Weapons-Grade Ennui

52 in 07’s last, and slightly tardy, entry.

M&M took me months to get through - this is the kind of book that, until the style and voice clicks, is a real chore to slog through. But once you get into rhythm, it’s unbelievable. M&M defies genres, being a strange melange of fantasy, satire, comedy, and magical realism.

It’s widely hailed as one of the better Russian novels in the last century, and the author, Mikhail Bulgakov, must have had a couple shots of vodka before sending this one to any publishers. Clearly subversive (even to a non-Muscovite like myself), the Soviet secret police might have taken this the wrong way - he exhibited the kind of courage only Writers can. The Master, the novel’s sorta-protagonist who is introduced a third of the way in, is a stand in for Bulgakov, and he’s deeply obsessed with his work. He writes a book about Pontius Pilate, chapters of which are interspersed between the Soviet sections. They’re wonderfully written meditations on religion and guilt, and Pilate, history’s scapegoat, is presented in a new light. It’s the kind of depiction I’d expect from Jose Saramago in The Gospel.

But you certainly have to work at it. The annotations at the back were a godsend, and I missed an embarrassing amount of stuff on the first pass. The translation was good, but it adhered very closely to the text, which made passages sound stilted. Certain words will echo three times a sentence.

Well worth it, though. Bulgakov’s Satan, named Woland, is frankly awesome. He’s not on screen a lot, kinda like Vader, and the character’s damned effective for it. The real mischief-makers are his retinue, who wreak havoc across Moscow over the course of a few days. And this retinue is comprised of Koroyov, the former choirmaster with his cracked pince nez, Behemoth, a black cat large as a hog who is bipedal when it suits him, and Azazello, a fanged redhead who can put a bullet through any pip on a 7 of spades you want… facing backwards.

They terrorize various Muscovites, and especially the management team at the Variety theater, who are bewitched into allowing Woland a show… a show in which Behemoth rips the head off the emcee.

The book’s littered with that kind of stuff, because it’s dense as hell and the font’s intimidatingly small. But if you’re willing to put in the effort, you can see very easily why this is a cult classic - sometimes I don’t get these ‘cult’ things (Donnie Darko is not an enjoyable movie), but I’m fully onboard with this one. A great close to 52 in 07.