Berlioz will be cut off; when it is, he appropriates Berlioz's apartment. (A puzzled relative receives the following telegram: "Have just been run over by streetcar at Patriarch's Ponds funeral Friday three afternoon come Berlioz.") Woland and his minions transport one bureaucrat to Yalta, make another one disappear entirely except for his suit, and frighten several others so badly that they end up in a psychiatric hospital. In fact, it seems half of Moscow shows up in the bin, demanding to be placed in a locked cell for protection.
Meanwhile, a few doors down in the hospital lives the true object of Woland's visit: the author of an unpublished novel about Pontius Pilate. This Master--as he calls himself--has been driven mad by rejection, broken not only by editors' harsh criticism of his novel but, Bulgakov suggests, by political persecution as well. Yet Pilate's story becomes a kind of parallel narrative, appearing in different forms throughout Bulgakov's novel: as a manuscript read by the Master's indefatigable love, Margarita, as a scene dreamed by the poet--and fellow lunatic--Ivan Homeless, and even as a story told by Woland himself. Since we see this narrative from so many different points of view, who is truly its author? Given that the Master's novel and this one end the same way, are they in fact the same book? These are only a few of the many questions Bulgakov provokes, in a novel that reads like a set of infinitely nested Russian dolls: inside one narrative there is another, and then another, and yet another. His devil is not only entertaining, he is necessary: "What would your good be doing if there were no evil, and what would the earth look like if shadows disappeared from it?"

Unsurprisingly--in view of its frequent, scarcely disguised references to interrogation and terror--Bulgakov's masterwork was not published until 1967, almost three decades after his death. Yet one wonders if the world was really ready for this book in the late 1930s, if, indeed, we are ready for it now. Shocking, touching, and scathingly funny, it is a novel like no other. Woland may reattach heads or produce 10-ruble notes from the air, but Bulgakov proves the true magician here. The Master and Margarita is a different book each time it is opened." --Mary Park

the german lesson

the german lesson by siegfried lenz published 1968.

you didn't have a troubled youth?

One Day in the Life Ivan Denisovich: A Novel

One Day in the Life Ivan Denisovich: A Novel by Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn

I feel like I should hoard my food.

the stranger

the stranger by albert camus written in 1946.

The Stranger is close to the heart, not an arab on the beach, as the narrator is distanced from himself . nothing is nothing

dead souls

dead souls by nikolai gogol written in the 19th century.

Dead Souls is an unfinished lifetime work of Gogol. The first volume flows well and the later volume leaves you wondering where Gogol is going with it all, however Gogol's character sketches are insightful and still relevent today.

garden state

garden state by rick moody published 1992.

we all know jersey is hell; do we need yet another failure story from you 20-somethings?

dogrun

dogrun by arthur nersesian published 2000.

See where being alternative will get you? A temp job and a dead boyfriend.

white noise

white noise by don delillo published 1985.

Sure, this is a funny satire on the nuclear family. believable not so much. insightful maybe. cliche i am sure, maybe not so bad at the time.

absurdistan

absurdistan by gary shteyngart published 2006.

Having read "The Russian Debutante's Handbook", it is evident Shteyngart is working hard his Russian emigrant theme however his theme (himself?!) is still humorous and worth a read.

the fifth business

the fifth business by robertson davies published in 1970.

Anal-retentive? Well... Dunstable grew up in a small Canadian town in the early 1900s with stiff Scottish presbytian parents. In the pivotal moment, Dunstable will live with the guilt of his eight-yr-old slyness after dodging a snowball thrown by his best friend and arch nemesis, Percy Boyd Staunton . The rock-laden snowball hits the Baptist minister's wife instead, inducing labor to a pre-mature Paul who survives because of the iron will of Dunstable's Scottish mother's. The Baptist minister's wife is left simple and Dunstanble to care for her for the rest of your life.

After a winding hagiological path, Dunstan is reunited with Paul for whom he writes his autobiography "Magnus Eisengrim..." And Dunstan incidentally reunites the snowball with the owner.




Let the gigantic woman make you hero, villain, rival or lover.

this book will save your life

this book will save your life by A. M. Homes published in 2006.

