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Jan. 13th, 2012 08:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkatThis was the post I meant to make before I got slightly tipsy on vodka tonic with pomagrant cranberry juice and decided to rant about feminism in culture for five minutes much to your considerable annoyance I suspect.
Was talking to the Momster about books.
Momster: all the fictional literary books are about dysfunctional familys. In various countries. I'm bored of them.
Me: Not necessarily. The book I'm reading now isn't. It's called the Master and The Margarita, it's a Russian Literary Classic.
Momster: How'd you discover this book?
Me: Wandering about a book store. I like to read the backs of books in bookstores, and the fronts and the middles...it entertains me.
Momster: Never heard of it.
ME: Yet oddly enough it is the favorite book of quite a few people on my correspondence list.
Momster: Are these people US or Europeans?
Me (ponders): well one guy is in Arizona, and he wasn't thrilled, the rest - Sweden, Austria, Russia...so yes, Europeans. I just picked this one up and read the back cover. The description intrigued me. Here's the description: One hot spring, the devil arrives in Moscow, accompanied by a retinue that includes a beautiful naked witch and an immense talking black cat with a fondness for chess and vodka -
Momster (laughing): That's right up your alley with the supernatural bit, can totally see why you got it. The Black cat would sell it alone. (She knows I have a weakness for supernatural tales about cats). Did you get this on the Kindle?
Me: No, I bought it long before the Kindle.
Momster: So this is one of the many books on your shelves that you haven't read?
ME: Yes, I seem to acquire books in much the same way a cat acquires fleas.
Should mention the book is a new translation (okay it was new five years ago) by Diana Burgin and Katherine Tiernan O'Connor and is the first complete, annotated English translation of the novel. Also contains an afterward from the writer's biographer.
Apparently it was censored in the 1960s and banned in Russia. Too controversial. People, sigh. Can't handle anything they don't agree with being read. Folks, we all should have the right to state our opinion. You don't have to agree.
Was talking to the Momster about books.
Momster: all the fictional literary books are about dysfunctional familys. In various countries. I'm bored of them.
Me: Not necessarily. The book I'm reading now isn't. It's called the Master and The Margarita, it's a Russian Literary Classic.
Momster: How'd you discover this book?
Me: Wandering about a book store. I like to read the backs of books in bookstores, and the fronts and the middles...it entertains me.
Momster: Never heard of it.
ME: Yet oddly enough it is the favorite book of quite a few people on my correspondence list.
Momster: Are these people US or Europeans?
Me (ponders): well one guy is in Arizona, and he wasn't thrilled, the rest - Sweden, Austria, Russia...so yes, Europeans. I just picked this one up and read the back cover. The description intrigued me. Here's the description: One hot spring, the devil arrives in Moscow, accompanied by a retinue that includes a beautiful naked witch and an immense talking black cat with a fondness for chess and vodka -
Momster (laughing): That's right up your alley with the supernatural bit, can totally see why you got it. The Black cat would sell it alone. (She knows I have a weakness for supernatural tales about cats). Did you get this on the Kindle?
Me: No, I bought it long before the Kindle.
Momster: So this is one of the many books on your shelves that you haven't read?
ME: Yes, I seem to acquire books in much the same way a cat acquires fleas.
Should mention the book is a new translation (okay it was new five years ago) by Diana Burgin and Katherine Tiernan O'Connor and is the first complete, annotated English translation of the novel. Also contains an afterward from the writer's biographer.
Apparently it was censored in the 1960s and banned in Russia. Too controversial. People, sigh. Can't handle anything they don't agree with being read. Folks, we all should have the right to state our opinion. You don't have to agree.
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Date: 2012-01-14 06:24 am (UTC)It's what convinced me that my boyfriend had good taste in women since his ex had recommended it to him.
Also, he grew up in communist Poland and explained several of the jokes to me that you only get with the historic background. Like the thing with the foreign exchange stores.
It was forbidden because it is a critique of communism. The cool thing is that in the communist countries many extremely gifted writers turned to fantasy and scifi because there it was easier to write some fantastic society or happening and then claim, but my story is just a sill little fantasy, nothing political.
If you like Bulgakow, you might also like scifi by the brothers Strugazki.
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Date: 2012-01-14 04:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-01-14 05:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-01-14 12:28 pm (UTC)Fun fact, well not so fun perhaps: the book was at various times from Bulgakov's death in 1940 until 1989 either banned or heavily censored in the Soviet union because it was disrespectful of communism. After 1989, some people started calling for it to be banned or censored because they thought it was disrespectful of christianity. You just can't win...
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Date: 2012-01-14 04:27 pm (UTC)LOL! Odd, I can actually see that - from the description and the first two pages I'd read.
The US has been weirder about its censorship laws - the US banned James Joyce's Ulysses in 1940s or 30s...can't remember which, because of the explicit references to menstruation, the clap, urination and sex. There's hardly any sex in the book. So it had to be the other three.
Here's what the back of the book states (and whoever wrote this blurb is a very good):
An audacious revision of the stories of Faust and Pontius Pilate, The Master and the Margarita is recognized as one of the essential classics of modern Russian literature. The novel's vision of Soviet life in the 1930s is so ferociously accurate that it could not be published during its author's lifetime and appeared only in a censored edition in the 1960s. Its truths are so enduring that its language has become part of the common Russian speech.
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Date: 2012-01-14 05:14 pm (UTC)Well, there's the bit where Leopold Bloom jerks off at the beach, and Molly's long monologue at the end... it's not a lot, but what there is is pretty frank for the 1930s. At least by Anglo-American serious literature standards, I guess.
I really hope you enjoy M&M - it's such a brilliant satire, hilarious but also one of the strongest condemnations of groupthink and mindless dogmatism I've ever read. I've been (somewhat pretentiously, perhaps) using one of the most famous quotes as my journal subtitle since LJ started dictating what we were allowed to write about: Рукописи не горят - "Manuscripts don't burn". Isn't it funny how books about the vanity of trying to censor ideas often end up being censored?