Monday, October 17, 2016

MasterAndMargareadalong Post III: Don't dream of any apartments in Moscow

It's Monday so it's another #MasterAndMargareadalong post (chapters 17-22), wherein we try to make sense of this fever dream. Or at least use a lot of gifs. Thank you, Alice, because there is no way I could have got through this without readalong support.
We are now more than 60% through this book. And are things making any more sense?
But I do believe this is a truly biting satire for anyone with an understanding of Soviet Moscow during this time. Really, housing sounds terrible and I understand the pain of trying to get an apartment in a city.

All of the money that the devil & co. rained from the sky during the magic show keeps turning into scraps of paper, which is causing chaos in the wider city as all these cab drivers and other merchants are getting paid in what appears to be money, but turns out to be trash. The only guy left running the theater is the bookkeeper* cos everyone else has been disappeared in one way or another. He's trying to report what happened to someone important, so he goes to visit Petrovich except instead of it being a guy, it's just his suit. Sitting at his desk, conducting business as usual.
Not wanting to file his complaint with a sentient suit, Vasily (bookkeeper) goes to another office but everyone there keeps bursting into song. In between verses they try to explain to Vasily that they can't help themselves and the choirmaster has done this to them. Everyone is taken to Homeless's hospital because I do seriously think everyone will end up there. And then Vasily is arrested cos his money from the theater show turns into foreign money and of course. Everyone is either arrested or ends up in the hospital. Or Yalta.

Berlioz's (guy who got his head cut off) uncle gets a telegram from Berlioz announcing his own funeral. Which is odd but his uncle is ALL ABOUT getting his hands on a sweet Moscow apartment and I get it, but man, we are beating a dead horse over this Moscow housing thing. He doesn't get the apartment, however, because instead one of the devil's cronies beats him with a roast chicken.
Part of me wants to know what the satirical significance of that is and another part of me wants to never find out a deeper meaning and just enjoy the Boston Market Beatdown for what it is.

Another guy, the bartender from the theater, is at the apartment to ask Woland what is up with the fake money. The devil is instead concerned with the fact that the bartender was serving rotten food during the show and hey, fair point. Feta cheese should NOT be green. So then the giant cat beats him up, sans-poultry.

We then FINALLY meet Margarita. I mean, we somewhat met her before, in the Master's stupid story, though we never technically got her name. But now we know and she is far better than the Master made her out to be. She's still super in love with him and sad that he's gone and makes a pact with the devil (or really, one of the devil's friends, the one who administers chicken beatings), to rub this mysterious cream all over her body. She knows she's walking into something dangerous but doesn't care.

She rubs the cream on her as instructed and it turns her into a 20 year old and also gives her the power of flight and makes her invisible. So that's neat. Before she becomes invisible her housekeeper(?) Natasha sees her and is pretty impressed that she looks so good and also I think a little cos she's naked and OH MAN,
this is already a way better relationship than between the Master and Margarita.

Margarita flies off on a broom and decides to go fuck things up for one of the critics that was mean to the Masters (terrible, terrible) book. He's not home, since he's at Berlioz's funeral, so she smashes her way in through one of the windows, destroys everything with a hammer and then floods not only his apartments but the ones below too.

After she's done with her destruction who shows up but Natasha, also naked and flying on a pig who was actually some guy who really would rather be a person and not a flying pig. Natasha and Margarita have a good laugh and think how awesome it is that they're witches now and then Natasha flies off while Margarita follows Azazello's instructions. She lands and then is picked up by a rook driving a car and is driven to a party.

Back at that Moscow apartment everyone wants their hands on, the devil is having a little get together and needs a female hostess, hence Margarita's transformation. The cat is cheating at a game of chess, while the vampire woman Hella rubs some sort of fire and brimstone salve on the devil's knee. He's looking at a globe which is actually the real globe and Margarita is intrigued because let's face it, that's pretty neat. Then Natasha and her flying pig show up, and please, let's just have Natasha and Margarita get together, hmmm?
So yeah, Margarita is pretty cool and not the subservient wilting flower Master described. I guess that's the cream's doing but I'd like to think it was there all along. At the same time, she is sort of a dick, destroying that guy's apartment cos he, a critic, criticized the Master's book. But still, she's at least interesting to read now, especially that I've given up trying to make heads or tales of things. A bird driving a car while a witch flies a pig? Of course!