Sucks to have to do all those good deeds. Like buying the crying lady, whom he met in the produce aisle, a super beetle; like buying the donut guys another donut shop after offering him up the bentley for joy riding; etc etc

love story

love story by erich segal published 1970.

It is a love story- what else can i say? oh, it was first published in the ladies home journal. (i still thought it was romantic - preppie!)

the trial

the trial by albert camus published 1937.

Yes you are guilty too, just don't be a pompous ass about it.

the russian debutante's handbook

the russian debutante's handbook by gary shteyngart published in 2002.

Eastern Europeans and liberals are fodder for Shteyngart's forray into the Russian Mafia.

the distance from the heart of things

the distance from the heart of things by Ashley Warlick published in 1996.

Sweet thoughtful coming-of-age first novel by Ashley Warlick. I prefer a more narrative style, but Warlick carries through with her Southern retrospective.

angels

angels by denis johnson published 1983.

angels is a plain language and pedestrian story with gratuitous violence, the rambling 'already dead: a california gothic' is a much better read.
After leaving her husband for good reasons, a mother fleeing on a greyhound joins paths with an alcoholic ex-navy petty thief who takes her to party in Pittsburg. She and her two babies follow him to Chicago after he splits having burned through his money and his fingers. After arriving at the Chicago bus station without any resources, the mother toting the two babies is taken in by a random hoodlum who proceeds to drug and gang rape her.

the plague

the plague by Albert Camus published 1946.

Insightful character sketches of citizens in a town called Oran beleaguered by the plague.


"In the early days when they thought this epidemic much like other epidemics, religion held its ground. But once these people realized their instant peril, they gave their thoughts to pleasure. And all their hideous fears that stamp their face in the daytime are transformed in the fiery dusty nightfall into a sort of hectic exaltation, an unkempt freedom fevering their blood". - Tarrou

"Paneloux is a man of learning, a scholar. He hasn't come in contact with death; that's why he can speak with such assurance of the truth with a capital T. But every country priest who visits his parishoners and has heard a man gasping for breath on his deathbed thinks as I do. He'd try to relieve human suffering before trying to point out its excellence" - Rieux

white nights

white nights by Fyodor Dostoevsky published in 1848. Typical romance story. Girl and boy meet. Fall in love. Have crisis. Crisis resolved. Live happily ever after. And at the brink of happiness this exceptionally lyrical Doestoevsky novellette kicks the protagonist to the curb.

the towers of trezibond

the towers of trezibond by Rose Macaulay published in 1956.

Yes, typically British. If I was in turkey, it probably would be much more interesting as the novel is an introspective religious travel log framed around "Aunt Dot". Aunt Dot was a feminist before her time, hoping to empower the women hidden behind the burka. Traveling to exotic destinations on a white Arabian camel, Aunt Dot and her companions create a stir.


"The fact was that Father Chantry-Pigg would not really have liked the Byzantines much had he encountered them, though he would have preferred them to Turks and other Moslems. He was not actually a sympathetic clergyman, and, had he been with his ancestor for the great attack on Constantinople in 1203, he would have been amongs those who, brandishing the cross above their heads, massacred and pillaged and looted in the name of Latin Christendom, helping to put to flame the great libraries whose loss he now deplored. He was better at condemning than at loving; aunt Dot used to wonder what Christ would have said to him."

The Fuck Up

The Fuck Up by Arthur Nersesian published 1992. The tenous exisistence of the narrator spirals downward after his best friend Helmesely, who was his mentor and lifeline, throws himself off the Brooklyn Bridge. Helmesely was brutalized and dumped violently by his first love Angela - leaving the narrator absolutely alone to richochet violently around nyc, working it as best as his 20yr-old self can work it, but ultimately falling rock bottom. The journey comes full circle when the woman who destroyed his lifeline becomes his last chance.

White Teeth

White teeth by Zadie Smith published in 2000. Great organic character development, involving story which pinnacles as a clash of superegos. Brother against brother. Extreme science against extreme religion meet in an irie womb.

Daring human portrayal of inter cultural, racial, sex and generation themes. The story flows and even the supermouseTM extravaganza can be over-looked because the overarching story rings true.