Reading Master And Margarita -1

Chapter I

 Never Talk with Strangers

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Friends,

Let us start discussion on Mikhail Bulgakov's the novel ‘Master and Margarita’ in all seriousness.

We shall go chapter wise and, of course, slowly.

I am sure you have gone through Chapter 1 (in any language!).

The action takes place in Moscow, in the Park Patriarshi Prudy. The time is….a warm evening of May. Which day of the week? That becomes clear in later chapters.

Two persons appear in the park. Here’s how they are described:

One of them, approximately forty years old, dressed in a grey summer suit, was short, dark-haired, plump, bald, and carried his respectable fedora hat in his hand. His neatly shaven face was adorned with black horn-rimmed glasses of a supernatural size.

The other, a broad-shouldered young man with tousled reddish hair, his checkered cap cocked back on his head, was wearing a cowboy shirt, wrinkled white trousers and black sneakers.

The first was none other than Mikhail Alexandrovich Berlioz, editor of a fat literary journal and chairman of the board of one of the major Moscow literary associations, called Massolit , and his young companion was the poet Ivan Nikolayevich Ponyrev, who wrote under the pseudonym of Bezdomnyi (Homeless).

 They were seen discussing whether The Christ existed or not…sorry, it was not discussion but a sort of sermon. Berlioz, who was an influential editor of a fat journal, was asking the young poet Bezdomnyi to write a poem suggesting that Christ never existed.

Pay attention to the name of the poet. His true name was Ivan Nikolaevich Ponyrev, and Bezdomnyi was used by him as Pseudonym.

Interesting!

Mikhail Afanasevich Bulgakov, who was too worried about the housing problem in Moscow at that time, (20’s of the last century…he himself had suffered a lot before getting a place to live in a community flat!)

Berlioz was editor of a journal and being editor of a fat journal makes you an influential person. He was also President of a literary organization…MASSOLIT. The time, 20’s of XX century, is known as the Silver Age of Russian Literature. Especially in 20’s there was a big number of literary groups – formalist and non- formalist; socialistically oriented literature was emerging. There was a love for abbreviations, specially known for this were PROLETKULT, LEF, RAPP etc MASSOLIT could be deciphered as Moscow Association of Literature, it was of course proletarian in nature and enjoyed patronage from the government.

The discussion shows that Berlioz was a well-read person. He was trying to propagate the government line of thinking that there is no GOD.

Then appears a third, mysterious person:

Afterwards, when, frankly speaking, it was already too late, various institutions presented reports describing this man. A comparison of them cannot but cause amazement.

Thus, the first of them said that the man was short, had gold teeth, and limped on his right leg. The second, that the man was enormously tall, had platinum crowns and limped on his left leg. The third laconically averred that the man had no distinguishing marks. It must be acknowledged that none of these reports is of any value.

First of all, the man described did not limp on any leg and was neither short nor enormous, but simply tall. As for his teeth, he had platinum crowns on the left side and gold on the right. He was wearing an expensive grey suit and imported shoes of a matching colour. His grey beret was cocked rakishly over one ear; under his arm he carried a stick with a black knob shaped like a poodle's head. He looked to be a little over forty. Mouth somehow twisted. Clean-shaven. Dark-haired. Right eye black, left - for some reason - green. Dark eyebrows, but one higher than

the other. In short, a foreigner.

Pay attention to his appearance. He says he was a consultant and was invited by the government to explain some archaic documents on black magic. From the first description itself it is clear that the stranger is a mysterious man.

The stranger gets involved in this discussion.

We observe a few things in their conversation:

Whether anyone is listening to us?

We should not go closer to foreigners;

We are all nonbelievers and we can say this openly.

 This throws light on the atmosphere of suspicion that was prevailing in the country. Bulgakov started writing this novel in 1928…things in Soviet Union were already precipitating towards a certain cult by this time.

And when the mysterious Professor declares that Berlioz is going to be killed by a woman…he mutters something about the position of planets. All those positions really indicate misfortune, death…

He looked Berlioz up and down as if he were going to make him a suit, muttered through his teeth something like: 'One, two ... Mercury in the second house ... moon gone ... six - disaster... evening - seven...' then announced loudly and joyfully:

'Your head will be cut off!'

One must appreciate that Bulgakov had done a lot of research before writing the novel. Nothing, nothing mentioned therein is baseless.

Please think about these points and we shall get back with something more about the same chapter!

* Quotations are from Master and Margarita translated by Richard Pevear and Larisaa Volkhonskaya, 1997.