I can't begin to predict what will happen next week since I hardly know what's happened up to this point. I'm sure it will be bonkers.

*FUN FACT totally unrelated to this book at all, but every time I see the word "bookkeeper" it reminds me of an Encyclopedia Brown story where they had to come up with a word that had 3 double letters in a row and they came up with this one and somehow that blew the case wide open. That is all. Back to the Russian fever dream.

Title quote from page 200

Bulgakov, Mikhail. trans. Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky. The Master and Margarita. Penguin Classics, 1997. Originally published 1966.

Comments (12)

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Oh my God seriously with the housing satire. I am sure it is sooooo biting but okay, I've got the idea now. Moscow housing was the worst. GOT IT.

Also, Margarita is my favorite. I love it that she's just dived headfirst into being a witch and servant of the Devil. Good for you, girl! Resistance has availed other characters nothing! You might as well get to learn how to fly and go to awesome parties! And also, like, okay, it's not nice to trash a critic's house, but if one of my friends wrote a book that I thought was great and a critic trashed it and then I got magic witch/flying powers -- I mean I *wouldn't* trash their house, because we live in a society, but I would *think* about it.
1 reply · active 438 weeks ago
Yeah, you're right about Margarita and her critic smashing. I would prob fantasize about doing the same. They shouldn't have included the chapters from his book, I'd prob have more sympathy for her doing that. Well, slightly more since she didn't have to destroy all of those other people's apartments, just cos they live below/around the critic. 

I wonder if anyone has done an analysis on how much of this book is about Moscow housing. 
omg this book. It's like he overheard someone talking about how trippy Alice in Wonderland is and was like "CHALLENGE ACCEPTED"
1 reply · active 438 weeks ago
Totally. I hope he won some bet for this
Margarita is much more of a Boss than the Master made her out to be. He only focused on her worshiping of him. She's pretty amazing! Natasha at least appreciates that about her.
1 reply · active 438 weeks ago
SO much more boss. Ugh the master sucks so much. Come on Margarita, you can do so much better.
OK, it IS awesome to fly around Moscow, but I think she's going to end up in trouble! I mean if the devil is Stalin or Soviet chaos or something, what happens to her? I don't know, this is weird.
1 reply · active 438 weeks ago
Yeah I assume the devil isn't going to come up against much in the way of consequences, but what about Margarita??
"She rubs the cream on her as instructed and it turns her into a 20 year old and also gives her the power of flight and makes her invisible. So that's neat."

ahahahaha

Also THANK YOU we haven't gayed up this book yet, but I am like 95% sure Natasha is INTO Margarita.

And the Encyclopedia Brown story I always remember is when this kid said he had a Civil War sword and it was inscribed something like 'on the occasion of the first battle of bull run' and Encyclopedia Brown was like "A-HA, but they did not yet know there would be a SECOND battle."

Encyclopedia Brown. Always smarter than I will ever be.
1 reply · active 438 weeks ago
Natasha is TOTALLY into Margarita. Now we just need Margarita to get over the Master. Which shouldn't be hard cos pretentious jerk that calls himself "the Master" and wrote a crappy book that critics called crappy OR awesome witch that flies on a pig and is prob super hot cos of the cream?? 

Could anyone ever guess how EB knew the answer to the mystery before looking in the back of the book? Cos I'm pretty sure I never could. Not once. There was one where he knew a lady was lying about being in the bath cos she was filing her nails and he was all 'BUT if you just got out of the bath, your nails would be weak and filing would ruin them!!" what the wha? (also don't they soak your nails at salons before doing them?)
I can't believe I missed the Natasha/Margarita thing. Well, I didn't miss it entirely, but I didn't think 'ah, there's the unexpected couple' which they totally are.

I don't remember ever solving an Encyclopedia Brown mystery. I don't remember any of the mysteries either.
1 reply · active 437 weeks ago
I wish there was more with Natasha & Margarita. And less of the Master. Yes, that'd be fine

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