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The Amazon Store at MillionDollarPetPix.com ( In association with Amazon.com )The Master and Margarita (Penguin Classics)by: Mikhail Bulgakov  List Price: $14.00 Amazon.com's Price: $11.20 You Save: $2.80 (20%)Prices subject to change. Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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Binding: PaperbackDewey Decimal Number: 813 EAN: 9780141180144 ISBN: 0141180145 Label: Penguin Classics Manufacturer: Penguin Classics Number Of Items: 1 Number Of Pages: 432 Publication Date: 2001-12 Publisher: Penguin Classics Studio: Penguin Classics Related Items:
Browse for similar items by category: Click to Display Editorial Review: Amazon.com Review: 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 Meanwhile, a few doors down in the hospital lives the true object of Woland's visit: the author of an unpublished novel about Pontius Pilate.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 Product Description: Mikhail Bulgakov's devastating satire of Soviet life was written during the darkest period of Stalin's regime. Combining two distinct yet interwoven parts-one set in ancient Jerusalem, one in contemporary Moscow-the novel veers from moods of wild theatricality with violent storms, vampire attacks, and a Satanic ball; to such somber scenes as the meeting of Pilate and Yeshua, and the murder of Judas in the moonlit garden of Gethsemane; to the substanceless, circus-like reality of Moscow. Its central characters, Woland (Satan) and his retinue-including the vodka-drinking, black cat, Behemoth; the poet, Ivan Homeless; Pontius Pilate; and a writer known only as The Master, and his passionate companion, Margarita-exist in a world that blends fantasy and chilling realism, an artful collage of grostesqueries, dark comedy, and timeless ethical questions. Although completed in 1940, The Master and Margarita was not published in Moscow until 1966, when the first part appeared in the magazine Moskva. It was an immediate and enduring success: Audiences responded with great enthusiasm to its expression of artistic and spiritual freedom. This new translation has been created from the complete and unabridged Russian texts. Average Rating:
 Rating:  - I stopped every ten minutes to exclaim, "Genius!"Needless to say, those around me weren't too happy with me the day I read the oh-so-genius "The Master and Margarita". I'm trying to remember the last time a book influenced me this much and made me realize its genius halfway through and laugh hysterically throughout appreciatively. It was probably "Don Quixote", which we all know is a simply brilliant book. "The Master and Margarita" surpassed even that in terms of genius. For instance, chapter 13: "Enter the Hero". 120 pages into the ... Read More Rating: - something for everyone...Mikhail Bulgakov - The Master and Margarita. ISIN-10:0141187792 Phantasmagorical - a hilarious and a ripping yarn. A Soviet mockery, tripping through the darkside of life - exploring the influences of evil and good, malice, mischief aforethought. All about hate and love, lies and truth, nihilism and anarchy - misplaced idealology. Wonderfully wicked and demonic, a well organized but chaotic read. Inspirational and inspiring in a boisterous romp. It's ... Read More Rating: - Delicious Satanic romp through Soviet MoscowGloriously fun and funny novel, a real treat and change-of-pace. During Stalin's Soviet Russia of the 1930s, the rational and scientific take absolute preference over the intuitive and metaphysical, vast mechanisms are in place to hush up anything extraordinary or inexplicable, and aberrant citizens disappear mysteriously on a daily basis. What better place for Satan and his ministers to wreak supernatural havoc? The first half of the novel is dizzying and delirious, depicting the wickedly ... Read More Rating:  - "a liberating, exuberant social and political satire (Moscow) combined with a profound moral and political allegory (Jerusalem);a vindication and a celebration of the persecuted (metaphorically executed?) Russian intelligentsia clad in the revered garb of the Holy Fool; a hymn to the strength of the weak," writes Simon Franklin in the Michael Glenny translation Introduction. Hugh Aplin, in a newer translation, contends that, (p 433) "The novel demands several readings, such are the depths of interconnected details and implications." Following his advice, I've now read the book three times in as many months (Aplin's, then Glenny's, ... Read More Rating: - seductive masterpieceThe Master and Margarita is permeated with so many characteristics of greatness-depth, humor, irony, tragedy, mystery- that it is hard to adequately convey my respect and admiration for this novel. Basically it reworks the time-honored theme of the individual of artistic or intellectual temperament trying to discover and attain to the fullest the possibilities of his own particular consciousness. Almost always, it seems, whatever regime is ascendant in the world is dedicated to dragging that consciousness ... Read More 
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